Petals are modified leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often brightly coloured or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the corolla. Petals are usually accompanied by another set of modified leaves called sepals, that collectively form the calyx and lie just beneath the corolla. The calyx and the corolla together make up the perianth, the non-reproductive portion of a flower. When the petals and sepals of a flower are difficult to distinguish, they are collectively called tepals. Examples of plants in which the term tepal is appropriate include genera such as Aloe and Tulipa. Conversely, genera such as Rosa and Phaseolus have well-distinguished sepals and petals. When the undifferentiated tepals resemble petals, they are referred to as "petaloid", as in petaloid monocots, orders of monocots with brightly coloured tepals. Since they include Liliales, an alternative name is lilioid monocots.
The stamen is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium.
A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms. Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom.
Augustin Pyramusde Candolle was a Swiss botanist. René Louiche Desfontaines launched de Candolle's botanical career by recommending him at a herbarium. Within a couple of years de Candolle had established a new genus, and he went on to document hundreds of plant families and create a new natural plant classification system. Although de Candolle's main focus was botany, he also contributed to related fields such as phytogeography, agronomy, paleontology, medical botany, and economic botany.
Commonly known as hellebores, the Eurasian genus Helleborus consists of approximately 20 species of herbaceous or evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave its name to the tribe of Helleboreae. Many hellebore species are poisonous.
The perianth is the non-reproductive part of the flower, and structure that forms an envelope surrounding the sexual organs, consisting of the calyx (sepals) and the corolla (petals) or tepals when called a perigone. The term perianth is derived from Greek περί and άνθος, while perigonium is derived from περί and γόνος . In the mosses and liverworts (Marchantiophyta), the perianth is the sterile tubelike tissue that surrounds the female reproductive structure.
A spikelet, in botany, describes the typical arrangement of the inflorescences of grasses, sedges and some other monocots.
Agonis is a genus of flowering plants in the plant family Myrtaceae. All are endemic to Western Australia, growing near the coast in the south west. Plants in the genus Agonis are shrubs or trees with bisexual flowers arranged in heads in leaf axils with 5 sepals and usually 5 white petals, each with 15 to 30 stamens arranged opposite the sepals, and the fruit a woody capsule.
The ABC model of flower development is a scientific model of the process by which flowering plants produce a pattern of gene expression in meristems that leads to the appearance of an organ oriented towards sexual reproduction, a flower. There are three physiological developments that must occur in order for this to take place: firstly, the plant must pass from sexual immaturity into a sexually mature state ; secondly, the transformation of the apical meristem's function from a vegetative meristem into a floral meristem or inflorescence; and finally the growth of the flower's individual organs. The latter phase has been modelled using the ABC model, which aims to describe the biological basis of the process from the perspective of molecular and developmental genetics.
This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary of leaf morphology. For other related terms, see Glossary of phytopathology, Glossary of lichen terms, and List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names.
Hibbertia sericea, commonly known as silky guinea-flower, is a species of flowering plant in the family Dilleniaceae and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It is an erect or spreading shrub with softly-hairy branches, elliptic to egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, and yellow flowers with eight to fourteen stamens in a cluster on one side of two hairy carpels.
A floral diagram is a graphic representation of the structure of a flower. It shows the number of floral organs, their arrangement and fusion. Different parts of the flower are represented by their respective symbols. Floral diagrams are useful for flower identification or can help in understanding angiosperm evolution. They were introduced in the late 19th century and are generally attributed to A. W. Eichler.
A cyclic flower is a flower type formed out of a series of whorls; sets of identical organs attached around the axis at the same point. Most flowers consist of a single whorl of sepals termed a calyx; a single whorl of petals termed a corolla; one or more whorls of stamens ; and a single whorl of carpels termed the gynoecium. This is a cyclic arrangement.
Calyciflorae is a grouping of plants that is no longer used by botanists. Augustin Pyramus de Candolle defined it as a subclass within the class Dicotyledoneae. It overlapped largely with the modern Rosids group. The group Calyciflorae was defined as:
Lilioid monocots is an informal name used for a grade of five monocot orders in which the majority of species have flowers with relatively large, coloured tepals. This characteristic is similar to that found in lilies ("lily-like"). Petaloid monocots refers to the flowers having tepals which all resemble petals (petaloid). The taxonomic terms Lilianae or Liliiflorae have also been applied to this assemblage at various times. From the early nineteenth century many of the species in this group of plants were put into a very broadly defined family, Liliaceae sensu lato or s.l.. These classification systems are still found in many books and other sources. Within the monocots the Liliaceae s.l. were distinguished from the Glumaceae.
Mirbelia speciosa is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is an erect shrub with narrowly linear leaves arranged in whorls of three, and bluish-purple flowers usually arranged singly in leaf axils.
A floral formula is a notation for representing the structure of particular types of flowers. Such notations use numbers, letters and various symbols to convey significant information in a compact form. They may represent the floral form of a particular species, or may be generalized to characterize higher taxa, usually giving ranges of numbers of organs. Floral formulae are one of the two ways of describing flower structure developed during the 19th century, the other being floral diagrams. The format of floral formulae differs according to the tastes of particular authors and periods, yet they tend to convey the same information.
Styphelia coelophylla is a plant in the family Ericaceae endemic to the south west of Western Australia. It is an erect, bushy shrub with egg-shaped to lance-shaped leaves and tube-shaped flowers.
In botany, floral morphology is the study of the diversity of forms and structures presented by the flower, which, by definition, is a branch of limited growth that bears the modified leaves responsible for reproduction and protection of the gametes, called floral pieces.
Leucopogon pimeleoides is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is a shrub with narrowly egg-shaped leaves and spikes of white, bearded flowers.
