Botanical Nerd Word: Imbibition
Imbibition: The adsorption of liquid, usually water, into the ultramicroscopic spaces or pores found in materials such as cellulose, pectin, and cytoplasmic proteins in seeds.* When you put dry seeds …
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Botanical Nerd Word: Trifoliate
Trifoliate: With three leaves or three leaflets.* Strawberry leaves are each composed of 3 leaflets. *Harris, J.G., Harris, M.W. (2001). Plant identification terminology: An illustrated glossary (2nd ed.). Spring Lake: …
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Botanical Nerd Word: Reniform
Reniform: Shaped like a kidney* Garlic mustard overwinters as a small plant and then gets an early start in spring. The young leaves are reniform. Now is a great time …
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Botanical Nerd Word: Rimose
Rimose: With fissures or cracks, as in the bark of some trees.* *Harris, J.G., Harris, M.W. (2001). Plant identification terminology: An illustrated glossary (2nd ed.). Spring Lake: Spring Lake Publishing.
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Botanical Nerd Word: Helophyte
Helophyte: A plant, typical of marshy or lake-edge environments, in which the perennating organ lies in the soil or mud below the water level, but the aerial shoots protrude above …
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Botanical Nerd Word: Inosculation
Inosculation: Fusing together of woody stems where they come in contact with each other; this can happen within one individual or between two or more individuals.* The braided stems of …
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Botanical Nerd Word: Plicate
Plicate: Pleated or folded, as a folding fan.* Many palm leaves are plicate, folded longitudinally with distinct ridges. *Harris, J.G., Harris, M.W. (2001). Plant identification terminology: An illustrated glossary (2nd ed.). …
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Botanical Nerd Word: Microclimate
Microclimate: The atmospheric characteristics prevailing within a small space, usually in the layer near the ground that is affected by the ground surface.* The sheltered corner of our Westview Terrace faces …
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Botanical Nerd Word: Excurrent branching
Excurrent branching: Tree growth in which the main axis continues to the top of the tree from which smaller, lateral branches arise (as in conifers).* *Burns, Russell M. and Barbara H. …
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Botanical Nerd Word: Deliquescent branching
Deliquescent branching: A mode of branching in trees in which the trunk divides into many branches leaving no central axis, as in elms.* Many deciduous trees have deliquescent branching patterns. *Burns, …
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