Glossary of Botanical Terms

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Palate. The projection from the lower lip of two-lipped personate corollas.
Palet. A bract-like organ enclosing or subtending the flower in brasses.
Palmate. Diverging radiately like the fingers.
Pandurate ; Pandiriform. Fiddle-shaped.
Panicle. A compound flower cluster of the racemose type, or cluster of sporanges.
Paniculate. Borne in panicles or resembling a panicle.
Papilionaceous. term applied to the irregular flower of the Pea family.
Papillose. With minute blunt projections.
Pappus. The bristles, awns, teeth, etc., surrounding the achene in the Chicory and Thistle families.
Parasitic. Growing upon other plants and absorbing their juices.
Parietal. Borne along the wall of the ovary, or pertaining to it.
Parted. Deeply cleft.
Pectinate. Comb-like.
Pedicel. The stalk of a flower in a flower-cluster, or of a sporange.
Peduncle. Stalk of a flower, or a flower-cluster, or a sporocarp.
Pedunculate. With a peduncle.
Peltate. Shield-shaped ; a flat organ with a stalk on its lower surface.
Penicillate. With a tuft of hairs or hair-like branches.
Perfect. Flowers with both stamens and pistils.
Perfoliate. Leavs so clasping thes stem as to appear as if pierced by it.
Perianth. the modified flora leaves (sepals or petals), regarded collectively.
Pericarp. The wal of the fruit, or seed-vessel.
Perigynium. The utricle enclosing the ovary or achene in the genus Carex.
Perigynous. Borne on th perianth, around the ovary.
Peripheral. Pertaining to the periphery.
Persistent. Organs remaining attached to those bearing them aftger the growing period.
Petal. One of the leaves of the corolla.
Petaloid. Similar to petals ; petal-like.
Petiolate. With a petiole.
Petiole. The stalk of the leaf.
Phyllode. A bladeless pettiole or rachis.
Phyllopodic. In Carex, with lower leaves of the fertile culms normally blade-bearing.
Pilose. With long soft hairs.
Pinna. A primary division of a pinnately compound leaf.
Pinnate. Leaves divided into leaflets or segments along a common axis.
Pinnatifid. Pinnately cleft to the middle or beyond.
Pinnule. A division of a pinna.
Pistil. the central organ of a flower containing the macrosporanges (ovules).
Pistillate. with pistils ; and usually employed in the sense of without stamens.
Placenta. An ovule-bearing surface.
Plicate. Folded into plaits, like a fan.
Plumose. Resembling a fan or feather.
Plumule. The rudimentary terminal bud of the embryo.
Pollen. Pollen-grain. Contents of the anther. See Microspore.
Pollinia. The pollen-masses of the Orchid and Milkweed Families.
Polygamous. Bearing both perfect and imperfect flowers.
Polypetalous. With separate petals.
Pome. The fleshy fruit of the Apple Family.
Procumbent. Training or lying on the ground.
Prophylla. Bractlets.
Prothallium, [plural: Prothalla] the sexual generation of Pteridophyta.
Puberulent. With very short hairs.
Pubescent. With hairs.
Punctate. With transluscent dots or pits.
Pungent. With a sharp stiff tip.
Pyriform. Pear-shaped.

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Volume 1, page xx: Nathanie1 L. Britton amd Addison Lord Brown, An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States,Canada, and the British Possessions from Newfoundland to the Parallel of the Southern Boundary of Virginia, and from the Atlantic Ocean Westward to the 102d Meridian, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913

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