Brocolli seedlings

My brocolli seedlings look healthy, but the bottom two leaves on all of them have turned a pinkish color and shriveled. Is this bad? The plant still looks pretty strong overall.

Hi,
In the picture it looks kinda dry, I've been taught to never let the jiffy-pots gets totally dry once planted. All the water is being sucked away from the roots this way. If I were you, I'd put the whole thing in a bit of water.
Good luck!

I'm guessing here, the bottom leaves are not 'true' leaves and always fall off. Other plants exhibit that characteristic as well.

Here is what I pulled from Wikipedia...

"The cotyledons may be ephemeral, lasting only days after emergence, or persistent, enduring a year or more on the plant. The cotyledons contain (or in the case of gymnosperms and monocotyledons, have access to) the stored food reserves of the seed. As these reserves are used up, the cotyledons may turn green and begin photosynthesis, or may wither as the first true leaves take over food production for the seedling."

I think this is normal for broccoli, I don't remember the cotyledons lasting very long on the broccoli I grew last year.

I had to look that up

cot·y·le·don

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1. the
primary or rudimentary leaf of the embryo of seed plants.


The word doesn't exactly roll smoothly off my tongue; is there another word for them?

I saw them called "seed leaves", as opposed to "real leaves".