Botanical Glossary

A

Achene - A dry indehiscent one-seeded fruit, attached to the pericarp at only one place; formed from a single carpel, the seed is distinct from the fruit, as in Asteracea.

Acuminate - Gradually tapering sides finished before arriving at the apex or tip.

Acute - Sharp pointed.

Alternate - With a single leaf or other structure at each node.

Annual - Living one growing season.

Articulate - Jointed; breaking into distinct pieces without tearing at maturity.

B

Berry - Simple, fleshy indehiscent (not splitting open) fruit with one or more seeds (tomato, nightshade).

Biennial - Living two growing seasons.

Bipinnate - Twice pinnately compound.

Blade - The expanded part of a leaf or floral part.

Bract - A small, rudimentary or imperfectly developed leaf.

Bulb - A bud with fleshy bracts or scales, usually subterranean.

C

Calyx - The outer set of sterile, floral leaves called sepals.

Campanulate - Bell-shaped.

Canescent - Becoming gray or grayish.

Capitate - Arranged in a head, as the flowers in compositae.

Capsule - A dry fruit of two or more carpels, usually dehiscent by valves.

Carpel - A portion of the ovary or female portion of the flower.

Catkin - Spike-like inflorescence, unisexual, usually with scaly bracts.

Caulescent - Having a stem.

Cillia - Fine hairs or projections.

Ciliate - Having fine hairs or projections, usually as marginal hairs.

Compound - Composed of several parts or divisions.

Cordate - Heart-shaped.

Corolla - The inner set of sterile, usually colored, floral leaves; the petals considered collectively.

Corymb - A raceme with the lower flower stalks longer than those above, so that all the flowers are at the same level.

Cuneate - Wedge-shaped.

Cuspidate - Having a rigid point.

Cyathium - a modified inflorescence comprising a pistillate flower arising from a cup-like involucre with glands on the rim of the cup and staminate flowers on the inner surface as in the Euphorbia species.

Cyme - An inflorescence; a convex or flat flower cluster, the central flowers unfolding.

D

Deciduous - Dying back; seasonal shedding of leaves or other structures; falling off.

Decumbent - Lying flat, or being prostrate, but with the tip growing upwards.

Dentate - Toothed, with outwardly projecting teeth.

Denticulate - Finely toothed. Diffuse - loosely spreading.

Dioecious - Only one sex in a plant; with male or female flowers only.

Disk - (disc) - A flattened enlargement of the receptacle of a flower or inflorescence; the head of tubular flowers, as in sunflower.

Dissected - Divided into many segments.

Drupe - A fruit with a fleshy or pulpy outer part and a bone-like inner part; a single seeded fleshy fruit. Can with or without seeds.

Druplet - A small drupe, as one section of a blackberry.

E

Elliptic - Oval.

Entire - Without teeth, serrations, or lobes, as in leaf margins.

F

Fascicle - A cluster of leaves or other structures croweded on a short stem.

Fibrous - A mass of adventitious fine roots.

Filiform - Threadlike.

Follicle - A many-seeded dry fruit, derived from a single carpel , and splitting longitudinally down one side.

Frond - Large, compound, much divided leaf as in ferns, cycads or palms.

Fruit - The ripened ovary or ovaries with the attached parts fuscous - Dingy brown.

G

Glabrate - Nearly without hairs.

Glabrous - Smooth or hairless.

Glaucous - Covered with bluish or white bloom.

Globose - Globular or spherical.

Glume - Small dry, membranous bract at the base of a grass spikelet.

H

Hastate - Arrow-shaped with the basal lobes spreading.

Head - A dense inflorescence of sessile or nearly sessile flowers, as in Compositae.

Hirsute - Having rather course, stiff hairs.

I

Indehiscent - Not opening at maturity.

Inflorescence - The arrangement of flowers on the flowering shoot, as a spike, panicle, head, cyme, umbel, raceme.

Involucre - Any leaflike structure protecting the reproducing structure, as in flower heads of Compositae and Euphorbiaceae.

K

Keel - Projecting, united front petals as in the flowers of Fabiaceae (peas).

L

Lanceolate - Flattened, two or three times as long as broad, widest in the middle and tapering to a pointed apex; lance-shaped.

Leaf sheath - The lower part of a leaf, which envelopes the stem, as in grasses.

Leaflet - One of the divisions of a compound leaf.

Legume pod - A dry fruit, splitting by two longitudinal sutures with a row of seeds on the inner side of the central suture; as in family Fabaceae (Leguminosae).

Lenticular - Bean-shaped; shaped like a double convex lens.

Ligule - A membrane at the junction of the leaf sheath and leaf base of many grasses.

Linear - A long and narrow organ with the sides nearly parallel.

Lobed - Divided to about the middle or less.

M

Midrib - The central rib of a leaf or other organ; midvein.

Monoecious - Having seperate male and female flowers on the same plant.

N

Node - The part of a stem where the leaf, leaves, or secondary branches emerge.

Nutlet - A one-seeded portion of a fruit that fragments at maturity.

O

Obcordate - Inversely heart-shaped.

