Botanical Words Alphabetical List - CL
CLADOCARPOUS:Having the fruit at the end of short side branches.
CLADODE: Flattened leaf-like stem.
CLADOPTOSIS: The annual falling of leafy twigs instead of individual leaves. (An example of this process takes place in many trees of the Cypress family.)
CLASPING: Wholly or partially surrounding the stem.
CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS: Taxonomy; the systematic naming of plants devised by Carl von Linne.
CLAVATE: Club-shaped. Growing gradually thicker toward the far end. Also clavated.
CLAW: 1. The long and narrow base of a sepal or petal (including labellum), as in pinks, wallflowers, and Orchids. 2. A sharp tool usually having three tines, used to weed and cultivate.
CLAY: 1. A type of soil. 2. Soil that contains 10% or more clay. 3. A soil particle less than 0.002 mm in diameter.
CLAYEY SOIL: Soil made up of fine particles that won't hold much air.
CLAY LOAM: Soil containing 27% to 40% clay.
CLAY MINERAL: A naturally occurring inorganic crystalline material with particles less than 0.002 mm in diameter.
CLAY PAN: 1. Soil rich in clay. 2. Soil hard when dry, stiff when wet and it will separate abruptly from overlying soil.
CLEISTOGAMY: When a plant has regular, fully developed flowers as well as flowers in which development is checked in the bud, but are still fertile and produce a lot of seed. These undeveloped flowers are inconspicuous, non-opening, and lack petals, scent or nectar. They have small anthers that contain a few pollen grains and a dwarfed pistil. They are always fertile while the more perfect flowers of the same plant are usually nearly or completely sterile. Cleistogamy is known to happen in about 60 groups belonging to many different families, including Dicotyledonous. The violet is a good example (see Viola).
CLIMATE: The amount or variations of cold and heat, dryness and moisture, calm and wind, etc. in a region or country. The combined result of all the meteorological phenomena of any region, as affecting its vegetable production.
CLIMBER: A plant that clambers upward by attaching itself to other plants or objects (such as a trellis). Climbing plants are distinguished as stem climbers, which wind upward around an erect support and, as tendril climbers, which cling to nearby objects by slender, coiling tendrils. Other plants climb and cling by means of spines or bristles, or by rootlets.
CLINANDRIUM: A cavity, at the apex of a column in orchids, in which the anthers rest.
CLOCHE: A bell-shaped cover used to protect a plant from frost or cold; an individual cold frame.
CLONE: Group of individuals originally taken from a single specimen and maintained in cultivation by vegetative propagation. All clone specimens are exactly alike and identical to the original. Most hybrids are clonal in origin and are normally propagated vegetatively.
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