(botany) A usually multicellular filamentous structure in seed plants and some pteridophytes that develops from the zygote and serves to transport nutrients to the embryo. It degenerates later in embryogenesis.
The cord which suspends the embryo, and which is attached to the radicle in the young state; the proembryo.
noun
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Other Word Forms
Noun
Singular:
suspensor
Plural:
suspensors
Origin of suspensor
New Latin suspēnsorone that suspendsfrom Latin suspēnsuspast participle ofsuspendereto suspendsuspend
From
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
Suspensor Sentence Examples
In Dicotyledons the shoot of the embryo is wholly derived from the terminal cell of the pro-embryo, from the next cell the root arises, and the remaining ones form the suspensor.
The developing embryo at the end of the suspensor grows out to a varying extent into the forming endosperm, from which by surface absorption it derives good material for growth; at the same time the suspensor plays a direct part as a carrier of nutrition, and may even develop, where perhaps no endosperm is formed, special absorptive "suspensor roots" which invest the developing embryo, or pass out into the body and coats of the ovule, or even into the placenta.
Seeds albuminous, with one integument; the single embryo, usually bearing two partially fused cotyledons, is attached to a long tangled suspensor.
By further growth this tissue gives rise to a proembryo, which consists, at the micropylar end, of a sac; the tissue at the chalazal end grows into a long and tangled suspensor, terminating in a mass of cells, which is eventually differentiated into a radicle, plumule and two cotyledons.
After fertilization the ovum-nucleus divides and cell-formation proceeds rapidly, especially in the lower part of the ovum, in which the cotyledon and axis of the embryo are differentiated; the long, tangled suspensor of the cycadean embryo is not found in Ginkgo.