Glossory Of Botanical Terms

Glossory Of Botanical Terms


Achene: A hard, one-seeded, indehiscent nutlet with a tight pericarp. An example is the sunflower seed in the shell (pericarp).

Acuminate: Tapering to a slender tip.

Acute: Sharp-pointed.

Abortive: Defective; barren; not developed.

Adaxial: Said of a surface facing toward the axis of the structure to which it is attached.

Adnate: Same as adherent.

Adventitious: Sprouting or growing from unusual or abnormal places, such as roots originating from a stem, or buds appearing about wounds.

Aggregated: Crowded together.

Alternate: One after the other along an axis; not opposite.

Androecium: The staminate portions of the flower. Compare with gynoecium.

Anaemophilous: Wind-pollinated.

Angiosperm: Flowering plant producing seeds enclosed in a structure derived from the ovary.

Annual: A plant which completes its entire life cycle of root, stem, leaf, flower, and seed in just one year and then dies.

Anther: The pollen-bearing portion of the stamen.

Apex: The tip; end.

Aristate: Bearing a stiff bristle like awn; tapered to a very narrow, much elongated apex.

Aromatic: Having a fragrant smell, sometimes only if broken or crushed.

Attenuate: Gradually tapered to a slender tip.

Auricle: An ear-shaped appendage or lobe (such often being quite small).

Auriculate: With an ear-shaped flange or lobe.

Awn: A stiff bristle, usually situated at the tip of a leaf or perianth element

Axil: The area or angle formed between the base of an organ and the structure from which it originated. Such as the upper angle between the leaf base and the stem.

Axillary: Pertaining to the axil.

Axis: The central part of a longitudinal support (usually of a stem or inflorescence) on which organs or parts are arranged.

Basal: Pertaining to the base of the plant or some organ of the plant.

Beak: A slender terminal process, usually abruptly differentiated from the general outline of the organ from which it originates; usually applied to fruits and pistils.

Biennial: A plant which lives two years, producing a basal rosette of leaves the first year and a full plant, flower, and seed the second year followed by death of the entire plant at the end of the second year.

Biennial: A plant which requires two years to complete a life cycle, the first year typically forming a rosette, the second year forming an inflorescence.

Bifid: Cleft into two parts, usually at the summit of some organ.

Bilateral: Having two equal sides on either side of an axis.

Bipinnate: Twice pinnately compound.
Bract: A modified leaf that encases and then subtends the flower after the flower opens. All of the bracts that subtend a flower are together called the "involucre". (In the Asteraceae family, the bracts are called "phyllaries".)A reduced leaf or scale, typically one which subtends a pedicel or inflorescence, but it also can refer to minute leaves on a stem.
Bracteate: Having bracts.

Bracteole: A small bract, typically that which subtends a flower, the pedicel of which is already subtended by a bract.

Bractlet: A secondary bract, as one upon the pedicel of a flower.

Bristle: Stiff hair or trichome.

Biseriate: Having two series, or rows, of parts; having two rows or sets of phyllaries (bracts) on the involucre.
Calyx: The outer segment of a flower that encases and then surrounds the petals. The individual parts of the calyx are called sepals.
Capitate: Head-like; very densely clustered.

Capitulum: A small head of flowers.
Carpel: A flower's female reproductive organ, consisting of the stigma, style, and ovary and made of an inrolled leaf. The peapod is an example. Many flowers have more than one carpel and the carpels collectively are called the gynoecium. See pistillate, stamen, staminate.
Compound: Pertaining to leaves which are divided into distinct leaflets
Common Name: A name given to a plant by anyone in any language for any reason.
Conduplicate: Folded together lengthwise.
Cordate: Heart-shaped.

Corolla: All flower petals. The inner series of perianth parts, often colored; the petals taken collectively.

Claw: The narrowed base of the corolla of a ray flower.

Corymb: An arrangement of the inflorescence in which stalked flowers are situated along a central axis, but with the flowers all nearly or quite attaining the same elevation with respect to each other, the oldest at the edges. A type of spreading inflorescence in which each flower stem ("pedicel") originates from a different point on the main flower stem producing a flat-topped flower cluster.

Crenate: Very shallowly toothed with broad, blunt teeth.

Crenulate: Minutely crenate.

Cuneate: Wedge-shaped.

Cyme: An often flat-topped inflorescence, the central floret of which blooms first.

Crown: In the Asteraceae family, scales or awns at the summit of an achene.
Cyme: An inflorescence in which a single, but branched, flower stalk emerges at the top of the main flower stalk. The lower flower stalks emerge opposite each other off the main flower stalk and bloom after the topmost flowers. In "racemes" the first blooming flowers are at the bottom of the flower stalk. In cyme inflorescences the first flowers are often at the top.
Cypsela: A dry indehiscent achene type of fruit derived from unilocular, inferior ovary.
Dehiscent: Said of a fruit or anther that opens by sutures, valves, slits, pores, etc.

