Native Plants

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BOTANICAL GLOSSARY

Glossary of commonly used botanical terms and their definitions. Use the search bar below to look up a botanical term.

Bud - A small cell-mass in the process of dividing from a stem to form a flower, leaf or another stem.

Whorled - Three or more leaves or flowers arranged in a circle around a stem.

Pinnae - (Pinna, sing.) A division of a pinnately compound leaf.

Oval - Having the general form, shape, or outline of an egg; egg-shaped.

Orbicular - Circular or nearly so.

Ovate - Shaped like an egg, with the narrow end at the apex.

Toothed - Said of petals or leaves having margins more or less sharply indented.

Floret - A small flower, especially one in a dense cluster.

Vein - A rib of tissue, usually in a leaf.

FAC* - Faculative - Hydrophyte. Occurs in wetlands and non-wetlands. Occurs only in the South Pacific Islands subregion.

Xylem - Water-conducting tissue of vascular plants.

Catkin - A spikelike flower cluster that bears scaly bracts and petalless, unisexual flowers.

Pedicel - The stalk of a single flower in a cluster of flowers.

Lobed leaf - A leaf with indentations not more than halfway to the midrib, with the tips of the segments rounded.

Stipules - Leaflike structures that grow where the leaf is attached to the stem.