Glossary List – French Guianan E-Flora Project

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Displaying 61 - 120 out of 420 Object(s)

Term	Definition
Articulation	A joint between two separable parts, e.g., between a leaf and a stem or between a lower and upper part of a pedicel,
Asymmetric	Referring to a structure that can be divided into numerous mirror-image halves. This and its associated terms are usually, but not exclusively, applied to flowers. Opposite of symmetric.
Awn (awned)	The terminal extension of the midrib of an organ such as a bract (bearing awns).
Axillary	Referring to a structure that arises from the leaf axils.
Axillary inflorescence	A inflorescence that arises from a leaf axil
Bark	The tissue of the trunk and branches external to the vascular cambium.
Bark fissured	Bark with distinct longitudinal grooves.
Bark not fissured	A bark that does not have conspicuous vertically oriented fissures.
Bark rough	Bark without fissures and scallops yet with very shallow irregular cracs and often shedding small pieces of bark.
Bark scalloped	A bark that peels in irregular plates that leave conspicuous depressions.
Bark smooth	A bark without fissures, scallops, or roughness.
Blade	The expanded part of the leaf supported by the petiole
Blaze	See slash.
Bole	In trees, the unbranched portion of the stem. Same as trunk.
Brachyparacytic stomata	Same as paracytic stomata
Bract	A reduced and frequently otherwise differentiated leaf that is often associated with inflorescences and subtends the pedicels of flowers.
Bracteole (adj. = bracteolate)	A small bract usually inserted on the pedicel. In the Lecythidaceae bbracteoles usually are in pairs inserted on pedicels.
Bracteoles above articulation	Bracteoles inserted above the bracteoles in the pedicel/hypanthium continuum of Lecythidaceae.
Bracteoles below articulation	Bracteoles inserted below the articulation in the pedicel/hypanthium continuum of Lecythidaceae.
Branch	All divisions of a plant.
Branched inflorescence	An inflorescence with at least two orders of rachises, i.e., the central rachis has branches emanating from it.
Bud	A young shoot from which leaves or flowers may develop, the former is a leaf bud and the latter is a flower bud.
Calycine rim	Referring to a calyx in which the calyx-lobes are fused at their bases to form a rim that extends beyond the summit of the ovary.
Calycine ring	The scar or vestigal calyx-lobes left around the circumference of the fruit at the points where the calyx-lobes (sepals) were attached.
Calyx-lobes	The outermost whorl of floral parts and nearly equivalent to sepals. See the general glossary for definitions of calyx and sepals.
Calyx-lobes imbricate	Overlapping of the adjacent edges of the calyx-lobes or sepals.
Calyx-lobes not imbricate	The base of the sepals do not overlap.
Canopy tree	A species of tree in which adult individuals occupy the more or less continuous canopy layer of a forest which, in lowland neotropical rainforests, is less than 20 m in height.
Carpel	The fundamental unit of the gynoecium, often considered to be a folded, specialized leaf.
Caruncle	An outgrowth or appendage at or near the hilum or near the point where the funicle originates of some seeds,
Cataphyll	Scale-like bract inserted toward the base of a newly expanded vegetative or reproductive shoot.
Cauline inflorescence	Refers to flowers or fruits that arise below the leaves from the main trunk of a shrub or tree.
Centrifugal stamen initiation	A developmental process in which the stamens first initate near the center of the androecium (i.e., around the style) and then progressively toward the outside of the androecium. In other words, the stamens initiate and develop from the inside to the outstide of the androecium.
Centripetal stamen initiation	A developmental process in which the stamens first initate on the outside of the androecium (i.e., around the edge of the staminal) and progressively develop from the outside to the inside of the androecium.
Cerrado	A Portuguese term referring to a savanna-like vegetation best developed in central Brazil but also found in patches in the Brazilian Amazon and in other South and Central American countries where it is called savanna.
Chalaza	The part of an ovule or seed opposite the micropyle. In this part of the embryo sac the integument(s) are not differentiated from the nucellus..
Chartaceous	With a thick paper texture
Chimera	An animal or a plant with genetically and morphologically different tissue on the same plant. The term is derived from Greek mythology and refers to a mythological animal composed of a lion, goat, and a serpent. Sometimes this term is also used to describe a plant derived from grafting, e.g., stems of Brazil nut trees grafted onto the root stock of another Brazil nut tree resulting in parts of the same tree with different genetic makeups. In Lecythidaceae, we use this term to describe the spontaneous occurence of anomalous flowers on a plant with normal flowers and assume that this difference is caused by a mutation.
Circumscissile capsule	Referring to a fruit that opens by an operculum.
Cloud forest	A mid-elevation vegetation type often covered in clouds. Cloud forest is dominated by trees covered with mosses and liverworts. Species of orchids are abundant in this vegetation type and tree ferns are often conspicuous. Depending on local climate, distance from the sea, and isolation from other mountain ranges, cloud forest can be found between 500 and 4000 meters but it is most frequent between 1000 and 2000 meters.
Colleter	In Lecythidaceae, a multicellular, unbranched glandlike structure found along leaf blade margins. Up to the present only Cariniana estrellensis has been shown to have colleters.
Columella (pl. = columellae)	A woody outgrowth that descends into the fruit from the interior, middle of the operculum.
Complanate	A sphere that is flattened at both poles or a sphere that is shorter in height than it is in width. The term can refer to both three- and two-dimensional shapes.
Concolor (adj. = concolorous)	When two sides of an organ, such as a leaf blade, are the same color.
Coriaceous	With a leathery texture
Cork warts	Very small brown to reddish-brown dots that appear on the abaxial leaf blade surfaces of some species of Lecythidaceae. They are also called punctations in descriptions by various authors.
Corrugate	Having the suface of an organ wrinkled or wavy.
Cortex	A band of tissue in a stem or root between the bark and the vascular tissue. The cortex is made of of large, thin-walled parenchyma cells.
Cortical bundle	A vascular bundle found in the cortex of a stem.
Cotyledons	Seed leaves, i.e., the embryonic leaves.
Cotyledons absent (= embryo macropodial)	A massive embryo that shows no obvious cotyledons.
Cotyledons bowed	Referring to cotyledons that are arched in such a way that they form an air chamber thought to aid in dispersal, either by the wind or by water.
Cotyledons cryptocotylar	Cotyledons that remain within the seed coat at germination. In the Lecythidaceae the seed coat is thin and fragile and breaks apart as the embryo increases in size.
Cotyledons epigeal	At germination the cotyledons emerge from the seed coat above the ground.
Cotyledons fleshy, irregular (= cotyledons plano-convex)	Seed leaves (= cotyledons) that are fleshy and irregular.
Cotyledons foliaceous (= cotyledons leaf-like)	Cotyledons that look like leaves but differ in their opposite instead of alternate attachment. Same as cotyledons leaf-like which is the preferred term.
Cotyledons hypogeal	A type of seed germination in which the cotyledons are retained below the ground.
Cotyledons leaf-like (= cotyledons foliaceous)	Cotyledons that look like leaves but differ in their opposite instead of alternate attachment.
Cotyledons phanerocotylar	A type of seed germination in which the cotyledons emerge from the seed coat at germination..
Cotyledons plano-convex (= cotyledons fleshy, irregular)	Same as cotyledons fleshy. We no longer use plano-convex because the cotyledons are very irregular and are not plano-convex as in, for example, the embryo of species of Gustavia.