What is Dicotyledon?
{{taxobox | image = Lamium album (1).JPG | image_caption = ''[[Lamium album]]'' (white dead nettle) | regnum = [[Plant]]ae | unranked_divisio = [[Flowering plant|Angiosperms]] <!-- This needs redoing correctly, as the underlying teعmplate cannot take a list like this.--> *[[Eudicot]] *[[Magnoliid]] *''[[Amborella]]'' *[[Nymphaeales]] *[[Austrobaileyales]] *[[Chloranthales]] *''[[Ceratophyllum]]'' | excluded = [[Monocotyledon|Monocot]] | subdivision_ranks = [[Order (biology)|Orders]] | subdivision = | synonyms = Dicotyledoneae}} [[Image:Young castor bean plant showing prominent cotyledons.jpg|thumb|200px|Young [[castor oil plant]] showing its prominent two embryonic leaves ([[cotyledon]]s). They differ from the adult leaves.]] The '''dicotyledons''', also known as '''dicots''', are one of the two groups of [[flowering plant]]s (angiosperms). The name refers to their [[seed]]s having two embryonic leaves or [[cotyledon]]s. There are around 200,000 [[species]] in this group.<ref name=Hamilton2006>{{Citation | last1 = Hamilton | first1 = Alan| last2 = Hamilton | first2 = Patrick| year = 2006| title = Plant conservation : an ecosystem approach| pages = 2| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=P6m0OTheY8sC| isbn = 978-1-84407-083-1| publisher = Earthscan| location = London }}</ref> The other group of flowering plants were called [[monocotyledon]]s or monocots, with one cotyledon. Historically, these two groups formed the two divisions of the flowering plants. [[Sequence analysis]] showed what botanists already suspected: dicotyledons are not a [[monophyletic]] group. They are a number of lines, such as the [[magnoliids]], and groups now known as [[basal]] angiosperms. They diverged earlier than the monocots did. The traditional dicots are a [[Paraphyly|paraphyletic]] group. The largest clade of the dicotyledons are known as the [[eudicots]]. They are definitely [[monophyletic]]. They differ from all other flowering plants in the structure of their [[pollen]]. Other dicotyledons and monocotyledons have an older