Plant Printouts

EnchantedLearning.com Botany and Paleobotany Dictionary

Plants

WATER CYCLE The Water Cycle (also known as the hydrologic cycle) is the journey water takes as it circulates from the Earth's surface to the sky and back again.	WAXY CUTICLE The cuticle is the fatty or waxy outer layer of epidermal cells that are above ground.	WEALDEN FORMATION The Wealden Formation is an area in southeastern England (including the Isle of Wight) that had yielded many fossils, iincluding dinosaurs. Paleontologist Gideon Mantell found Iguanodon there in 1825. The Wealden sedimentary rock dates from the Early Cretaceous period, when the area had fresh and brackish water (slightly salty) sediments.
WEGENER, ALFRED L. Alfred Lothar Wegener (1880-1930), the German geologist and meteorologist, proposed the theory of continental drift in his 1915 book, On the Origin of Continents and Oceans. This theory states that parts of the Earth's crust slowly drift atop a liquid core. The fossil record overwhelmingly supports and gives credence to the theory of continental drift (and that of plate tectonics). He proposed the existence of the supercontinent Pangaea, and named it (Pangaea means "all the land" in Greek). Wegener froze to death while heading an expedition crossing the Greenland ice cap in 1930.	WELWITSCHIA Welwitschia mirabilis is an unusual, long-lived, succulent gymnosperm. This plant has a low, two-lobed trunk, and two large, straplike leaves that sprawl along the ground. The plant only produces two leaves, but the wind splits them into many segments. It has a large, deep taproot. Welwitschia produces either male or female cones (but not both). Welwitschia lives in coastal desert areas, gravel beds, rocky canyon walls, and open flats. It derives its moisture from the morning fog. It is found from Namibia to southwestern Angola (in southwestern Africa). It has a life span of over 1,500 years. Welwitschia was first discovered by (and is named for) the Austrian botanist Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch in 1859. Classification: Division Pinophyta (Gymnosperms) , Subdivision Gneticae, Class Gnetopsida, Order Gnetales, Family Welwitschiaceae (Welwitschia)m Genus Welwitschia, Species W. mirabilis.	WILLIAMSONIA Williamsonia is a fossil plant that thrived from the Triassic period through the Cretaceous period. Williamsonia was a bennettitalean (a cycadeoidphyte, a primitive gymnosperm that resembled cycads but was not a cycad). Williamsonia had a long, thin, branching, woody trunk covered with spirals of broken-off leaf scars. It was up to 6.5 ft (2 m) tall.
WISCONSIN FAST PLANTS Wisconsin 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.	WOOD Wood is the secondary xylem of gymnosperms and dicots, but the term wood is often applied to other xylem. Wood is used to make furniture, build houses, and make paper.

Plant Printouts

EnchantedLearning.com Botany and Paleobotany Dictionary

Plants

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