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External leaf characteristics, such as shape, margin, hairs, the petiole, and the presence of stipules and glands, are frequently important for identifying plants to family, genus or species levels, and botanists have developed a rich terminology for describing leaf characteristics. Leaves almost always have determinate growth.
Chart illustrating leaf morphology terms. The following terms are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (that is, the leaf blade or 'lamina' is undivided) or compound (that is, the leaf blade is divided into two or more leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular or irregular, and ...
Leaf Parts: – A complete leaf is composed of a blade, petiole, and stipules, but in many plants one or more might be lacking or highly modified. Blade – see lamina. Lamina – the flat and laterally-expanded portion of a leaf blade. Leaflet – a separate blade, among others, of a compound leaf
Variation in leaves from the giant ragweed illustrating positional effects. The lobed leaves come from the base of the plant, while the unlobed leaves come from the top of the plant. Although plants produce numerous copies of the same organ during their lives, not all copies of a particular organ will be identical.
Symphyotrichum lateriflorum has alternate and simple leaves. Characteristics vary among leaves on the same plant and on plants in different environments and areas of the range. [12] Leaves occur at the base, on stems, and on inflorescence branches. The farther away from the base the leaves are, the smaller they become, sometimes markedly so.
The sterile leaves are modified leaves whose function is to protect the fertile parts or to attract pollinators. [1] The branch of the flower that joins the floral parts to the stem is a shaft called the pedicel , which normally dilates at the top to form the receptacle in which the various floral parts are inserted.
Chloroplasts in leaf cells of the moss Mnium stellare. Plant anatomy or phytotomy is the general term for the study of the internal structure of plants.Originally, it included plant morphology, the description of the physical form and external structure of plants, but since the mid-20th century, plant anatomy has been considered a separate field referring only to internal plant structure.
The monocots or monocotyledons have, as the name implies, a single (mono-) cotyledon, or embryonic leaf, in their seeds.Historically, this feature was used to contrast the monocots with the dicotyledons or dicots which typically have two cotyledons; however, modern research has shown that the dicots are not a natural group, and the term can only be used to indicate all angiosperms that are not ...