Honors Biology Final Practice Exam

Seeds are produced by seed plants in two broad ways, and the clue here is that the seeds sit on the surfaces of cones rather than inside a fruit. Gymnosperms are the plants that carry naked seeds on the scales of cones, not enclosed in an ovary that becomes fruit. This naked-seed arrangement is what defines gymnosperms, with examples like pines, spruces, and firs.

Cotyledon is the seed leaf that emerges during germination, part of the embryo itself, not a plant group. Endosperm is the nutrient-rich tissue in many angiosperm seeds that feeds the developing embryo. Germination is the process of a seed starting to grow into a seedling.

So the term that fits the description—seed plant bearing its seeds directly on cone surfaces—is gymnosperm.