Dehiscence: The opening of a fruit or anther by sutures, valves, slits, pores, etc.

Dicot: Angiosperm plant bearing seeds with two cotyledons.

Dissected: Cut or divided into narrow segments

Disk or disc: The central portion of a capitate inflorescence, or the receptacle of such an inflorescence.

Disk flowers: The central, tubular flowers of the head.

Elongate: Drawn out into a form much longer than wide.

Exserted: Prolonged beyond the rim of an enveloping or confining structure.

Extrose: Looking or facing outward.

Fascicle: A cluster or bundle.

Fertile: Capable of reproducing sexually.

Filament: Anther-bearing stalk of the stamen.

Filiform: Very slender, thread-shaped; usually terete in cross section.

Fimbriate: Fringed.

Floret: A single small flower, usually a member of a cluster, such as a head; composites (Asteraceae family).

Foliaceous: Leafy; leaf-like.

Foliate: With leaves.

Fruit: That structure which bears the seeds.

Family: A large grouping of plants with shared characteristics. Often these characteristics are visually apparent to the unaided eye:
Genus: A subdivision of the family in which all members have a significant number of similar (or identical) characteristics. With practice an amateur can often determine the genus without recourse to detailed botanical texts and a magnifying glass. The genus name is capitalized and accompanied by and followed by the specific name; both are italicized, for example, laggera aurita. laggera is the genus and aurita is the specific name (also called the specific epithet).
Glabrous: Smooth, without hairs. Whether a twig, stem, or leaf is glabrous or pubescent often is important in distinguishing between species, but the amount of hairiness often varies with the age of the plant. See pubescent.
Glaucous: With a whitish, often waxy, coating.
Globose: Spherical; globe-like.

Globular: Circular.

Glomerule: A small, compact cluster.

Head: A dense, compact cluster of mostly sessile flowers, so used to describe the inflorescence in the Asteraceae family.

Herb: A non-woody, non-grass-like plant.

Herbaceous: Not woody.

Imbricate: Having phyllaries (bracts) on the involucre that overlap each other like roof shingles.

Indehiscent: Not regularly opening, as a seed pod or anther.

Infertile: Sterile; unable to produce seeds.
Inflorescence: A flower cluster. The main types of inflorescences are spikes, racemes, panicles, corymbs, umbels and cymes.
Involucre: The cluster of bracts that subtends a flower. A whorl or imbricated series of bracts, often appearing somewhat calyx-like, typically subtending a flower cluster or a solitary flower.
Latex: The milky juice (or highly colored juice) of some plants.

Leaf: Usually a blade-like organ attached to the stem, often by a petiole or sheath, and commonly functioning as a principal organ in photosynthesis and transpiration. Leaves characteristically subtend buds and extend from the stem in various planes. See also leaflet. A leaf axil is the upper angle between a leaf petiole, or sessile leaf base, and the node from which it grows. A leaf scar is formed on a twig following the fall of a leaf, usually revealing the pattern of vascular bundles in the leaf trace.

Leaflet: One of the discriminate segments of the compound leaf of a dicotyledonous plant. Leaflets may resemble leaves, but differ principally in that buds are not found in the axils of leaflets, and that leaflets all lie in the same plane.

Limb: The expanded portion of a corolla above the throat; the expanded portion of any petal.

Linear: Very long and narrow, with nearly or quite parallel margins.

Lobe: Any segment or division, particularly if blunt.

Locule: A discriminate cavity or space within an ovary, fruit, or anther.

Loculicidal: Pertaining to a capsule which dehisces along the dorsal suture of each locule, thus opening directly into the cavity.

Margin: Edge.

Native: Inherent and original to an area.

Nectar: A sweet substance typically produced by flowers which are insect-pollinated.

Neutral: A sterile flower composed of a perianth without any essential organs; formerly sometimes applied to staminate flowers.

Node: The point along a stem which gives rise to leaves, branches, or inflorescences.

Monoecious: (Pronounced, mo knee cious -- rhymes with "delicious") A monoecious species bears its male (staminate) flowers and its female (carpellate) flowers on the same plant and thus all plants can bear fruit. The Greek "monoecious" means "one house".

Ovary: That portion of the pistil which contains the ovules.

Ovoid: A solid with an ovate outline

Ovule: The body which, after fertilization, becomes the seed.

