Definition of "polycotyledonous" []

• Possessing more than two cotyledons, as an embryo; producing an embryo with more than two cotyledons, as a plant.

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "Some of these cases may be accounted for by chorisis or by a cleavage of the original cotyledons, as happens, according to Duchartre, [424] in some Coniferæ, which he considers to be improperly termed polycotyledonous."
• "Next, omitting another inconspicuous tribe, there follows a very important class, the gymnogens — polycotyledonous trees, represented by the comferæ and cycadaceæ."
• "The Old Red flora seems to have been prevailingly an acrogenic flora; and yet with almost its first beginnings, -- contemporary with at least the earlier fossils of the system in Scotland, we find a true polycotyledonous tree, not lower in the scale than the araucarites of the Coal Measures, -- which in structure it greatly resembles, -- or than the pines or cedars of our own times (see Fig. 3)."