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Some vocabulary:
Adventitious: Structures or organs developing in an unusual position; e.g., roots originating from the
stem.
Angiosperm: A plant producing flowers and bearing ovules (seeds) in an ovary (fruit).
Anther: The expanded, apical, pollen bearing portion of the stamen.
Bract: A reduced leaf or leaf like structure at the base of a flower or inflorescences.
Bud: A young shoot from which leaves or flowers may develop.
Bulb: A short underground stem covered by thickened fleshy leaf bases; e.g., an onion.
Calyx: The outer circle or first whorl of floral parts; collective term for all the sepals of the flower.
Corolla: The collective name for all of the petals of a flower; inner perianth whorl.
Cotyledon: The leaves (one in monocots and two in dicots) of an embryo that emerge when the seed
germinates.
Deciduous: Falling off, as leaves from a tree in response to environmental changes; e.g., not evergreen.
Dioecious: Flowers imperfect, the staminate (male) and pistillate (female) flowers borne on different
plants.
Epidermis: The outermost cellular layer of a non-woody plant organ.
Filament: The stalk of the stamen which supports the anther.
Gymnosperm: Plants producing seeds which are not borne in an ovary (fruit), the seeds usually borne in
cones
Imperfect Flower: With either stamens or pistils, but not both; unisexual.
Incomplete Flower: Lacking an expected part or series of parts, as in a flower lacking one of the floral
whorls (i.e. sepals, petals, stamens, or pistils).
Inflorescence: The flowering part of a plant; a flower cluster; the arrangement of flowers on the flowering
axis.
Internode: The portion of a stem between two nodes.
Meristem: Undifferentiated, actively dividing tissue at the growing tips of shoots and roots.
Mesophyll: The central tissue of a leaf between the upper and lower epidermis.
Monocotyledon: Plants with a single seed leaf, or cotyledon.
Monoecious: Flowers imperfect, the staminate and pistillate flowers borne on the same plant.
Mycorrhiza: A symbiotic relationship between a fungus and the root of a plant.
Node: The position on the stem where leaves or branches originate.
Ovary: the expanded basal portion of the pistil that contains the ovules.
Rachis: The main axis of a structure, such as a compound leaf or an inflorescence.
Ripe: When a fruit is developed to the point of readiness for harvesting and eating.
Palmate: Lobed, veined, or divided from a common point, like the fingers of a hand.
Perennial: A plant that lives and produces seeds for three or more years.
Perfect Flower: Referring to a flower that possesses both male (stamens) and female (pistillate) organs.
Perianth: The calyx and corolla of a flower collectively, especially when they are similar in appearance.
Petiole: A leaf stalk.
Phenology: The timing of vegetative and reproductive events in plants and their relationships with abiotic
and biotic factors; e.g., flowering times in relationship with seasonal rainfall.
Pinnate: Resembling a feather; generally referring to the arrangement of veins along a midrib of a leaf
blade or to leaflets along a rachis in a way that resembles the structures of a feather.
Pistil: The female reproductive organ of a flower, typically consisting of a stigma, style, and ovary.
Seed: A ripened ovule.
Sepal: A segment of the calyx.
Stamens: The male reproductive organ of a flower, consisting of an anther and filament.
Stigma: The portion of the pistil which is receptive to pollen.
Stipule: One of a pair of leaf-like appendages found at the base of the petiole in some leaves.
Style: The usually narrowed portion of the pistil connecting the stigma to the ovary.
Tuber: A thickened portion of a rhizome bearing nodes and buds; underground stem modified for food
storage.
True Leaf: A foliage leaf of a plant, as opposed to a seed leaf of cotyledon; e.g., when seedlings sprout,
often there are two-sets of leaves that form first. A few days later a third and single leaf will emerge that
does not look like the first two. That is the first true leaf.
Plant Identification Terminology, James G. Harris, Melinda Woolf Harris, ISBN 0-9640221-6-8
http://sweetgum.nybg.org/glossary/index.php