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

Rotate
Describing a corolla that has a short tubular portion and widely spreading lobes so that the whole corolla is saucer-shaped.

Rufous
Reddish-brown.

Rugose
With cross ridges or wrinkles.

Rugulose
With a finely wrinkled surface. Return to Top S

Saccate
Sac-shaped.

Sagittate
Arrowhead-shaped.

Salverform
Trumpet-shaped, usually used to describe a sympetalous corolla with a slender tube and an abruptly flared limb.

Scaberulous
Finely scabrous.

Scabrous
Roughened with tiny toothlike or stiff, hairlike projections.

Scale
A small, dry chaffy bract that subtends and often encloses a flower, especially characteristic of the Cyperaceae.

Scape
A naked (leafless) or essentially naked stem that bears an inflorescence.

Scapose
Descriptive of a leafless stem that bears an inflorescence or describing a plant that has a scape.

Scarious
Thin, dry, nongreen and membranous in texture, like onion skin.

Schizocarp
A dry fruit that breaks longitudinally into separate segments at maturity, each segment retaining the seed(s) and usually corresponding to one of the carpels comprising the ovary.

Scorpioid
Coiled like a scorpion's tail.

Secund
Having parts that appear to arise from only one side of an axis; often used to describe an inflorescence in which flowers are borne on one side of a stem or branch.

Sepal
One of the outermost sterile appendages of the flower, normally enclosing the other floral parts in the bud; one member of the calyx.

Sepaloid
Sepallike.

Septate
Divided or partitioned into sections by cross walls.

Septicidal
Describing a capsule which splits open along longitudinal sutures that correspond with where septae attach to the ovary wall.

Septum
An internal partition; in an ovary, a longitudinal partition formed where adjacent carpels are united and dividing the ovary into cells. (pl. septae)

Sericeous
With long silky hairs, these normally lying on the surface.

Serrate
With toothed edges.

Serrulate
With finely toothed edges.

Sessile
Attached directly to a stem or other structure, lacking a stalk.

Setaceous
Bristlelike.

Silique
An elongate, usually terete capsule of the mustard family (Brassicaceae).

Simple
Unbranched or undivided, usually in reference to stems or leaves.

Sinuate
Wavy-margined.

Sinus
The indentation or space between adjacent lobes or divisions of a structure such as a leaf or corolla.

Sorus
A tiny cluster of sporangia borne on ferns. (pl. sort)

Spadix
A thick, fleshy spike of small, densely crowded flowers.

Spathe
One or two closely associated bracts that subtend a flower or inflorescence, characteristic of some monocots.

Spatulate
Spatula-shaped, i.e., long and slender with a broadened tip.

Spike
An unbranched inflorescence in which the flowers are all sessile on a main axis.

Spinulose
With weakly spine-tipped projections.

Sporangium
The spore-producing structure of a plant. (pl. sporangia)

Sporocarp
A hard, nutlike structure that contains sporangia.

Spp.
Abbreviation for the plural of species.

Spur
A slender, tubular appendage extending backward from the base of a sepal or petal.

Stamen
The male, pollen-producing organ of a flower, comprised of the anther and filament.

Staminate
Male, with functional stamens only.

Staminode
A reduced or otherwise modified, nonfunctional stamen.

Stigma
The often sticky or finely hairy, pollen-receptive portion of the pistil, borne on the terminal portion of a style or sometimes sessile on the ovary.

Stipe
A supporting stalk.

Stipitate
Borne on a stalk or stipe.

Stipules
A pair of appendages at the base of the petiole of some leaves that are membranous to foliaceous, minute to conspicuous, deciduous or persistent, sometimes fused together into one structure.

Stramineous
Straw-colored.

Striate
With fine longitudinal lines or nerves that run parallel.

Strigose
With stiff hairs lying flat against the surface.

Strigulose
Minutely strigose.

Stylopodium
A swollen, disklikebase of a style, as in flowers of the Apiaceae.

Sub-
A prefix meaning nearly or almost.

Submersed
Adapted to grow or occur underwater; submerged.

Suborbicular
Nearly circular.

Subtend
Attached below and extending upward.

Subulate
Awl-shaped.

Succulent
Thick, fleshy and watery.

Superior
Descriptive of an ovary or ovaries positioned on the surface of the receptacle and not embedded in other tissues.

Sympetalous
Having the petals fused together. Return to Top T

Taproot
A root system with 1-few dominant vertical roots.

Tendril
A threadlike, often branched appendage on a stem or leaf that coils around plants or other objects to provide support for a climbing plant.

Tepal
A sepal or petal of a perianth in which the appendages are alike in size, shape, color and texture.

Terete
Round in cross section, like the leaves of an onion.

Ternate
Divided into three's.

Thallus
A small, flattened plant body, often not differentiated into stems and leaves.

Thyrse
A paniclelike inflorescence with one main indeterminate axis and many lateral axes which are determinate.

Tomentose
With a felty covering of dense, woolly hairs.

Tomentulose
Slightly tomentose.

Trichome
An epidermal hair, scale or other outgrowth on a plant.

Trifid
Divided into three branches or lobes.

Trigonous
Three-sided and thus triangular in cross section.

Trimorphic
Having three different forms.

Tripinnate
Pinnately divided three times

Trullate
Trowel-shaped.

Truncate
Squared or leveled off at the base or tip.

Tuber
A fleshy rhizome or portion of a rhizome that functions as a food storage organ, e.g., a potato.

Tubercle
A small swelling, nodule or projection.

Tuberculate
Having tubercles.

Tuberous
Tuberlike, as in roots which are thick and fleshy.

Tufted
Clumped, with stems clustered together at the base.

Turbinate
Top-shaped.

Turion
A specialized shoot or bud that overwinters to resume vegetative growth the following growing season, sometimes becoming detached from the parent plant to start a new plant. Return to Top U

Umbel
An inflorescence with several to many stalked flowers arising from a common point, like the stems of a candelabra.

Umbellet
The small, secondary umber in a compound umber, as in most Apiaceae.

Umbelliform
Like an umbel, umbel-shaped.

Undulate
Wavy in an up and down fashion, vertically to the surface.

Urceolate
Urn-shaped.

Utricle
A small, 1-seeded fruit in which the pericarp is thin, dry and easily removed from the seed. Return to Top V

Valve
One segment of the wall of a dehiscent capsule, often corresponding to one of the carpels making up the ovary.

Ventral
Adaxial; referring to the side of a structure oriented toward the main axis, e.g., the upper surface of a leaf or the inner surface of an organ.

Verticel
One whorl, i.e., a group of leaves, bracts or flowers attached at the same level on a stem.

Verticillate
Whorled in arrangement.

Vesicular
Having one or more vesicles (saclike cavities).

Villous
Covered with long, soft hairs.

Viscid
Sticky. Return to Top W

Whorled
With three or more attached at the same level, usually in reference to leaves on a stem.