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Is it hilum?

Is this a common word? I'm looking for a word that a layman can understand. I'm not native in English, so I don't know which word to use.

From wikipedia:

On a bean seed, the hilum is called the "eye".

My seed is malabar chestnut. Can I call the white dot on top the "eye", or "hilum" if it's understood by most people?

seed pic

johan
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No, the hilum is not the point of the seed where it grows. It is actually a scar, the place it was attached to the mother plant (compare it with the navel in humans).

Technically there are more points where a normal seed would grow, if you look here at the anatomy of a seed. You can see that the epicotyl will grow to become the shoots above ground, and the radicle will grow into roots in the ground.

benn
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    I'm looking for the place where the root starts growing. So is it *radicle*? I guess most people understand the word, right? – johan Nov 11 '20 at 11:28
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    Yeah that's radicle. I think 99.9% of the people have never heard of the word radicle. – benn Nov 11 '20 at 11:34
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    OK I understand now. Thank you. – johan Nov 11 '20 at 11:43
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    Good question, good answer, and good comments; maybe just call it: the place where the sprout grows out from the seed. :) – M H Nov 11 '20 at 12:51
  • Thank you for your question! Welcome to the site! – M H Nov 11 '20 at 20:49