Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae, a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Earth except glaciers. The world's richest diversity of orchid genera and species is found in the tropics.
Canna or canna lily is the only genus of flowering plants in the family Cannaceae, consisting of 10 species. All of the genus's species are native to the American tropics and naturalized in Europe, India and Africa in the 1860s. Although they grow native to the tropics, most cultivars have been developed in temperate climates and are easy to grow in most countries of the world, as long as they receive at least 6–8 hours average sunlight during the summer, and are moved to a warm location for the winter. See the Canna cultivar gallery for photographs of Canna cultivars.
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow horizontally. The rhizome also retains the ability to allow new shoots to grow upwards.
The pseudobulb is a storage organ found in many epiphytic and terrestrial sympodial orchids. It is derived from a thickening of the part of a stem between leaf nodes and may be composed of just one internode or several, termed heteroblastic and homoblastic respectively. All leaves and inflorescences usually arise from this structure. Pseudobulbs formed from a single internode produce the leaves and inflorescence from the top, while those that are formed from several internodes can possess leaves along its length. The modified sheath leaves that appear at the base of a pseudobulb and often enfold all or part of it are usually dry and papery, though in some orchids the sheaths bear leaf blades and the leaves at the pseudobulb's apex are reduced to scales.
Cypripedium is a genus of 58 species and nothospecies of hardy orchids; it is one of five genera that together compose the subfamily of lady's slipper orchids (Cypripedioideae). They are widespread across much of the Northern Hemisphere, including most of Europe and Africa (Algeria), Russia, China, Central Asia, Canada the United States, Mexico, and Central America. They are most commonly known as slipper orchids, lady's slipper orchids, or ladyslippers; other common names include moccasin flower, camel's foot, squirrel foot, steeple cap, Venus' shoes, and whippoorwill shoe. An abbreviation used in trade journals is "Cyp." The genus name is derived from Ancient Greek Κύπρις (Kúpris), an early reference in Greek myth to Aphrodite, and πέδιλον (pédilon), meaning "sandal".
Vegetative reproduction is a form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment or cutting of the parent plant or specialized reproductive structures, which are sometimes called vegetative propagules.
Aerides, known commonly as cat's-tail orchids and fox brush orchids, is a genus belonging to the orchid family. It is a group of tropical epiphyte orchids that grow mainly in the warm lowlands of tropical Asia from India to southern China to New Guinea. They are valued in horticulture for their racemes of showy, fragrant, colorful flowers.
Phalaenopsis, also known as moth orchids, is a genus of about seventy species of plants in the family Orchidaceae. Orchids in this genus are monopodial epiphytes or lithophytes with long, coarse roots, short, leafy stems and long-lasting, flat flowers arranged in a flowering stem that often branches near the end. Orchids in this genus are native to India, Taiwan, China, Southeast Asia, New Guinea and Australia with the majority in Indonesia and the Philippines.
In horticulture, the term is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than two years. The term is also loosely used to distinguish plants with little or no woody growth from trees and shrubs, which are also technically perennials. Notably, it is estimated that 94% of plant species fall under the category of perennials, underscoring the prevalence of plants with lifespans exceeding two years in the botanical world.
Sympodial growth is a bifurcating branching pattern where one branch develops more strongly than the other, resulting in the stronger branches forming the primary shoot and the weaker branches appearing laterally. A sympodium, also referred to as a sympode or pseudaxis, is the primary shoot, comprising the stronger branches, formed during sympodial growth. The pattern is similar to dichotomous branching; it is characterized by branching along stems or hyphae.
Aeranthes, abbreviated Aerth in the horticultural trade, is an orchid genus with 47 species, mostly from shady, tropical humid forests in Zimbabwe, Madagascar and islands in the Western Indian Ocean. The name "aeranthes" means 'aerial flower', because it grows high in the air.
In biology, stolons, also known as runners, are horizontal connections between parts of an organism. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton. Typically, animal stolons are exoskeletons.
Elymus repens, commonly known as couch grass, is a very common perennial species of grass native to most of Europe, Asia, the Arctic, and northwest Africa. It has been brought into other mild northern climates for forage or erosion control, but is often considered a weed.
Plant reproduction is the production of new offspring in plants, which can be accomplished by sexual or asexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction produces offspring by the fusion of gametes, resulting in offspring genetically different from either parent. Asexual reproduction produces new individuals without the fusion of gametes, resulting in clonal plants that are genetically identical to the parent plant and each other, unless mutations occur.
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.
Corymborkis, commonly known as cinnamon orchids, or 管花兰属 is a genus of eight species of orchids in the family Orchidaceae. They are evergreen, terrestrial plants which grow in clumps and have thin roots, leafy stems, pleated leaves and widely-opening flowers with thin, spreading sepals and petals. They are widely distributed in the tropics.
A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant, the other being the root. It supports leaves, flowers and fruits, transports water and dissolved substances between the roots and the shoots in the xylem and phloem, engages in photosynthesis, stores nutrients, and produces new living tissue. The stem can also be called the culm, halm, haulm, or thyrsus.
Cypripedium reginae, known as the showy lady's slipper, pink-and-white lady's-slipper, or the queen's lady's-slipper, is a rare lady's-slipper orchid native to northern North America. Although never common, this plant has vanished from much of its historical range due to habitat loss. It is the state flower of Minnesota.
Plectorrhiza, commonly known as tangle orchids, is a genus of three species of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae and is endemic to Australia. Orchids in the genus Plectorrhiza are epiphytic or lithophytic herbs with short stems, long, tangled roots, short leathery leaves and small flowers on a short, thin flowering stem. Two species occur in eastern Australia and one is endemic to Lord Howe Island.
Trachoma, commonly known as spectral orchids, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Orchidaceae. Orchids in this genus are epiphytic plants with leafy stems, crowded, leathery leaves arranged in two ranks and a large number of relatively small, short-lived flowers that often open in successive clusters. The sepals and petals are free from and more or less similar to each other, except that the petals are often smaller. The labellum is rigidly fixed to the column and is more or less sac-shaped. There are about 17 species distributed from Assam to the Western Pacific Ocean. Most species grow in rainforests, often on emergent trees such as hoop pine.