Palea: The uppermost of the two scales forming the floret in a grass spikelet (often obscure).
Panicle: A type of inflorescence in which the main flower stalk is branched a number of times into more flower stalks, i.e., it is a branched raceme. Each flower is attached to its stalk by a stem, a "pedicel".
Papilla: A minute, nipple-shaped projection.

Papillate, Papillose: Bearing papillae; warty or tuberculate.
Pappus: A modification of the calyx, usually in the Asteraceae family, such that the segments are manifest as a low crown, a ring of scales, or fine hairs.Small scales, bristles, or hairs at the apex of the seed in members of the Asteraceae Family. The texture, number, shape, etc. of the pappus are key in distinguishing between members of the Asteraceae Family.
Pedicel: The stem of a flower. A number of flowers have no stem; they are "sessile".
Peduncle: The common stalk of a cluster of flowers.
Petiole: A leaf stalk.
Petiolar, Petiolate: Having a leafstalk.
Phyllary: The name for the bract below the flower head in the Sunflower family.
Perennial: A plant that lives and blooms for many years.

Pistil: That organ comprised of ovary, style (when present), and stigma.

Pistillate: Containing only carpels, only female floral parts.

Placenta: The inside portion of the ovary which bears the ovules.

Plumose: Beset with numerous, fine, pinnately arranged hairs; resembling a feather.

Procumbent: Trailing or reclining, but not rooting at the nodes.

Prostrate: Lying flat upon the substrate.

Pungent: Very sharp; acrid to the taste or smell.

Pubescent: Hairy. Pubescence is a distinguishing factor in plant identification. Pubescence varies from leaf to twig to stem and with the age of the plant.

Raceme: An elongated type of inflorescence with individual flowers attached to a central stalk by a flower stem (a pedicel).

Ray flower: A strap-shaped, ligulate, typically marginal, flower in the head of a composite inflorescence. Also called ligulate flower.

Receptacle: An enlarged or elongated end of a pedicel, peduncle, or scape on which some or all of the flower parts are borne, such as in the Asteraceae family.

Revolute: Rolled backward, with margin rolled towards lower side.

Rosette: Referring to a dense cluster of basal leaves, particularly with reference to winter annuals or biennials, or to scapose plants in which all the leaves are basal.

Sepals: Floral parts that enclose the petals and then surround them after the flower opens. Taken collectively, the sepals are called the "calyx".

Serrate: With sharp, typically forward-pointing, teeth.

Sessile: Without a stalk. Lacking a stem. Flowers and leaves can be attached to their main stalk with or without a stem.

Shrub: A woody plant, typically smaller than a tree, and typified as being branched from the base with two or more main stems.

Simple: Not compound, a term usually applied to leaves; also, referring to a stem without branches or modifications.

Solitary: Alone; single.

Species: A subdivision of the genus that has just one plant (or very, very closely related plants, i.e., subspecies, varieties, or forms of a species). A species has enough unique characteristics that it can be differentiated from all other plants. Members of a species do not pollinate members of other species. "A typical species is separated from other species by an absolute or nearly absolute gap in the variability, and by a complete or nearly complete barrier to interbreeding."

Spike: An elongated type of inflorescence in which each flower is sessile, i.e., attached to the stem directly without a stem (a "pedicel").

Stamen: The pollen producing part of the flower comprised of the anther and the filament.

Staminal tube: The stamens of a composite flower united into a ring.

Staminate: Having only male, pollen producing floral parts.Referring either to plants, inflorescences, or flowers which bear stamens but not pistils.

Stalk: The stem of any organ, as the petiole, peduncle, pedicel, filament, or stipe

Stem: The main axis or principal shoot of a plant.

Sterile: Incapable of reproducing sexually; also, referring to soil, very poor in nutrients.

Stigma: That part of the pistil receptive to pollen.

Style: A usually slender stalk connecting the stigma with the ovary.

Succulent: Very fleshy and juicy.

Tailed: Said of anthers having caudal appendages.
Taxonomy: The arrangement of plants and animals according to established criteria.
Tomentose: Densely pubescent with matted hairs.

Toothed: Bearing teeth.

Truncate: Appearing as if cut off at the end; the base or apex nearly or quite straight across.

Uniseriate: Having only one series, or row, of parts; having only one row of phyllaries (bracts) on the involucre.

Variety: An infraspecific taxon with a range or habitat relatively distinct from other taxa within a species.

Venation: The arrangement or nature of the veins.

Villous: With long, straight, soft hairs.

Vine: A plant which climbs or sprawls by means of twining or tendrils; also, a plant which trails or creeps extensively along the ground.

Woolly: With long, soft, matted or tangled hairs.

Zygomorphic: Referring to a calyx or corolla which is bilaterally symmetrical, capable of being divided into two equal halves along one plane only.