Palate:- A projecting area close to the mouth of a flower.
Palea:- Upper of two bracts enclosing the flower - in grasses.
Palmate:- Hand-like. a leaf resembling an open hand; having lobes radiating
from a common point.
Palmately veined:- When the main veins of a leaf originate a one point and
spread from there
Palmatifid:- More or less hand-shaped, with the lobes of the leaf extending
about half-way to the base.
Palmatisect:- More or less hand-shaped, with the lobes of the leaf extending
almost to the base.
Pandurate:- Fiddle-shaped, oblong to elliptic but constricted at the mid-point.
Panicle:- A branched racemose inflorescence.
Paniculate:- With the inflorescence a panicle.
Pantoporate:- With round apertures distributed more or less regularly over
the surface of the grain.
Papillae:- Small nipple-like projections.
Papillose:- Covered with papillae. covered with small nipple-like projections.
Pappus:- Thistle-down - tufts of hairs on achenes and fruits.
Parallel:- (of veins) All running in the same direction at fairly close intervals.
Parasite:- A plant that gains all its sustenance from another plant (the host).
True parasitic plants have no chlorophyll.
Partite:- Cleft or divided, but not quite to the base
Patent:- Spreading.
Patent-pilose:- With soft spreading hairs
Patent-puberulent:- With minute spreading hairs.
Paripinnate:- Evenly pinnate, terminated by a pair of opposite leaflets
Pectinate:- Comb-like, with very close, narrow and parallel divisions
Pedate:- Foot-like, with lobes broadest in the. upper half.
Pedicel:- The stalk of an individual flower. individual flower stalk
Pedicellate:- Of flowers, stalked
Peduncle:- Stalk of an inflorescence or partial inflorescence.
Pedunculate:- Stalked, having a stalk.
Pellucid:- Translucent, transparent, clear,
Peltate:- Round and attached at or near the centre. (e.g. of a leaf with the
petiole attached to the blade not by the margin).
Pelviform:- Basin-shaped
Pendent:- Hanging down; dangling; suspended
Penicillate:- Having, forming, or resembling a small tuft or tufts of hair.
Penninerved:- With the veins in a pinnate pattern, i.e. branching off from the
midrib at an angle at intervals.
Perennial:- A plant living for a number of years (often long-lived). Herbaceous
perennials die down to ground level each season, producing new shoots each
year.
Perianth:- A collective word for all the floral leaves - petals and sepals when
both are present. Often used when the organs cannot be easily. separated.
Perianth-segment:- A single component of the perianth i.e. petal or sepal.
Pericarp:- The fruit wall that has developed from the ovary wall
Perigynous:- When the sepals, petals and stamens are carried up around the
ovary on a hypanthium
Petal:- The inner perianth segments when they clearly differ from the outer -
often brightly coloured.
Petaloid:- Brightly coloured and resembling a petal.
Petiolate:- Having a leaf stalk.
Petiole:- The leaf-stalk.
Petiolulate:- Supported by its own petiolule.
Phyllary:- Also known an involucral bract or tegule, is a single bract of the
involucre of a composite flower. The involucre is the grouping of bracts
together. Phyllaries are reduced leaf-like structures that form one or more
whorls immediately below a flower head.
Phyllodes:- Modified and flattened green leaf-stalks (petioles), which function
as leaves.
Phrygana/Garrigue:- Open dry shrubby vegetation of dry Mediterranean
regions, consisting of spiny or aromatic dwarf shrubs interspersed with
colourful ephemeral species
Pilose:- Hairy with short thin hairs, softly hairy.
Pinna, Pinnae:- (particularly used in ferns) Leaflet of a pinnate leaf, or first
division of a pinnate leaf where this division is itself divided into leaflets
Pinnate:- A leaf composed of more than three leaflets arranged in two rows
along a common axis, with or without an end leaflet. composed of multiple
leaflets
Pinnately-lobed:- A leaf that is lobed in a pinnate fashion, lobed but not
separated into distinct leaflets.
Pinnatifid:- divided into lobes which extend from about a quarter to half-way
towards the midrib
Pinnatipartite:- Pinnately divided, the divisions extending from about half to
two-thirds of the way towards the rachis.
Pinnatisect:- Pinnately divided, the divisions extending almost to the rachis.
A leaf divided into more than three leaflets or lobes, deeply divided into
multiple lobes the divisions extending almost to the midrib.
Plano-convex:- Flat on one side, convex on the other
Plicate:- With parallel folds, pleated
Plumose:- Softly feathered
Pod:- A fruit formed from a single carpel, dry and splitting - as in a pea pod.
Pollen:- Tiny particles produced by the anthers and containing the male
gametes - Often called pollen grams.
Pollinia:- Pollen grains aggregated into regular masses - refers to orchids.
Polyploid:- Having a multiple greater than two of the basic chromosome
number.
Porrect:- Pointing upwards at a slight angle from the vertical
Pouch:- A pocket or sac at the base of a corolla or petal, often housing a
nectary or several nectaries.
Prickle:- A sharp point, often hooked, developed from the outer tissues of
stems, or sometimes leaves.
Praemorse:- The same as truncate, except that the termination is ragged and
irregular, as if bitten off.
Procumbent:- Trailing along the ground but not rooting.
Prostrate:- Lying close to and along the ground.
Pruinose:- Covered with a waxy frost-like powder or bloom, as on a plum
Pseudoterminal:- Appearing to be terminal, but actually lateral when closely
examined.
Puberulent:- Minutely pubescent, the hairs hardly visible to the naked eye.
minutely hairy
Pubescent:- Covered with fine short soft hairs, downy.
Pulvinate:- A cushion-like swelling
Pungent:- Sharply aromatic. Terminating gradually in a hard sharp point.
Punctate:- Dotted, marked with dots or translucent glands
Punctiform:- Shaped like a point or dot
Pyrene:- (of the fruit) The stone of the fruit fruits stone
Pyriform:- Shaped like a pear, pear-shaped
Quadrangular:- With four angles.