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GLOSSARY:
Agriculture: Farming or husbandry; cultivation of animals,
plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, biofuel and other
products used to sustain life.
Annual: A plant that germinates from seed grows to maturity and
produces new seed all within one year or growing season; usually
herbaceous; short life cycle duration. e.g. Capsella.
Biennial: A plant that normally requires two seasons to complete
its life cycle, growing usually as a rosette in the first season and
producing flowers and fruits and then dying in the second season.
Bolting: An unusual lengthening of plant stems, due to elongation
of cells, which is induced by a group of plant hormones called
gibberellins, producing a stem with long internodes.
Carbohydrate: General term for sugars and related compounds
containing carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, usually with the empirical
formula (CH2O)n.
Carpel: One of the individual female reproductive organs in a
flower. A carpel is usually composed of an ovary, a style, and a
stigma. In origin, carpels are leaves (megasporophylls) that have
evolved to enclose the ovules. The term pistil is sometimes used
to refer to a single carpel or to several carpels fused together.
DNA: Short for deoxyribonucleic acid; a nucleic acid that carries
the genetic information in the cell and is capable of self-replication
and synthesis of RNA. DNA consists of two long chains of nucleotides
twisted into a double helix and joined by hydrogen bonds between
the complementary bases adenine and thymine or cytosine and
guanine. The sequence of nucleotides determines individual
hereditary characteristics.
Ethylene: A gaseous plant hormone that inhibits elongation
in most growing tissues and promotes leaf abscission and fruit
ripening and other physiological responses in some plants. Plant
cells produce ethylene from the amino acid methionine; also known
as ethene.
Florigen: A hypothetical flowering hormone, that may be induced
in leaves and moves to the bud to stimulate flowering; florigen
has never been identified or isolated.
Flower: The reproductive structure of some seed bearing plants
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(angiosperms), characteristically having either specialized male or
female organs or both male and female organs, such as stamens
and a pistil, enclosed in an outer envelope of petals and sepals;
such a structure having showy or colorful parts; a blossom.
Flowering: Processes leading to production a flower or flowers.
Fruit: The ripened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant,
together with accessory parts, containing the seeds and occurring
in a wide variety of forms; an edible, usually sweet and fleshy
form of such a structure.
Gene: The basic unit of heredity; a sequence of DNA nucleotides
on a chromosome that codes for a polypeptide or RNA molecule
and thus determines of an individual’s inherited traits; the coding
region of DNA that determines a protein product.
Gibberellin: A type of plant hormone, produced in the apical
regions of shoots and roots; controls stem elongation and seed
germination.
Growth: An increase in the size of an organism or part of an
organism, usually as a result of an increase in the number of
cells; the process of growing; full development; maturity; a stage
of development.
Homeotic genes: Genes that determine which parts of the body
form what body parts; genes involved in developmental patterns;
genes that are involved in embryologic development. e.g. homeotic
genes that control floral organ identity in angiosperms.
Hormone: A substance, usually a peptide or steroid, produced by
one tissue and conveyed by the bloodstream to another to affect
physiological activity, such as growth or metabolism; a synthetic
compound that acts like a hormone in the body; any of various
similar substances found in plants and insects that regulate
development.
Imbibition: The adsorption of water onto the internal surfaces of
materials; one of the methods by which root hair and other plant
parts obtain water.
Meristem: A zone of unspecialized, dividing cells whose derivatives
give rise to other tissues and organs of a flowering plant. Key
examples are the root apical meristem and shoot apical meristem.
Monocarpic: Plants flowering and bearing fruit only once.
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Perennial: A plant continuing to live from year to year; one that
lives more than two years.
Petal: One of the often brightly colored parts of a flower immediately
surrounding the reproductive organs; a division of the corolla.
Photoreceptor: A nerve ending, cell, or group of cells specialized
to sense or receive light. e.g. phytochrome, a red-light receptor,
that controls photomorphogenesis in plants.
Physiology: The study of the function of the cells, tissues and
organs.
Phytochrome: A group of blue-green, photoreceptive,
proteinaceous pigments produced in plants and involved in
phenomenon such as photoperiodism, the germination of seeds,
and leaf formation.
Pollinator: an insect that carries pollen from one flower to another
during cross pollination.
Reproduction: The act of reproducing or the condition or process
of being reproduced; the sexual or asexual process by which
organisms generate new individuals of the same kind; procreation.
Scion: A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody
plant, used in grafting.
Seed: A structure that develops from the mature ovule of a seed
plant; contains an embryo and stored food enclosed by protective
seed coats(s); a reproduction and dispersal unit of plant.
Sepal: One of the separate, usually green parts forming the calyx
of a flower.
Stamen: The pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower,
usually consisting of a filament and an anther.
Stimulus: Something causing or regarded as causing a response;
agent, action, or condition that elicits or accelerates a physiological
or psychological activity or response; something that incites or
rouses to action; an incentive.
Tissue: A group of cells organized into a structural and functional
unit such as muscle and xylem; simple tissues are made up of
similar cells, and complex tissues of different kinds of cells.
Vegetative: Denoting the non-reproductive parts of a plant, i.e.
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the stems, leaves, and roots, or growth that does not involve the
reproductive parts; of, relating to, or capable of growth; of, relating
to, or functioning in processes such as growth or nutrition rather
than sexual reproduction; or relating to asexual reproduction,
such as fission or budding.
Vernalization: Subjection of seeds or seedlings to low
temperature in order to hasten plant development and flowering;
vernalization is commonly used for crop plants such as winter
rye and is possible because the seeds and buds of many plants
require cold in order to break dormancy.