Genomic imprinting is a typical epigenetic phenomenon that plays an important role in the endosperm development of flowering plants.Countering the standard Mendelian understanding of genetics,genomic imprinting leads to parent-of-origin specific differential expression of both maternally and paternally inherited alleles.In plants,the triploid endosperm is where gene imprinting occurs most often,but aside from studies on Arabidopsis,little is known about gene imprinting in dicotyledons.