Glossary

Category: C

  • Catkin

    Catkin

    A slender, often pendulous, cylindrical racemose or spicate inflorescence with crowded (sub)sessile unisexual apetalous flowers, falling as a whole after fruiting. Spike-like inflorescence (flower cluster), usually containing scaly bracts. A flower spike, often pendent in a tree or shrub. The tiny flowers usually lack petals and bear only male or only female parts (example: pecan…

  • Cataphyll

    Cataphyll

    Scale leaf; Scale-like leaf  

  • Catadromous

    In ferns, with the first set of veins in a pinna in a basal direction.  

  • Castaneous

    Chestnut-coloured: a dark glossy brown or reddish brown.  

  • Caryopsis

    The fruit in Gramineae/Poaceae, a small dry thin-walled fruit, with the single seed fused to the pericarp; a type of achene.  

  • Carunculate

    With a caruncle. Having a caruncle.  

  • Caruncle

    Caruncle

    An outgrowth of the outer seed integument, near the hilum; usually small and fleshy, and associated with animal dispersal; also called a strophiole, but a strophiole is an outgrowth from the raphe, whereas the caruncle is next to the micropyle (Bell, 2008). A warty excrescence upon a seed. An outgrowth of the seed, usually fleshy…

  • Cartilaginous

    Hard and tough, but slightly bendy (preferred spelling). Firm and tough; cartilage-like. Pertaining to or consisting of cartilage.  

  • Cartilagineous

    Hard and tough, but slightly bendy (cartilaginous is the preferred spelling).  

  • Carpopodium

    In Compositae/Asteraceae, a basal callus to the achene composed of receptacular tissue.