— see Fauna Flora Funga Glossary | Fauna Glossary | Flora Glossary
Often when reading about different plants and the description used, it has you reaching for the dictionary…or googling the word.
Let us start with the word Flora…
- Flora is all of the plant life present in a particular region or time.
The word is a noun and describes plants of a particular region, habitat, or geological period.
In Latin the term means “flower”.
Flora was the Roman goddess of spring and flowering plants, especially wildflowers and plants not raised for food.
When discussing flora, it is used to describe the plant life found growing in a particular region or time, and usually to describe the native (indigenous) plants in the region.
Together with the term fauna (to describe animal life, including insects etc) and other forms of life such as fungi, they are collectively referred to as biota.
Whilst the noun flora can both be countable or uncountable, the commonly used context in the plural form is floras. In the more specific context, the plural form becomes florae ie a collection of florae.
Glossary
- bracteole
(plural bracteoles) is aA small leaf / leaf-like structure directly subtending a flower or inflorescence whose stalk itself is subtended by a bract.
- corolla
refers to a group of petals that are coloured and encircles the reproductive structures of a flower ie the stamen and carpel.
- corymbs
a botanical term for an inflorescence with the outermost part of the flowers being borne on longer pedicels than the inner, such as that all the flowers on the inflorescence grow up to a common level.
- culm
the aerial (above-ground) stem of a grass or sedge. Derived from the Latin culmus ‘stalk’, originally referred to the stem of any type of plant.
- dimorphic
describe something that occurs in two forms. In botany the term often describes plant organs that appear in two distinct forms or shapes on the same plant ie a dimorphic flower, or in closely related plants, as can occur in a species.
- elliptic
ellipse / oval in outline, being widest at the centre.
- glabrous
in botany means lacking hairs, of a surface smooth, without pubescence (soft down on the leaves/stems) of any kind.
- gynoecium
the innermost whorl of a flower; consisting of (one or more) pistils. It is typically surrounded by the pollen-producing (male) reproductive organs, the stamens.
- gynophore
the stalk of certain flowers that supports the gynoecium, elevating it above the branching points of the other floral parts.
- helophyte
a plant that is typically found in marshy ground (a perennial marsh plant) whose buds overwinter under water.
- indehiscent
refers to a pod or fruit, that does not split open to release the seeds when ripe.
- inflorescence
the complete flower head of a plant that includes the stems, stalks, bracts, and flowers. It can be a cluster of flowers, categorized on the basis of the arrangement of the flowers on a main axis (peduncle).
- lanceolate
about four times as long as it is broad, being broadest in the lower half tapering towards the tip.
- lignotuber
a woody, usually underground, rootstock that often give rise to numerous aerial stems.
- oblanceolate
similar in shape to lanceolate, but attached at the narrower end.
- obovate
a term to describe the shape of a leaf where the leaf has the narrower end at the base (the part of the leaf with the stem that attaches to the plant).- narrow-obovate, as the term describes is the leaf is narrower along the length of the leaf.
- ovate
having an oval outline or ovoid shape, shaped like an egg.
- operculum (plural opercula)
used in botany refers to a cap-like structure in some flowering plants, mosses, and fungi.
- panicle
(plural panicles) a loose branching cluster of flowers.
- perennial
a perennial plant or simply referred to as a perennial, is a plant that lives more than two years. Herbaceous perennials are those that die back after flowering and reappear/grow from their rootstock. Mint, tulips, salvia, hellebore are all perennials. Some plants such as tomato vines are perennials in their native country, but are often sown again from seeds in other regions, where they do not survive the climatic changes such as the cold.
- perianth
the outer part of a flower, consisting of the calyx (sepals) and corolla (petals)
- petiole
the stalk that attaches a leaf to the plant stem.
- postanthesis, post-anthesis
occurring after the opening of a flower.
- pinnate
having leaflets arranged on either side of the stem, typically in pairs opposite each other.
- prostrate
when used in botany in reference to a plant (and also used to describe the growth pattern of a shrub), describes a plant the lies upon or just above the ground, rather than growing erect as found with branches of most trees and shrubs.
The term can be applied to plants used as ground cover and to shrubs that can be knee high, but because of the their prostrate nature, is wider then tall.
- prothorax
is the foremost of the three segments in the thorax of an insect, and bears the first pair of legs.
- raceme
(plural racemes) a flower cluster with separate flowers attached by short equal stalks at equal distances along a central stem. The flowers at the base of the central stem develop first.
- scarious
scarious meaning thin, dry and membranous, like certain bracts, when used together in the term scarious bracteoles.
- sessile
in botany, sessile in this instance refers to the leaf being attached directly by its base, without a stalk.
- stamen
is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower (considered the male part of the flower). Collectively the stamens form the androecium.
- subtended
of a bract that extend under a flower so as to support or enfold it.
- viscid
having a glutinous or sticky consistency.
Footnote & References
- Glossary of leaf morphology, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_leaf_morphology
— see Fauna Flora Funga Glossary | Fauna Glossary | Flora Glossary
FloraFlora in Australia Flora Index Acacia Anigozanthos (Kangaroo Paws) Annual Yellowtop Apium prostratum subsp. prostratum var filiforme Apple Bush (Pterocaulon sphacelatum) Australian Bluebell Australian Gossypium Banksia Batswing Coral Tree Billy Buttons Birdsville Indigo Blue Pincushion Bush Banana Callistemon Callitris drummondii (Drummond’s Cypress Pine) Calothamnus quadrifidus Cape Honeysuckle Cassia fistula (Golden Shower) Cattle Bush Common Heath Crotalaria Darwinia wittwerorum (Wittwer’s Mountain Bell) Daviesia oppositifolia (Rattle-pea) Desert Oaks Drumsticks Eremophila Eucalyptus Ficus Flannel Cudweed (Actinobole uliginosum) Georges Indigo Goatshead Burr (Sclerolaena bicornis) Golden Everlasting Goodenia Gossypium Grass and Grasses Grass Trees Grevillea Grey Germander Hakea Kapok Bush (Aerva javanica) Lambertia sp Leptospermum MacDonnell Ranges Cycad Maireana scleroptera Mexican Poppy Minnie Daisy Mistletoe Family Nardoo Native Apricot Nicotiana megalosiphon subspecies sessilifolia Nuytsia floribunda Orange Spade Flower Orchidaceae Parakeelyas (Calandrinia) Pebble Bush (Stylobasium spathulatum) Perennial Yellow Top Pink Everlasting Pink Rock Wort Poached Egg Daisy Portulaca Proteaceae Ptilotus Quandong Resurrection Fern Rosy Dock Ruby Saltbush Santalum Solanum Spike Centaury Spinifex Storkbill (Erodum cygnorum) Striped Mint Bush Sturt’s Desert Pea Sturt’s Desert Rose Tall Saltbush Tangled Leschenaultia Tar Vine Tribulus eichlerianus Upside-down Plant Urodon dasyphylla Variable Daisy Waratah (Telopea) Wertabona Daisy White Cedar (Melia azedarach) White Indigo White Paper Daisy Wild Passionfruit Wild Stock Woolly-Headed Burr Daisy Woolly Bush Yellow-keeled Swainsona
Flora & FaunaFauna Flora Fauna Flora Funga Glossary Funga Related Topics Scientific Classification Backyard Wildlife Floral Emblems of Australia Wildflowers