Plant Printouts

EnchantedLearning.com Botany and Paleobotany Dictionary

Plants

FAMILY In classification, a family is a group of related or similar organisms. A family contains one or more genera (plural of genus). A group of similar families forms an order.	FAST PLANTS Fast Plants are fast-growing plant varieties that were developed at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Fast Plants complete their life cycles about 45 days after planting. Fast plants are used in classrooms and laboratories around the world for teaching and research. The first plants in space were Fast Plants.	FEN A fen is a wet area rich in peat and other organic matter.
FERN Ferns are non-flowering vascular plants with rhizomes that were plentiful during the Mesozoic Era and usually live in warm, moist areas. Ferns have fronds divided into leaflets. Classification: Plyla: Lycophyta (lower ferns like clubmosses), Pterophyta (ferns), Psilophyta (whisk ferns) (true ferns belong to the Class Filices).	FERTILIZER Fertilizer is material that is added to soil to increase is fertility and output. Fertilizers include manure, compost, and chemical mixtures.	FIBROUS ROOT A fibrous root is a type of primary root of a plant that has a lot of side branching (compare with tap root). Fibrous root are the most common type of roots.
FILAMENT The filament is the part of the flower that holds the anther.	FLAGELLUM A flagellum is a long, thin, whip-like structure that is found on some organisms, including some unicellular algae. Flagella help propel the organism through water.	FLAX Flax (family Linaceae, genus Linum) is a flowering plant from cool, temperate areas. It has narrow, lance-shaped leaves and blue flowers - the plant grow to be up to about 1.5 to 2 feet tall. Flax is grown for its seeds (which yield oil) and linen fiber (a strong vegetable fiber that is made from the woody stalk of the flax plant).
FLORA The flora is all the plants that live in an area.	FLOWER The flower is the reproductive unit of angiosperms. Flowers usually have carpels, petals, sepals, and stamens. Some flowers (called perfect flowers) have both male and female reproductive organs; some flowers (called imperfect flowers) have only male reproductive organs (stamens) or only female reproductive organs (ovary, style, and stigma). Some plants have both male and female flowers, while other have males on one plant and females on another. Complete flowers have a stamen, a pistil, petals, and sepals. Incomplete flowers lack one of these parts.	FLOWERING PLANTS Flowering plants are Angiosperms (meaning "covered seed"). They produce seeds enclosed in fruit (an ovary). They are the dominant type of plant today; there are over 250,000 species, including grasses, peas, etc. Their flowers are used in reproduction. Angiosperms evolved about 140 million years ago, during the late Jurassic period, and were eaten by dinosaurs. They became the dominant land plants about 100 million years ago (edging out conifers, a type of gymnosperm). Angiosperms are divided into the monocots (like corn) and dicots (like beans).
FOLIAGE Foliage is the leaves of plants.	FOLIVORE A folivore is animal that eats foliage (leaves). For example, the green iguana is a folivore.	FOOD WEB A food chain is is the sequence of who eats whom in a biological community (an ecosystem) to obtain nutrition. A food web is all of the interactions between predators and prey in which plants and animals obtain food in an ecoystem. The web starts with plants or other autotrophs (organisms that make their own food from light and/or chemical energy) that are eaten by herbivores (plant-eaters). The herbivores are eaten by carnivores (meat-eaters). These are eaten by other carnivores. When any organism dies, it is eaten by tiny microbes (detrivores) and the exchange of energy continues.
FORB A forb is a small, herbaceous (non-woody), broad-leaved vascular plant (excluding grasses, rushes, sedges, etc.). For example, wild flowers are a type of forb.	FOREST A forest is an area in which trees are the dominant plant.	FOREST FLOOR The forest floor is the lowest layer of a rainforest, extending from the ground to about 3 feet (1 m) high. This layer is teeming with animal life, especially insects. The largest animals in the rainforest generally live here.
FOREST SUCCESSION Forest or plant succession is the natural pattern of ecosystem growth and change over time for a particular environment. Plant life follows established patterns of growth and change after major distruptions, like fires, floods, agricultural damage, logging, etc. Generally, smaller, fast-growing herbaceous species and grasses grow first in an open field, followed in a few years by softwood tree seedlings and larger herbaceous species. As a young forest develops into a mature forest (30 to 70 years), an understory of smaller hardwood trees develops. The final stage is a climax hardwood forest (100 plus years).	FOSSIL Fossils are mineralized impressions or casts of ancient animals and plants. Fossils have been found on every continent on Earth.	FOSSIL FUEL A fossil fuel is a naturally-ocurring, energy-rich organic (carbon-based) substance (like shale, petroleum (oil), coal, or natural gas) in the Earth's crust that was formed from ancient organic material (mostly plants).
FROND A frond is the fern-like (or feathery) foliage of a plant that has many divisions. Ferns and palms have fronds. Frond is also used to refer to the main part of a kelp plant (excluding the holdfast).	FRUIT A fruit is the part of a flowering plant that contains the seeds. Some fruits include apples, oranges, berries, maple pods, and acorns. Some fruit are fleshy and some are dry, like cotton (a dehiscent fruit) and sunflower (an indehiscent fruit). Not all fruit are edible. True (simple) fruits (like the tomato, coconut, watermelon, olive, lemon, and banana) develop from the wall of a single ovary. False (compound) fruits (like the strawberry, rosehip, and pineapple) develop from more than one pistil.	FUNGUS Fungus (plural fungi) are organisms that obtain energy by breaking down dead organic material and that produce spores. Some fungi include mushrooms, toadstools, slime molds, yeast, penicillium mold, and mildew. Classification: kingdom Fungus.

Plant Printouts

EnchantedLearning.com Botany and Paleobotany Dictionary

Plants

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