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Malta Wild Plants - Wild plants glossary Category: Animals and Nature > Plants of Malta Date & country: 06/04/2012, MA Words: 772

Disturbed
referring to habitats that have been impacted by the actions of people

Diurnal
growing in the daytime

Divaricate
widely diverging or spreading apart

Divergent
diverging or spreading

Divided
cut deeply, nearly or completely to the midrib

Dodeca-
prefix meaning twelve

Dorsal
referring to the back or outer surface

Dorsifixed
attached at the back (compare basifixed, versatile)

Drupe
a fleshy indehiscent fruit enclosing a nut or hard stone containing ly a single seed such as a peach or cherry

Ebeneous
black

Eccentric
off-center, not positioned directly on the central axis

Echinate
prickly

Ecotone
transition zone between two adjoining communities

Ecotype
those individuals adapted to a specific environment or set of conditions

Elliptic
broadest near the middle and tapering gradually to both ends

Emarginate
with a shallow notch at the apex

Endemic
confined to a limited geographic area

Endocarp
the inner layer of the pericarp, which is the wall of the ripened ovary or fruit (compare mesocarp, exocarp)

Ensiform
sword-shaped, as applied to a leaf

Entire
describing a leaf that has a continuous, unbroken margin with no teeth or lobes

Entomophilous
insect-pollinated

Ephemeral
describes a plant or flower that lasts for only a short time or blooms only occasionaly when conditions are right

Epigynous
with stamens, pistils, and sepals attached to the top of the ovary (compare hypogynous)

Erose
having an irregular margin as if it has been gnawed

Escapee
a plant that has escaped from cultivation and now reproduces on its own

Evanescent
fleeting, lasting for only a short time

Even-Pinnate
a pinnately-compound leaf ending in a pair of leaflets (compare odd-pinnate)

Exfoliating
peeling off in thin layers or flakes

Exocarp
the outer layer of the pericarp of a fruit (compare endocarp, mesocarp)

Exotic
not native, introduced from another area

Exserted
projected from or extending beyond, as stamens from a flower

Extant
still surviving, not completely extinct

Extirpated
destroyed or no longer surviving in the area being referred to, but may survive outside of that area

Extrorse
turned or opening outward away from the axis (compare introrse)

Exudate
a substance exuded or secreted from a plant

Fabaceae
pea family

Fagaceae
oak family

Falcate
scimitar- or sickle-shaped

Farinose
covered with a mealy or whitish powdery substance

Fascicle
a small cluster or bundle, a fairly common leaf arrangement

Fastigiate
clustered, parallel and erect, having a broom-like appearance

Fenestrate
with small slits or areas thinned so as to be translucent

Ferruginous
rust-colored

Filament
the basal, sterile portion of a stamen below the anthers

Fimbriate
having fringed margins

Fistulose
hollow like a tube or pipe

Flabellate
fan-shaped, as in a fan-shaped structure

Flaccid
soft and weak, limp

Flange
a projecting rim or edge

Flavescent
yellowish

Flexuose
with curves or bends, somewhat zigzagged

Floccose
wooly, covered with soft wooly tufted hairs that are usually easily rubbed off

Floret
a small individual flower in a flower head

Fluted
with furrows or grooves

Foliolate
having leaflets

Follicle
a dry, many-seeded fruit derived composedof a single carpel l and opening along one side only like a milkweed pod

Forb
a non-grasslike herbaceous plant

Fovea
a small pit or depression

Frond
a fern leaf

Fructiferous
fruit-bearing

Frutescent
shrubby or bushy in the sense of being woody

Fulvous
dull yellowish-brown or yellowish-gray, tawny

Funnelform
gradually widening upwards, as in the flowers of morning glory

Furcate
forked

Fuscous
dark grayish-brown, dusky

Fusiform
spindle-shaped, thickest in the middle and drawn out at both ends

Gall
an abnormal growth on a plant that is caused by insects

Geniculate
bent abruptly like a knee or a stove pipe

Glabrate
becoming glabrous in age

Glabrous
smooth, without hairs

Glandular
producing tiny globules of sticky or oily substance

Glans
a dry dehiscent fruit borne in a cupule, such as the acorn

Glaucescent
slightly glaucous

Glaucous
covered with a thin, light-colored waxy or powdery bloom

Globose
globe-shaped, spherical

Glochids
barbed bristles on cacti

Glomerate
crowded, congested or compactly clustered

Glume
in grasses, the bracts (ly two) that form the lowermost parts of the spikelet

Glutinous
having a sticky surface

Gracile
slender and graceful

Grenadine
bright red

Gynoecium
a collective term for the pistils of a flower (compare androecium)

Habit
the overall appearance of a plant

Halophyte
a plant that can tolerate an abnormal amount of salt in the soil

Hamate
hook-shaped, hooked at the tip

Hastate
spear- or arrowhead-shaped with the basal lobes facing outward

Helicoid
coiled spirally like a spring or a snail shell

Heliotropic
the movement of plant parts in response to a light source

Hemiparasite
a plant that derives its energy both from parasitism and from photosynthesis

Herbaceous
fleshy-stemmed, not woody

Heterostylous
having different kinds of style (and stamen) lengths

Hexa-
a prefix meaning six

Hibernal
flowering or appearing in the winter

Hilum
a scar on a seed indicating its point of attachment

Hip
a fleshy, berry-like fruit, as in some members of the rosaceae

Hirsute
pubescent with stiff, coarse hairs

Hispid
rough-haired

Hoary
covered with white or gray, short, fine hairs

Holosericeous
covered with fine, silky hairs

Hooked
abruptly curved at the tip