How to differentiate monocot and dicot

Hi,
As I am not from science back ground I was wondering about the terms like dicot and monocot. While learning about that I came across the below info and thought it will be useful for others like me.

ohio.edu/people/braselto/rea … perms.html

[glow=red,2,300]Monocots and Dicots
Let us now turn our attention to some basic variations in seed structure of angiosperms. In other readings the terms monocot and dicot were used to distinguish between the two major groups of flowering plants. Several differences in flower structure, stem structure, and leaf structure have been mentioned. What ultimately distinguishes monocots from dicots, however, is structure of the embryo within the seed.
An embryo is a miniature plant, consisting mainly of an axis with an embryonic shoot and embryonic root. Near the junction of the embryonic root and shoot is attached a leaf-like structure that is called either a seed leaf or cotyledon. Embryos in seeds of monocots have only one cotyledon, hence the designation monocotyledon (one cotyledon). All the flowering plants with seeds that have embryos with a single cotyledon are placed in the Class Monocotyledonae. Another term for the single cotyledon is scutellum.
Two cotyledons are attached to the embryo in the dicots. All the flowering plants with embryos with two cotyledons are placed in the Class Dicotyledonae.
Another major difference generally occurs between seeds of dicots and monocots, but it is not a definitive characteristic. Monocot seeds generally have endosperm present at maturity. The endosperm serves as a food source for the embryo when it starts to grow during germination of the seed. Dicot seeds generally do not have endosperm present. Instead, food from the endosperm was transported into and stored within the two cotyledons during maturation of the seed. The two cotyledons take up most of the bulk of the dicot seed. As the embryo starts to grow upon germination of the seed, food stored in the cotyledons is used for the initial source of energy for the young plant.
In addition to seed structure, there are four other differences between monocots and dicots. (Keep in mind that the definitive difference between the two groups is the number of cotyledons attached to the embryo.)
Flowers of monocots generally have the parts in threes or groups of three. For example, a monocot flower may have three sepals, three petals, six stamens, and a pistil with three chambers. Flowers of dicots generally have the parts in fours or fives, or multiples of four or five.
flowers
Monocot vs. dicot flowers: left is spiderwort, a monocot; right is phlox. a dicot.
Leaves of monocots generally have parallel venation whereas leaves of dicots generally have netted venation.
flowers
Monocot vs. dicot leaves: left is daylily, a monocot; right is mint, a dicot.
When viewed in cross section, vascular bundles in primary growth of stems of dicots occur in a ring between the pith to the interior and the cortex to the exterior. Vascular bundles in monocots generally are scattered throughout the stem.
Dicots that have secondary growth do so with a vascular cambium. Monocots generally do not have secondary growth and hence do not have vascular cambium.[/glow]

Additional info
[url=http://hssj.org/uploads/native_plants_for_HSSJ_area.pdf]http://hssj.org/uploads/native_plants_for_HSSJ_area.pdf[/url]

This pdf has list of monocot and dicot plant names

Thumb rule.

Monocots are used as your main grain in your food. Rice, wheat, ragi, bajra, jowar etc. These rich of carbohydrade and starch.

Diecots are used in either sambar or sabji, say rajma, chenna masala… They are rich of protien so this cannot be used as main grain.

Simple answer
Monocods are single seed, cannot be divided into 2. Hence Mono cotyledon.
Dicods are single seed which can be split in 2 through the centre. Anything which is a dal. Hence Di-cotyledon.

Nikhil