Native Plants
Glossary of commonly used botanical terms and their definitions.
term | definition | image |
Scorpioid | Curled, like the tail of a scorpion. | |
Semi-evergreen | Having foliage during part of the winter or dry season or tending to be evergreen in a mild climate but deciduous in a rigorous climate. | |
Sepals | Parts that surround the petals, stamens, and pistil; usually green and leaflike. Sometimes they are the same size, shape, and color as the petals; as in Cooperia pedunculata (rain lily), in which case both sepals and petals are called sepals. | |
Serrate | Toothed like a saw. | |
Sessile | Lacking a stalk of any kind: a flower without a pedicel or a leaf without a petiole. | |
Shoot | A stem or branch and its leaves. | |
Shrub | A low growing, usually less than 15 feet, woody perennial plant without a central stem. | |
Simple | Not divided into parts, e.g., a leaf with the blade in one piece. | simple.jpg |
Sinus | The depression or recess between two lobes. | |
Solitary | Borne singly; alone. | |
Sori | Cluster of sporangia in ferns and fungi. | |
Spatulate | Paddle, or spoon shaped, broad at the tip and narrowed towards the base. | |
Special Value to Native Bees | Recognized by pollination ecologists as attracting large numbers of native bees. | |
Special Value to Bumble Bees | Recognized by pollination ecologists as attracting large numbers of bumble bees. | |
Special Value to Honey Bees | Identified by beekeepers and pollination biologists as an important pollen or nectar source (honey plant) for honey bees. | |
Spike | Flowers are attached directly to the main stem; no pedicels are present. The youngest flowers or buds are at the top. Spp. Abbreviation for plural of "species." | |
Spine | A sharp-pointed structure commonly related to a leaf in origin. | |
Spur | A tubular or saclike extension of a sepal or petal, usually containing nectar. | spur.jpg |
Stamens | The male parts of the flower, carrying the pollen. usually in the center of the blossom and surrounding the pistil, if present. Filaments and anthers collectively. | |
Staminate | Having stamens. | |
Staminate flower | A flower with stamens but no pistil. | |
Stellate | Star shaped, said of certain branched hairs. | |
Stem | The main axis of a plant. | stem.jpg |
Stigma | The tip of the pistil, which receives the pollen; may be rounded, lobed, or branched | |
Stipule | A basal appendage of the petiole; usually in pairs. Varies in shape and may be minute and hairlike or stiff and sharp, or like segments of the leaf blade. | |
Stipules | Leaflike structures that grow where the leaf is attached to the stem. | |
Stolon | A horizontal above ground stem. | |
Style | The stalk-like part of the pistil, connecting the ovary and the stigma. | |
Subshrub | Shorter than a shrub, often weakly woody and persisting for only a few years. | |
Superior ovary | An ovary situated above the origin of sepals and petals. | |
Supports Conservation Biological Control | A plant that attracts predatory or parasitoid insects that prey upon pest insects. | |
Tap | The main, central root of a plant. | |
Taproot | A single main root that grows vertically into the ground. | |
Tendril | A slender coiling or twining structure modified from a leaf, branch, or other organ. | |
Tepals | Collective term for sepals and petals when sepals are petal-like, as in Cooperia pedunculata (rain lily). | |
Thorn | A sharp-pointed structure formed by a modified branch. | |
Threatened | An animal or plant species likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range. | |
Toothed | Said of petals or leaves having margins more or less sharply indented. | |
Tree | A woody perennial plant usually having a single main stem or trunk which generally grows more than 20 feet tall. | |
Trifoliate | Having three leaflets. | trifoliate.jpg |
Tripinnate | A bipinnate leaf whose pinnae are divided into a third set of leaflets. | |
Truncate | Ending abruptly, e.g., a leaf blade squared at the base. | |
Tubercle | A more or less pyramidal knob rising from the stem surface of a cactus and having an areole on or near its summit. | |
Twig | A small branch. | |
Two lipped flower | A flower that has an upper and a lower division, as in Labiatae (Mint Family). | |
Umbel | A rounded or flat topped cluster of flowers on stems that radiate from the tip of the main stem. A compound umbel has smaller umbels at the ends of the radiating stems. | |
Unisexual | A flower that possesses either stamens or carpels but not both. | |
UPL | Upland - Nonhydrophyte. Almost never occurs in wetlands. | |
UPL* | Upland - Nonhydrophyte. Almost never occurs in wetlands. Occurs only in the South Pacific Islands subregion. | |
Vein | A rib of tissue, usually in a leaf. | |
Venation | The arrangement of veins within a leaf. | |
Vine | Plants that climb by twining, tendrils, or clinging. | |
Weed | Any plant growing where it is not wanted. | |
Whorled | Three or more leaves or flowers arranged in a circle around a stem. | whorled.jpg |
Wing | A thin extension of a plant part, as of a branch or dry fruit. | |
Winter annual | An annual species that arises from seed in the summer or fall of one calendar year and completes its life cycle in the spring or summer of the following calendar year. E.g. Texas Bluebonnet, Lupinus texensis. | |
Xylem | Water-conducting tissue of vascular plants. | |
Zygomorphic | Refers to flowers capable of division by only one plane of symmetry (bilaterally symmetric). | |
Zygote | A reproductive cell formed by the fusion of two gametes. | |
term | definition | image |