Copy of `USGS - Plants of the Northern Great Plains`

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USGS - Plants of the Northern Great Plains Category: Animals and Nature Date & country: 30/06/2013, USA Words: 397

Decumbent
Having the lower part of the stem lying along the ground, otherwise erect or ascending.

Decurrent
Extending below the level of attachment as a wing or a ridge of tissue, e.g., as when a leaf is decurrent on a stem.

Decussate
Describing opposite leaves that alternate at right angles to the pairs directly above and below them.

Dehiscent
Splitting open or apart at maturity to release contents.

Deltate
Broadly triangular.

Dentate
Prominently toothed along the margin.

Denticulate
Finely toothed along the margin.

Depressed
Flattened or slightly indented on one end.

Diadelphous
Describing stamens that are united by their filaments in two clusters, as in many legumes which have 9 stamens fused and one separate.

Dichotomous
Forking or branching in pairs.

Didynamous
Having 4 stamens that appear as two pairs of unequal length.

Diffuse
Branched and widely spreading.

Dimorphic
Having two different forms.

Dioecious
Having male and female flowers borne on separate plants.

Distichous
In two opposite rows.

Divaricate
Widely spreading.

Divergent
Spreading away from the main axis.

Dorsal
Referring to the side of an organ oriented away from the main axis, e.g., the underside of a leaf or the outer surface or back side of an organ; abaxial.

Drupe
A fleshy or fibrous, single-seeded fruit in which the seed is contained in a stony endocarp, e.g., a peach. Return to Top E

Ebracteate
Without bracts.

Eglandular
Without glands.

Elater
A winglike or straplike appendage on a spore adapted for wind dispersal.

Ellipsoid
Describing a solid object which is elliptic in outline.

Elliptic(al)
In the shape of a flattened circle, more than twice as long as wide.

Emarginate
Shallowly notched at the apex.

Emergent
Growing upward above the water level.

Emersed
Adapted to grow out of water.

Entire
With a smooth margin.

Epigynous
Describing a flower in which the ovary is inferior.

Epipetalous
Describing stamens that are adnate by their filaments to the corolla.

Equitant
Describing 2-ranked leaves that overlap at the base and have the blades sharply folded lengthwise so that they appear oriented edgewise toward the stem, e.g., the leaves of iris and gladiolus.

Erose
With a thin, uneven or jagged margin.

Excurrent
Extending beyond the tip or margin as a mucro or awn.

Exserted
Extended beyond the mouth of an enclosing structure, as when stamens or styles project beyond the tip of a calyx or corolla.

Exstipulate
Without stipules. Return to Top F

Falcate
Gently arched, sickle-shaped.

Farinose
With a whitened, mealy-textured surface.

Fascicle
A cluster arising from a common base.

Fibrillose
Having small fibers.

Fibrous
Having or containing fibers.

Filamentous
Like a filament.

Filiform
Threadlike.

Flabellate
Fan-shaped.

Flexnous
Wavy or sinuous.

Floral
Of or pertaining to the flower.

Floret
A flower greatly reduced in size as in the Asteraceae; in the Poaceae, the flower (or grain) and its enclosing lemma and palea.

Floriferous
Flower-bearing.

Foliaceous
Similar to the leaves or leaflets in shape, size, texture and/or color.

Follicle
A unicarpellary fruit containing usually (1) few to several seeds and splitting open along one suture at maturity to release the seeds.

Fornix
A small, arched scale. (pl. fornices)

Frond
The leaf of a fern, or in Lemnaceae, a single thalloid segment of a colony.

Funnelform
Funnel-shaped.

Fusiform
Oblong and tapered at both ends. Return to Top G

Gibbous
Enlarged toward one side, usually at the base.

Glabrate
Glabrous with age.

Glabrous
Smooth, without hairs.

Glandular
Containing or bearing glands, these sessile or stalked, often shiny and resinous in appearance.

Glaucous
Whitish or bluish in color often due to a waxy coating.

Globose
Spherical in shape.

Glomerulate
With distinct, dense clusters.

Glomerules
Small, dense clusters.

Glumes
The two empty bracts at the base of a grass spikelet, the lowermost considered the first glume, the uppermost the second, seldom borne opposite each other, rarely absent.

Grain
The fruit of almost all grasses, with the seed coat fused to the pericarp and the embryo positioned toward one side within the fruit; also termed caryopsis.

Gynaecandrous
Describing an inflorescence of imperfect flowers in which the female flowers are borne above the male flowers.

Gynobasic
Describing a style which is attached basally rather than terminally to the ovary.

Gynoecium
The female portion of the flower, i.e., the carpels collectively.

Gynostegium
A central column in a flower formed by fusion of stamens and pistil, characteristic of Asclepiadaceae and Orchidaceae. Return to Top H

Haploid
Containing only one set of chromosomes as a result of meiosis.

Hastate
Descriptive of leaves having two divergent lobes at the base.

Hermaphroditic
Having all perfect flowers.

Heterosporous
Producing spores of two sizes, the larger giving rise to female gametophytes, the smaller to male gametophytes.

Hirsute
With rather stiff spreading hairs.

Hirsutulous
Minutely hirsute.

Hispid
With long, stiff, straight hairs.

Hispidulous
Somewhat or minutely hispid.

Homosporous
Producing spores of all one size.

Hyaline
Thin and translucent or transparent.

Hypanthium
A floral disk, cup or tube extending from the receptacle to surround the ovary(ies) in perigynous and most epigynous flowers. The sepals, petals and stamens arise from the rim of the hypanthium.

Hypogynous
Descriptive of flowers having the ovary(ies) superior and without a hypanthium. Return to Top I

Imbricate
Overlapping in rows like shingles on a roof

Imperfect
Referring to flowers that are unisexual, i.e., having either functional stamens or pistil(s) but not both

Incised
Deeply lobed or divided, but not completely divided into separate parts.

Indehiscent
Not splitting open or apart at maturity, remaining whole and retaining the contents.

Indurate
Hardened.

Indusium
A membranous outgrowth of a fern leaf that wholly or partly covers a sorus.

Inflated
Soft and swollen or expanded.

Inflexed
Curved inward.

Inflorescence
The flowers collectively and their arrangement on the plant.

Involucel
An involucre of reduced bracts on secondary branches of a compound inflorescence.

Involucral
Of the involucre.

Involucre
One or more series of bracts that subtend a flower or inflorescence.

Involute
Having the margins curled or rolled inward toward the upper surface.

Irregular
Bilaterally symmetric so that the flower can be divided in half in only one plane to give two equal halves. Return to Top L

Lacerate
With an irregular, jagged margin, appearing as if torn.

Laciniate
Deeply dissected into parallel, narrow segments.

Laminate
With a flat blade.

Lanceolate
Lance-shaped, broadest near the base, tapering to the tip and narrower than ovate.

Leaflet
One of the leaflike segments of a compound leaf.

Legume
The podlike fruit of most members of the mimosa, caesalpinia and legume families (Mimosaceae, Caesalpiniaceae and Fabaceae, respectively), derived from one carpel and usually dehiscent by two sutures.

Lemma
The lower, larger bract that, together with the smaller palea, subtends and encloses the flower in grasses. The lemma, palea and their enclosed flower comprise the floret. The lemma is often awned from the tip or back.