Plant Morphology

Insect pollinated flowers have sticky pollen, which sticks to pollinating agents such as insects. Light and feathery pollens are a characteristic of wind-pollinated flowers.

It grows vertically to the surface of the soil i.e., downwards. They are swollen up structures, axillary buds are present but they are not arranged properly i.e., internodes are present but not identified. Scale leaves are there around axillary bud. Contractile roots are present and they fix into the ground so that the stem will grow downwards. Axillary buds develop into a new corm e.g.,colocassia. Here stem is modified for food storage.

Parasites like Cuscuta develop a kind of root which penetrates into the tissue of the host plant and help to draw nutrients from the host by sucking it. The parasitic plants are not completely equipped to prepare their food. Hence, such plants have to depend on host plants for nutrients.

If the stem does photosynthesis, then it is called a phylloclade. It is flat, green and thick. It is flat for increasing the surface area, thick for storing water and green for photosynthesis. The leaves are modified into spines to reduce transpiration (evaporation of water from aerial parts of the plant). Cuticle is an outer covering which is present for preventing transpiration.

It is broad at the base and gradually tapers towards its apex e.g., in carrot the modified tap root is conical.It is modified for storage of food.

The branches originate from the main plant in all directions. From parent plant, daughter plants are produced. After growing for some time with the mother plant, the daughter plant is separated from the mother plant. In most plants vegetative propagation takes place. Only the mother plants contain true roots, the daughter plants contain adventitious roots.It is a sub aerial stem modification.

It has beads like structures associated with them in which nitrogen fixing bacteria reside. Here nutrition is the vital function performed. It contains nitrates and nitrogen fixing bacteria. Rhizobium is the bacteria present. Plants coming under the pulse group will contain rhizobium (leguminous plants).

Tuberous roots are without any definite shape, for example: sweet potato.

The outermost whorl consisting of units called sepals; these are typically green and enclose the rest of the flower in the bud stage. However, they can be absent or prominent and petal-like in some species.

Many entomophilous flowers emit scent.

Some plants never open to ensure complete self-pollination. This condition is called cleistogamy, e.g., Commelina bengalensis, Oxalis, Viola, etc.. The cleistogamous flowers are bisexual small, inconspicuous, colourless and do not secrete nectar.

A spikelet is a secondary spike found in grasses; it is a cluster of two or more flowers in the inflorescence.

Ovule as well as embryo sac is curved like a horse shoe e.g., Lemna, Poppy, Alisma.

Fleshy multiple fruit is formed from a cluster of flowers called an inflorescence. Each flower does produce a fruit, but these mature into a single mass. Examples are mulberry, pineapple and breadfruit.

Ornithophily or Bird Pollination is the pollination of flowering plants by birds.

Stipules are small, paired appendages (sometimes leaf-life) that are found at the base of the petiole of leaves of many flowering plants.

A sprout is a very young plant (newly germinated) or the new growth on a plant (a shoot).

 When a fruit is not developed from a single flower but from an inflorescence, the whole structure forming a fleshy mass often extending beyond the ovaries, is called composite fruit, e.g., pineapple, jack fruit and fig.

A fruit developed from a single carpel may split from only one side at maturity to discharge its seeds. Such a fruit is called a follicle. Examples are columbine (Aquilegia spp.), milkweed (Asclepias spp.), larkspur (Delphinium spp.), and magnolia (Magnolia spp.).

A pome is a pitted fruit with a stony interior. The pit usually contains one seed chamber and one seed. This very specialized fruit type develops from the ovary, with most of the fleshy part formed from the receptacle tissue (the enlarged base of the perianth). Pomes are characteristic of one subfamily of the family Rosaceae (rose family). Examples of pomes are apple (Pyrus malus), pear (Pyrus communis), and quince (Cydonia oblonga).

A capsule is a type of simple, dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. A capsule is a structure composed of two or more carpels that in most cases is dehiscent, i.e., at maturity, it splits apart (dehisces) to release the seeds within.

An apical meristem lies under and behind the root cap and, like the stem apical meristem, it produces the cells that give rise to the primary body of the plant.

A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. Nuts are a composite of the seed and the fruit, where the fruit does not open to release the seed. Most seeds come from fruits, and the seeds are free of the fruit, unlike nuts such as hazelnuts, hickories, chestnuts and acorns, which have a stony fruit wall and originate from a compound ovary.

The napiform root, swells out in its upper part so that its diameter equals or exceeds its length, as in Erigenia bulbosa , Turnips etc..

A schizocarp is a dry fruit that develops from multiple carpels. When mature it splits up into mericarps. Mericarps are often 1-seeded as in, for example, Malva, Malvastrum, and Sida. In others, for example, in Abutilon, the mericarps have two or more seeds.