double fertilization

noun

1. the fertilization process characteristic of flowering plants, in which one sperm cell of a pollen grain fertilizes an egg cell while a second fuses with two polar nuclei to produce a triploid body that gives rise to the endosperm.

double fertilization

1. The process in which the two sperm nuclei of a pollen grain unite with nuclei of the embryo sac of an angiosperm plant. One sperm nucleus unites with the egg to form the diploid zygote, from which the embryo develops. The other sperm unites with the two nuclei located in a single cell at the center of the embryo sac. Together these nuclei form the triploid nucleus of the cell from which the endosperm develops. Double fertilization in this form is unique to the angiosperms.

Word History and Origins

Origin of double fertilization¹

First recorded in 1905–10

Example Sentences

Since, however, the specific characters of the organism must be due to the combined activity of all the chromosomes, any physiological differentiation among the latter should result in abnormal development if the full complement of chromosomes be not present.37 Boveri,38 utilizing Herbst’s method39 for separating echinoderm blastomeres, has interpreted in this manner the abnormal development which H. Driesch40 found almost invariably to follow the double fertilization of the sea-urchin egg.

From Project Gutenberg

Occasionally a three-poled instead of a four-poled figure resulted from double fertilization.

From Project Gutenberg

A characteristic feature of Angiosperms is the process of 'double fertilization'.

From Project Gutenberg

This remarkable double fertilization as it has been called, although only recently discovered, has been proved to take place in widely-separated families, and both in Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons, and there is every probability that, perhaps with variations, it is the normal process in Angiosperms.

From Project Gutenberg