N
- Naturalise
- Plant in grass or a natural, non-garden setting e.g wild-flower meadows, narcissi in grass etc.
- Node
- The point on a stem where leaves or stems arise.
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O
- 'Ob..'
- Prefix which means 'inverted', as in obovate with the broadest parts above the middle rather than below
- Opposite
- Buds, shoots or leaves that are opposite each other on a branch or stem.
- Organic matter
- Vegetative material or animal manure, usually used on compost making or mulches
- Ornamentals
- Plants grown for their ornamental value rather than as a food crop, shelter or commercially
- Ovate
- Egg shaped, roughly two times as long as broad, widest below the middle and tapering to a pointed tip
- Ovoid
- Solid, egg haped object
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P
- Palmate
- Hand shaped, often with fingers or lobes as in pseudopanx lessonii or many acer
- Panicle
- Branched flower cluster of racemes or corymbs
- Pedate
- Shaped or lobed, e.g. like a fork
- Pedicel
- Stalk of a flower in an infloresence
- Perennial
- Plant which lives for several growing seasons
- Petaloid
- Petal like
- Petiole
- Leaf stalk
- pH
- Literally 'the potential of Hydrogen' or a measure of soil alkalinity/acidity
- Photosynthesis
- The process in plants of absorbing light to form food
- Pinch back
- Remove or 'prune' the soft growth at the end of a stem with one's fingers
- Pinnate
- Compound leaves with opposite pairs of separate leaflets, typically as in fraxinus ssp
- Pith
- Cylindrical central region of young stems, often soft
- Pleaching
- Training plants by bending and interlacing their shoots
- Pollard
- Regular pruning back of to the trunk or central stem of a tree or shrub
- Pollination
- Pollen transfer from anther to stigma
- Polyploid
- Has 3 or more sets of chromosones per cell
- Prostrate
- Plant which grows flat on the ground
- Pseud...
- False, usually as par of a botanical name
- Pseudobulb
- Swollen stem, storing food and water, of orchids and which appear bulb-like
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Q
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R
- Raceme
- Infloresence where the flowers are carried on a central stem, each with a separate, short stem, e.g. hebe albicans
- Radicle
- Embryonic root tip
- Recurrent
- Flowering more than once in each growing season. (See also remontant)
- Remontant
- Flowering more than once in each growing season. (See also recurrent)
- Rhizome
- Horizontal underground stem e.g. bearded iris
- Ring Bark
- Removal of a a ring of bark from the trunk of a tree, usually resulting in the death of the tree
- Rootstock
- Vigorous plant used to provide the plant root system in grafting
- Runner
- Horizontal stem growing above the ground and which can form roots at the nodes and tips
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S
- Scandent
-
- Scion
- The section of a plant inserted into a rootstock when grafting
- Sepal
- One of the outer perianth segments, sometimes similar to a petal (e.g. tulips) but often green and leaf like
- Sessile
- With out a stalk
- Slip
- A section of a stem or piece of a plant used to propagate a new plant. Can be stem cutting, root cutting, tip cutting. Sometimes called a 'slip'. See Cutting
- Snag
- Small stump left after incorrect pruning
- Spadix
- 'Flower' with a central stem carrying fleshy flowers, eg arum
- Spathulate
- Spatula or spoon shaped
- Spathe
- Protective bract, often hood like, surrounding the flowers e.g. arum
- Species
- A group of plants with very similar characteristics; and, a plant originally found in the wild and not the result of hybridisation or plant breeding by horticulturalists
- Spore
- Reproductive cell that grows directly into a new plant
- Sport
- A naturally occurring, spontaneous genetic change in a plant
- Spur
- A short branch system, usually carrying flower clusters
- Stamen
- The male part of a flower
- Standard
- A plant or tree with a clear length of stem or trunk below the branches. Climbers can also be grown as standards. (Half-standards have approx 1 m. of clear stem, full standards 1.5-2.0m.)
- Stigma
- The flower part that receives the pollen
- Stolon
- A horizontally spreading stem, with roots at its tip
- Stomata
- Pores in the epidermis of a leaf
- Stop
- See pinch back
- Style
- Narrow part of the pistil carrying the stigma
- Sublateral
- A side shoot which grows from a lateral shoot
- Sucker
- A shoot which grows from a root system (sometimes another shoot) either below or at ground level. Suckers can be from the rootstock of a grafted plant.
- Synonym or Syn.
- Literally, the same as
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T
- Tap Root
- A deep, largely un-branched root which stores food
- Tendril
- Stem or leaf modified for climbing
- Testa
- Seed coating or hard outer covering
- Tepal
- The combined sepals and petals when they are similar, e.g. tulip
- Terminal bud/shoot/flower
- Uppermost growth on a stem, normally the central growth
- ternate
- In three's
- Thin
- Reduce the number of shoots to allow freer air circulation and increase the light for foliage an overcrowded branch system
- Tip-bearer
- A tree where most of the flowers and fruit are carried at the end of the branches & shoots
- Top
- Temoval of the top of a tree or plant: sometimes the removal or stopping of shoots
- Topiary
- The clipping of evergreen trees & shrubs into shapes, creeping plants such as ivies can also be used in topiary
- Topsoil
- The top, most fertile layer of soil
- Truss
- Cluster of flowers of fruit
- Tuber
- A swollen area of a plant root or stem, used for food storage
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U
- Umbel
- Inflorescnece (flower) with the stalks arising from one point, usually the terminal point
- Underplant
- Plant beneath another, larger plant
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V
- Variegation
- Leaf with more than one colour, usually in an irregular pattern or about the leaf edge
- Variety
- differences that are sufficiently distinct for botanists to distinguish between different varieties (often shown as 'var.') within a plant species.
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W
- Whorl
- Buds, flowers, leaves or shoots arising from the same node, usually 3 or more
- Wind rock
- Loosening of a plant in the soil after exposure to strong winds
- Woody
- Hardy perennial growth
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X
- Xylem
- A plant's water conducting vessel
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Y
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Z
Zygomorphic- Irregular flowers which could be cut into matching halves on one plane only
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