Oblanceolate - Inversely lanceolate.

Oblique - With part not opposite, but slightly uneven.

Oblong - Elliptical, blunt at each end, having nearly parallel sides, two to four times as long as broad.

Obovate - Inversely ovate.

Obtuse - Blunt or rounded.

Ocrea - A thin, sheathing stipule or a united pair of stipules (as in Polygonaceae).

Orbicular - Nearly circular in outline.

Ovate - Egg-shaped.

P

Palmate - Diverging like the fingers of a hand.

Panicle - A inflorescence, a branched raceme, with each branch bearing a raceme of flowers, usually of pyramidal form.

Pappus - A ring of fine hairs developed from the calyx, covering the fruit; acting as a parachute for wind-dispersal, as in dandelion.

Pedicel or peduncle - A short stalk.

Peltate - More or less flattened, attached at the center on the underside.

Perennial - Growing many years or seasons.

Perfect - A flower having both stamens and carpels.

Perfoliate - Leaves clasping the stem, forming cups.

Perianth - The calyx and corolla together; a floral envelope.

Pericarp - The body of a fruit developed from the ovary wall and enclosing the seeds.

Persistent - Remaining attached after the growing season.

Petal - One of the modified leaves of the corolla; usually the colorful part of a flower.

Petiole - The unexpanded portion of a leaf; the stalk of a leaf.

Pilose - Having scattered, simple, moderately stiff hairs.

Pinnate - Leaves divided into leaflets or segments aling a common axis; a compound leaf.

Pistillate - Female-flowered, with pistils only.

Prickle - A stiff, sharp-pointed outgrowth from the epidermis, as in Solanum.

Procumbant - Lying on the ground.

Puberulent - With very short hairs; woolly.

Pubescent - Covered with fine, soft hairs.

Punctate - With translucent dots or glands.

R

Raceme - An inflorescence, with the main axis bearing stalked flowers, these opening from the base upward.

Racemose - Like a raceme or in a raceme.

Rachis - The axis of a pinnately compound leaf; the axis of inflorescence; the portion of a fern frond to which the pinnae are attached.

Ray - A marginal flower with a strap-shaped corolla, as in Compositae.

Receptacle - The end of the flower stalk, bearing the parts of the flower.

Reniform - Kidney-shaped. Reticulate-netted, as veins in leaves; with a network of fine upstanding ridges, as on the surface of spores.

Rhizome - An elongated underground stem, as in ferns.

Rootstock - An elongated underground stem, usually in higher plants.

Rosette - A cluster of leaves, usually basal, as in dandelion.

S

Sagittate - Arrowhead-shaped.

Scale - A highly modified, dry leaf, usually for protection.

Scape - A leafless or nearly leafless stem, coming from an underground part and bearing a flower or flower cluster; as in Allium.

Segment - A division of a compound leaf or of a perianth.

Sepal - One of the members of the calyx.

Serrate - With teeth projecting forward.

Serrulate - Finely serrate.

Sessile - Lacking a petiole or stalk.

Silique - A dry elongated fruit divided by a partition between the two carpels.

Sinuate - With long wavy margins.

Sinus - A depression or notch in a margin between two lobes.

Sorus - The brown colored fruiting structure of ferns, often on the underside of the frond.

Spadix - Fleshy flower stalk bearing many tiny flowers as in arum family.

Spathe - specialized bract enclosing the flower(s) as in arum family.

Spatulate - Widened at the top like a spatula.

Spike - An elongated inflorescence with sessile (stalkless) or nearly sessile flowers.

Spikelet - A small or secondary spike; the ultimate flower cluster of the inflorescence of grasses and sedges.

Spine - A short thorn-like structure.

Spinose - With spines.

Spinulose - With small, sharp spines.

Stamen - Male reproductive structure of a flower, consisting of the pollen bearing structure (anther) borne on a stalk or filament.

Staminate - Male-flowered, with stamens only.

Standard - The large petal that stands up at the back of the flower as in a pea flower.

Stellate - Star-shaped.

Stipule - An appendage at the base of a leaf, or other plant part.

Stolon - A basal branch rooting at the nodes.

Striate - Marked with fine, longitudinal, parallel lines, ridges, or grooves.

T

Taproot - A strong, fleshy root that grows vertically into the soil, with smaller lateral roots.

Tendril - Thread-like stem or leaf that clings to adjacent structures for support (peas).

Tomentose - Densely matted with soft hairs.

Trifoliate - A compound leaf with three leaflets (clover).

Tuber - Swollen underground stem for storing food (potato, poison hemlock), that can sprout to form new plants. Tuberous - Forming tubers.

U

Umbel - Umbrella-shaped inflorescence, in which the pedicels (flower stalks) radiate from a common point like the ribs of an umbrella.

Undulate - Wavy, as the margins of leaves.

V

Veins - The vascular portions of the leaves.

Villous - Covered with short, fine hairs.

Viscid - Sticky.

W

Whorled - Three or more leaves, petals, or branches arranged in a ring at a node.

Wing - A thin, membranous extension of an organ.