page_title: Glossary of plant morphology
section_title: Other
hierarchical_section_title: Glossary of plant morphology / Plant structures / Floral morphology / Basic flower parts / Other
caption_attribution_description: English: Bracts, Taraxacum officinale
context_page_description: This page provides a glossary of plant morphology. Botanists and other biologists who study plant morphology use a number of different terms to classify and identify plant organs and parts that can be observed using no more than a handheld magnifying lens. This page provides help in understanding the numerous other pages describing plants by their various taxa. The accompanying page—Plant morphology—provides an overview of the science of the external form of plants. There is also an alphabetical list: Glossary of botanical terms. In contrast, this page deals with botanical terms in a systematic manner, with some illustrations, and organized by plant anatomy and function in plant physiology.
  This glossary primarily includes terms that deal with vascular plants, particularly flowering plants. Non-vascular plants, with their different evolutionary background, tend to have separate terminology. Although plant morphology is integrated with plant anatomy, the former became the basis of the taxonomic description of plants that exists today, due to the few tools required to observe.
  Many of these terms date back to the earliest herbalists and botanists, including Theophrastus.
context_section_description: Acephalous – without a head, used to describe a flower style without a well-developed stigma.
  Bract – the leaf- or scale-like appendages that are located just below a flower, a flower stalk, or an inflorescence; they usually are reduced in size and sometimes showily or brightly colored.
  Calyx – the whorl of sepals at the base of a flower, the outer whorl of the perianth.
  Carpel – the ovule-producing reproductive organ of a flower, consisting of the stigma, style, and ovary.
  Claw – a noticeably narrowed or attenuated organ base, typically a petal; e.g. Viola.
  Connate – when the same parts of a flower are fused to each other, petals in a gamopetalous flower; e.g. Petunia.
  Corolla – the whorl of petals of a flower.
  Corona – an additional structure between the petals and the stamens.
  Disk – an enlargement or outgrowth from the receptacle of the flower, located at the center of the flowers of various plants. The term is also used for the central area of the head in composites where tubular flowers are attached.
  Epicalyx – a series of bracts below the calyx.
  Floral axis –
  Floral envelope – the perianth
  Flower –
  Fruit – a structure containing all the seeds produced by a single flower.
  Hypanthium –
  Nectar – a fluid produced by nectaries that is high in sugar content; used to attract pollinators.
  Nectary – a gland that secrets nectar, most often found in flowers, but also produced on other parts of plants.
  Nectar disk – when the floral disk contains nectar secreting glands; often modified as its main function in some flowers.
  Pedicel – the stem or stalk that holds a single flower in an inflorescence.
  Peduncle – the part of a stem that bears the entire inflorescence, normally having no leaves, or the leaves having been reduced to bracts. When the flower is solitary, it is the stem or stalk holding the flower.
  Peduncular – referring to or having a peduncle.
  Pedunculate – having a peduncle.
  Perianth –
  Achlamydeous – without a perianth.
  Petal –
  Rachis –
  Receptacle – the end of the pedicel that joins to the flower were the different parts of the flower are joined together; also called the torus. In Asteraceae, the top of the pedicel upon which the flowers are joined.
  Seed –
  Sepal –
  Antipetalous – when the stamens number the same as, and are arranged opposite, the corolla segments; e.g. Primula.
  Antisepalouse – when the stamens number the same as, and are arranged opposite, the calyx segments.
  Connective – the part of the stamen joining the anther cells.
  Tepal –
caption: Bracts, Taraxacum officinale
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