plant terms library

Plant terms are words and phrases that are used in botany. Plant terms describe plant life, growth, structure and classification. Knowing and understanding plant terms is vital to the study of botany.

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Bran, the outer layers of cereal grains (such as wheat and oats). Bran is a good source of carbohydrates, calcium, phosphorus, and fiber. See more »

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Pectin

Pectin, one of a group of poly-saccharides (carbohydrates) occurring in the cell walls of all higher plants.

Pesticide

Pesticide, a poisonous chemical used to kill pests such as weeds, fungi, and destructive insects.

Pith

Pith, the core tissue in the stems of most plants. It consists chiefly of food-storing cells.

Plant Scab

Scab, a plant disease; also, the roughened crustlike area on the plant surface resulting from the disease.

Poisonous plant

Poisonous Plant, any plant that causes serious illness or death if eaten. The term also is applied to plants such as poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac, which cause skin irritation when touched; and to plants such as coca and hemp, which have dangerous effects when chewed or smoked.

Root

Root, the principal organ for the absorption of water and dissolved nutrients in most seed plants and in ferns.

Rot

Rot, the common name of a number of diseases of animals and plants. Rot disease of sheep, which also occurs in other animals and sometimes human beings, is caused by a fluke, a parasitic flatworm, that infests the liver.

Rust

Rust and Smut, plant diseases caused by a number of parasitic types of fungi and funguslike protists.

Sap

Sap, the watery juice of plants. Sap is mostly water in which minerals and certain foods are dissolved.

Seed

Seed, a reproductive structure produced by plants as a means of giving rise to new plants similar to the parents.

Stem

Stem, a plant organ that typically grows above ground and bears leaves, buds, and flowers.

Succulent

Succulent, a plant with fleshy leaves or stems capable of storing large amounts of water.

Tracheophyte

Tracheophyte, a member of the largest and most varied group of plants. Tracheophytes are also called vascular plants, because they have vascular, or conductive, tissues.

Tragacanth

Tragacanth, a gum obtained from certain thorny shrubs of the arid regions of western Asia and southeastern Europe.

Vine

Vine, a plant with a trailing or climbing stem. A trailing stem is one that grows along the ground; it is too weak to stand upright and does not have any means of climbing.

Water plants

Water (or Aquatic) Plants, plants that live in water. Some plants live submerged in water, either fixed in place or freely floating.

Wilt

Wilt, a group of plant diseases that cause leaves to shrivel. Wilt is caused by drought, by excessive transpiration (evaporation of moisture from plant cells) on hot days, by damage to roots and stems, and by bacteria and fungi that block the moisture-carrying tissues in plants.