Wild Fruits: Glossary of Botanical Terms

at the

Wild Fruits: Glossary of Botanical Terms

Ament A catkin or scaly spike.

Axil The angle formed by a leaf or branch with the stem.

Branchlet Except for the twig, the youngest and smallest division of a branch.

Calyx The outer part (perianth) of the flower, usually green, formed of
several divisions called sepals, protecting the bud.

Corymb A flat-topped or convex open flower-cluster, the outer flowers
opening first.

Corymbose In corymbs or corymb-like.

Culm The peculiar aerial stem which bears flowers, found in grasses,
sedges, and rushes.

Cyme           A usually broad and flattish determinate inflorescence (flowering
                     portion of plant), i.e. with its central or terminal flowers blooming
                     earliest.

Fascicle A close bundle or cluster.

Glaucous Bluish white; covered or whitened with a very fine, powdery substance.

Imbricated Closely overlapping each other like the tiles of a roof.

Involucre A circle or collection of bracts (modified leaves) surrounding
a flower cluster or head, or a single flower.

Mucronate Having the midvein prolonged beyond the pinnule forming a point;
tipped with a mucro or short, small, suddenly narrowed or cut off tip.

Pedicel A tiny stalk; the support of a single flower.

Peduncle A primary flower-stalk, supporting either a cluster or a solitary flower.

Pericarp Fruit wall; the wall of a matured ovary.

Raceme A simple inflorescence of pediceled flowers upon a common more
or less elongated axis.

Radicle Rootlet springing from the sides and base of a stem.

Samara Key; a dry, one-seeded, indehiscent or persistently closed winged fruit.

Spadix A flower spike with a fleshy axis, usually enclosed in a spathe.

Spathe A sheathing bract (modified leaf) or pair of bracts enclosing an
inflorescence (flowering portion of plant); a spadix on the same axis.

Stomate Covered with a surface of fine pores, such as breathing pores.

Strobile Cone; an often scaly, imbricated fruit of pines, firs, and other trees.

Style The usually attenuated or tapered portion of the pistil (seed-bearing
organ) connecting the stigma and ovary.

Umbel An inflorescence (flowering portion of plant) in which the peduncles
or pedicels of a cluster spring from the same point.