The scutellum is part of the structure of a
barley
Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...
and
rice
Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...
seed—the modified seed leaf.
The scutellum (from the
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
''scutella'' meaning "small shield") can also refer to the equivalence of a thin
cotyledon
A cotyledon ( ; ; "a cavity, small cup, any cup-shaped hollow",
gen. (), ) is a "seed leaf" – a significant part of the embryo within the seed of a plant – and is formally defined as "the embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants, one or mor ...
in
monocots
Monocotyledons (), commonly referred to as monocots, ( Lilianae '' sensu'' Chase & Reveal) are flowering plants whose seeds contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. A monocot taxon has been in use for several decades, but with various ranks a ...
(especially members of the
grass family). It is very thin with high surface area, and serves to absorb nutrients from the
endosperm
The endosperm is a tissue produced inside the seeds of most of the flowering plants following double fertilization. It is triploid (meaning three chromosome sets per nucleus) in most species, which may be auxin-driven. It surrounds the Embryo#Pla ...
during germination.
[Campbell & Reece "Biology"; 7th ed.]
The scutellum is believed to contain an as yet unidentified protein transporter that facilitates starch movement from the endosperm to the embryo.
References
Plant morphology
{{Plant-morphology-stub