Classification
- Kingdom – Plantae
- Division – Angiospermae
- Class – Dicotyledonae
- Order – Apiales
- Family – Apiaceae (Umbelliferae)
- Genus – Daucus
- Species – Daucus carota
Important points
- Carrot is an example of a dicot plant.
- The tap root of the carrot plant is modified into a fleshy structure for the storage of food.
- The shape of the fleshy root is conical.
NCERT: the tap roots of carrot and turnip, and the adventitious roots of sweet potato, get swollen and store food. Don’t confuse these with potato (stem tuber) or onion (bulb – fleshy leaves), which are modified stems and leaves, not roots.
Shapes of fleshy tap roots
- Conical – broad at the top and gradually tapering towards the tip, e.g. carrot.
- Fusiform – swollen in the middle and tapering at both ends, e.g. radish.
- Napiform – very broad and almost spherical at the top, tapering sharply below, e.g. turnip and beetroot.
Other features of the carrot plant
- Habit – a biennial herb. In the first year, it forms a rosette of leaves and stores food in the root; in the second year, it uses this stored food to flower and produce seeds.
- Leaves – finely divided, compound leaves.
- Inflorescence – an umbel, in which the flower stalks arise from a common point, like the ribs of an umbrella. This is why the family was earlier called Umbelliferae.
- Fruit – a dry fruit called a cremocarp, which splits into two one-seeded parts (mericarps).
- Colour – the orange colour of the root is due to the pigment β-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the body.
Carrot is also important in plant tissue culture: in 1958, F.C. Steward grew whole new carrot plants from single cells taken from the phloem of the carrot root. This showed totipotency – the ability of a single plant cell to give rise to a whole plant.