Garden Glossary

Divisions of the plant kingdom

Phylum - A primary division of a kingdom, as of the plant kingdom, ranking next above a class in size.

Class - A taxonomic category ranking below a phylum or division and above an order.

Order - A taxonomic category of organisms ranking above a family and below a class.

Family - A taxonomic category of related organisms ranking below an order and above a genus. A family usually consists of several genera.

Genus / Genera - A taxonomic category ranking below a family and above a species and generally consisting of a group of species exhibiting similar characteristics. In taxonomic nomenclature the genus name is used, either alone or followed by a Latin adjective or epithet, to form the name of a species.

Species - A fundamental category of taxonomic classification, ranking below a genus or subgenus and consisting of related organisms capable of interbreeding.

Lexicon

Annual - A plant that completes its entire life cycle in a single growing season.

Bromeliads - The single family of the flowering plant order Bromeliales. A family of tropical American plants of order Xyridales which includes the pineapple.

Conifers - Any of various mostly needle-leaved or scale-leaved, chiefly evergreen, cone-bearing gymnospermous trees or shrubs such as pines, spruces, and firs.

Cycads - Any of various palmlike gymnospermous cone-bearing evergreen plants of the division Cycadophyta, native to warm regions and having large pinnately compound leaves.

Deciduous - Shedding or losing foliage at the end of the growing season.

Perennial - A plant that lives three or more years.

Propagation - The process of spreading to a larger area or greater number. The deliberate, directed reproduction of plants using seeds or spores.

Tuber - A swollen, fleshy, usually underground stem of a plant, such as the potato, bearing buds from which new plant shoots arise.

Trees

Alternate - Leaves that are staggered or not placed directly across from each other on the twig.

Blade - The flat part of a leaf or leaflet, characteristic of broadleaf trees.

Bract - A modified leaf that bears a flower.

Broadleaf - A tree with leaves that are flat and thin, and generally shed annually.

Bud Scar - The marks remaining after bud scales drop in Spring.

Compound Leaf - A leaf with more than one blade. All blades are attached to a single leafstem. Where the leafstem attaches to the twig there is a bud.

Conifer - A cone-bearing tree.

Deciduous - Shedding all leaves annually.

Drupe - A fruit with an outer skin, a succulent middle, and a hard inner shell enclosing a single seed.

Entire - A leaf margin with smooth, untoothed edges.

Evergreen - Trees with needles or leaves that remain alive and on the tree through the winter and into the next growing season.

Leaf Scar - A mark left on a twig where a leaf was previously attached.

Lobes - Projections that shape a leaf.

Margin - The edge of a leaf.

Midrib - The primary rib or central vein of a leaf.

Opposite - Two or three leaves that are directly across from each other on the same twig.

Palmate - Arranged like fingers on a hand.

Persistent - Deciduous leaf blades that remain on the tree for more than one year.

Petiole - The leafstalk that connects the blade to the twig.

Pinnate - Arranged like the vanes of a feather.

Samara - A winged fruit.

Simple Leaf - A single leaf blade with a bud at the base of the leafstem.

Sinus - Indentation between lobes on a leaf.

Spurs - Stubby, often sharp twigs.

Teeth - Notches on the outer edge of a leaf.



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