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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). [1]
Leaves are mostly green in color due to the presence of a compound called chlorophyll which is essential for photosynthesis as it absorbs light energy from the Sun. A leaf with lighter-colored or white patches or edges is called a variegated leaf. Leaves can have many different shapes, sizes, textures and colors.
Biennial plants usually form a basal rosette of leaves in the first year and then flower and fruit in the second year. bifid Forked; cut in two for about half its length. Compare trifid. bifoliate (of a compound leaf) Having precisely two leaflet s, usually in a symmetrical pair, e.g. a leaf of Colophospermum mopane.
Acrodromous – the veins run parallel to the leaf edge and fuse at the leaf tip. Actinodromous – the main veins of a leaf radiate from the tip of the petiole. Brochidodromous – the veins turn away from the leaf edge to join the next higher vein. Campylodromous – secondary veins diverge at the base of the lamina and rejoin at the tip.
Prickles on a blackberry branch. In plant morphology, thorns, spines, and prickles, and in general spinose structures (sometimes called spinose teeth or spinose apical processes), are hard, rigid extensions or modifications of leaves, roots, stems, or buds with sharp, stiff ends, and generally serve the same function: physically defending plants against herbivory.
With an opposite leaf arrangement, two leaves arise from the stem at the same level (at the same node), on opposite sides of the stem. An opposite leaf pair can be thought of as a whorl of two leaves. With an alternate (spiral) pattern, each leaf arises at a different point (node) on the stem. Distichous leaf arrangement in Clivia
Besides the superposition of different plants growing on the same soil, there is a lateral impact of the higher layers on adjacent plant communities, for example, at the edges of forests and bushes. This particular vegetation structure results in the growth of certain vegetation types such as forest mantle and margin communities. [citation needed]
Guttation is the exudation of drops of xylem and phloem sap on the tips or edges of leaves of some vascular plants, such as grasses, and also a number of fungi. Ancient Latin gutta means "a drop of fluid", whence modern botany formed the word guttation to designate that a plant exudes drops of fluid onto the outer surface of the plant, when the ...