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

The wordlist doesn't exist anymore, or, the website doesn't exist anymore. On this page you can find a copy of the original information. The information may have been taken offline because it is outdated.

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

Lenticels
Blisterlike breaks in the epidermis of woody twigs. These develop to permit aeration of internal tissues.

Lenticular
Lens-shaped.

Ligule
In grasses and grasslike plants, a membranous or hairy extension arising from the inside of the leaf sheath at its juncture with the blade; a straplike structure; in the Asteraceae, the straplike corolla of a ray floret.

Linear
Long, flat and narrow with parallel sides.

Locule
A chamber or cell, usually inside an ovary.

Loculicidal
Describing a capsule which splits open longitudinally to expose the locules of the ovary, each suture corresponding to the midrib of one of the carpels comprising the ovary.

Lyrate
Lyre-shaped, with a large, rounded terminal lobe and smaller lateral lobes. Return to Top M

Malpighiaceous
Describing hairs which are centrally attached and tapered to two slender tips.

Mammillate
With one or more nipplelike projections.

Marcescent
Withering but remaining attached.

Membranous
Thin, soft, flexible and usually translucent; like a membrane.

Mericarp
One of the segments of a schizocarp.

Monadelphous
Describing stamens that are united by their filaments often to form a sheath around the pistil.

Moniliform
Like a string of loosely spaced beads.

Monoecious
Having both male and female flowers on the same plant.

Mucro
A short, sharp, abrupt, terminal point or awn.

Mucronate
Having an abrupt, short-awned tip.

Mucronulate
Minutely mucronate. Return to Top N

Nerve
A slender vein or rib of a leaf or other organ.

Node
The point of attachment of a leaf or leaves to a stem.

Nodulose
With small swollen joints or knots.

Nutlet
Asmall nut, similar to an achene. Return to Top O

Ob-
A prefix meaning in a reversed direction, usually in reference to shape.

Oblique
Slanted; or in the case of leaf blades and other flattened structures, having unequal sides or an asymmetrical base.

Oblong
Much longer than wide with nearly parallel sides.

Obsolete
Rudimentary, nearly absent.

Obtuse
Shaped with an angle of greater than 90

Ocrea
A membranous sheath at nodes of the stem in the Polygonaceae, formed by fusion of the stipules. (pl. ocreae)

Olivaceous
Olive-green.

Orbicular
Round and flattened.

Ovate
Flat and egg-shaped in outline; rounded at the base, broadest below the middle and often pointed at the tip.

Ovoid
Egg-shaped.

Ovule
The small, egg-shaped structure (megasporangium) containing the female gametophyte in seed-bearing plants. With maturation the ovule becomes a seed. Return to Top P

Palate
A raised portion of the lower lip of a sympetalous corolla that nearly closes the corolla tube.

Palea
The uppermost or innermost of the two bracts (lemma and palea) that subtend and enclose the flower (or grain) in grasses.

Palmate
Divergent or branched from a common point of attachment like the fingers on the hand.

Panicle
A compound inflorescence in which flowers are borne on branches which themselves are branched, the entire inflorescence usually longer than broad; often used for any branched inflorescence of a grass or grasslike plant.

Papilla
A small blunt projection arising from a flat surface. (pl. papillae)

Pappus
The modified calyx of a composite flower that persists on top of the ovary or fruit as a series of bristles, scales or stiff awns.

Parietal
Attached to the inner surface or wall of an enclosed structure such as an ovary.

Pectinate
Having closely parallel, slender, toothlike projections like a comb.

Pedicel
The stalk bearing a flower in an inflorescence.

Pedicellate
Borne on a pedicel.

Peduncle
The stalk of an inflorescence or a single flower if solitary.

Pedunculate
Peduncled. Borne on a peduncle.

Peltate
Describing a leaf or other flattened organ with the stalk attached at the center of the back side.

Pendulous
Hanging downward from a support.

Perfect
Describing flowers that have both stamens and pistil(s).

Perfoliate
With the leaf base completely encircling the stem.

Perianth
The floral envelope, consisting of the sepals and petals if both are present, or either of them if the other is absent.

Pericarp
The mature fruit wall derived from the ovary wall, varying from dry and membranous or firm in dry fruit types to mostly fleshy and juicy in fleshy fruits.

Perigynium
The saclike or scalelike structure that completely encloses the ovary (achene) in Carex.

Perigynous
Descriptive of a flower that has a hypanthium surrounding, but not fused to or completely enclosing the ovary(ies).

Petal
One of the innermost sterile appendages of the flower, usually soft-textured and colored; one member of the corolla.

Petaloid
Petallike.

Petiolate
With a petiole.

Petiole
The stalk of a leaf.

Petiolule
The stalk of a leaflet in a compound leaf.

Phyllode
An expanded leaf which is actually bladeless and derived from a flattened petiole.

Phyllodial
Describing leaves which are phyllodes.

Pilose
With straight, spreading hairs.

Pinna
A primary segment of a pinnately compound or lobed leaf. (pl. pinnae).

Pinnate
Divided or branched with the parts attached in two opposite rows along a main axis, like the pinnae of a feather.

Pinnatifid
Pinnately lobed but not divided all the way to the midrib.

Pinnatisect
Pinnately dissected into narrow segments.

Pinnule
The ultimate segment of a leaf that is pinnately divided two or more times.

Pistil
The female unit of a flower, consisting of the ovule-containing ovary below and the pollen receptive stigma(s) above, these usually connected to each other by 1 or more slender styles. (See carpel.)

Pistillate
Female, with functional pistil(s) only.

Plano-convex
With one face flat and the other low-rounded.

Plicate
With a series of longitudinal folds, like a fan.

Plumose
Feathery due to soft spreading hairs.

Pollinium
A waxy mass of pollen. (pl. pollinia)

Procumbent
Prostrate and lying on the ground.

Pruinose
With a heavy, waxy coating.

Puberulent
Minutely pubescent.

Pubescence
A covering of hairs.

Pubescent
With hairs on the surface.

Pulverulent
With very fine waxy granules on the surface.

Punctate
Dotted, often with glands.

Puncticulate
With tiny dots on the surface.

Pyriform
Shaped like a candle flame. Return to Top R

Raceme
An inflorescence in which flowers are individually stalked along a main axis.

Rachilla
The axis to which florets are attached in grasses and sedges, i.e., the main axis of a spikelet.

Rachis
The main axis of an inflorescence or a pinnately compound leaf.

Ray
In Asteraceae, the straplike corolla of a ligulate or ray floret; in Apiaceae, one of the primary branches of a compound umber.

Receptacle
The terminal portion of a pedicel or 1-flowered peduncle to which the floral organs are attached. In Asteraceae, the disk on which the ray and/or disk florets are borne.

Recurved
Curved downward or backward.

Reflexed
Projecting downward.

Remote
Widely separated.

Reniform
Kidney-shaped.

Repand
With a shallowly wavy margin.

Replum
A persistent, membranous partition (placenta) that bears ovules on its margins and separates the two valves of the capsules in members of the mustard family (Brassicaceae).

Reticulate
With a netlike pattern of markings or veins.

Retrorse
Projecting backward or downward.

Retuse
Having a notch in a rounded or obtuse apex.

Revolute
Curled or rolled backward along the edges.

Rhizoid
A nonvascularized, rootlike structure.

Rhizomatous
Having rhizomes.

Rhizome
A creeping underground stem often bearing scale leaves.

Rosette
A cluster of leaves arising from a common point, usually the plant base.