Native Plants
Did you know you can access the Native Plant Information Network with your web-enabled smartphone?
Glossary of commonly used botanical terms and their definitions. Use the search bar below to look up a botanical term.
15 Random Botanical Terms
Stolon - A horizontal above ground stem.
Semi-evergreen - Having foliage during part of the winter or dry season or tending to be evergreen in a mild climate but deciduous in a rigorous climate.
Lobed flower - A tubular or funnel shaped flower that opens into petal like lobes.
Palmate - Divided or radiating from one point, resembling a hand with the fingers spread. Leaves may be palmately compound and/or palmately lobed; they may also have palmate venation.
Endemic - Occurring naturally only in a single geographic area.
Cordate - Heart-shaped, with the point at the apex.
Flower head - A dense arrangement of flowers arising from a common point, as in Apiaceae, or as in Asteraceae where many ray flowers and/or disc flowers make up one "flower head." See also, Capitulum.
Stem - The main axis of a plant.
Drupe - Fruit with exocarp or skin, fleshy mesocarp and hardened endocarp with seed inside.
Involucel - A bract or bracts subtending an individual flower in a compound inflorescence.
Sessile - Lacking a stalk of any kind: a flower without a pedicel or a leaf without a petiole.
Nectar - A sweet fluid produced in flowers.
Laciniate - Fringed or having edges irregularly and finely slashed.
Weed - Any plant growing where it is not wanted.
Leaflet - A division or part of a compound leaf.