C

Caducous: Falling off early.

Caespitose: Forming mats or spreading tufts.

Calcicole: A plant growing in or confined to soil containing free calcium carbonate.

Calcifuge: A plant not normally found on soil containing free calcium carbonate.  

Callus: A hard protuberance; the new tissue produced at the base of a cutting or when a part is severed or injured. 

Calyx: The outer envelope of the flower, consisting of sepals, free or united.

Campanulate: Bell-shaped.

Capitate: Headed, like the head of a pin in some stigmas, or collected into compact headlike clusters as in some inflorescences.

Capitulum: A dense inflorescence of an aggregation of usually sessile flowers, as in Compositae. 

Capsule: A dry dehiscent fruit composed of two or more carpels and either splitting when ripe into valves, or opening by slits or spores. 

Carpel: One of the foliar units of a compound pistil or ovary; a simple pistil has only one carpel.   

Caruncle: An outgrowth near the hilum of a seed.

Caryopsis: Small one-celled dry indehiscent fruit with thin membranous pericarp adhering closely to the seed, as is found in grasses.

Casual: An introduced plant which has not become established, although sometimes found in places where it is not cultivated.

Catkin: A close bracteate, often pendulous spike.

Caudate: Ending abruptly in a tail-like tip or appendage.

Caudicle: The stalk connecting the pollen-masses (pollinia) in orchids.  

Caulescent: Stemmed or stem-bearing.

Cauliflorous: Flowers borne on the stem from the old wood separate from the leaves.

Cauline: Arising from or inserted on the stem.

Chasmogamous: The opening of the flowers at maturity for the purpose of pollination.

Chimera: A mixture of tissues of different genetic constitution in the same part of an organ.  

Chromosome: A structural unit in the nucleus which carries the genes in a linear constant order; the number is typically constant in any species.

Ciliate: With a fringe of hairs along the edge.

Cincinnus, pl. cinncini: A monochasial cyme in which successive lateral branches fall alternate on either side of the relatively main axis.

Calvate: Club-shaped or thickened towards the end.

Claw: The narrow part of a petal or sepal.

Cleistogamous: When self-pollination occurs within the unopened flower.  

Clone: A group of plants originating by vegetative propagation from a single plant and therefore of the same genotype.

Column: The adnate stamens and style forming the solid central body in orchids; a tube of connate stamen filaments.

Compound: Of two or more similar parts in one organ, as in a compound leaf or compound fruit.

Conduplicate: Folded together lengthwise.

Congeneric: Belonging to the same genus.

Connate: United or joined.

Connective: The part of an anther which connects its two lobes or cells.

Contorted: When the sepals and petals in the bud each overlaps an adjoining one on one side and is overlapped by the other on the other side, thus appearing twisted.

Convolute: Rolled.

Cordate: Heart-shaped, as seen at the base of a leaf, etc, which is deeply notched.

Coriaceous: Of leathery texture.

Corm: A solid, short, swollen underground stem, usually erect and tunicated, of one year’s duration, with that of the next year at the top or close to the old one.

Cormel: A corm arising vegetatively from a parent corm.    

Corolla: The inner envelope of the flower of free or united petals.

Corona: A circle of appendages, free or united, between the corolla and stamens.

Corymb: A flat-topped determinate inflorescence in which the branches or pedicels start from different points, but reach about the same level, with the outer flowers opening first.

Cotyledon: Seed-leaf. The dicotyledons are characterized by having two cotyledons and the monocotyledons by one in their embryos.

Crenate: The margin notched with blunt or rounded teeth.

Cross-pollination: Placing or deposition of the pollen from a flower to the stigma of a flower of another plant.

Culm: The stem of grasses and sedges.

Cultigen: A plant species or race which has arisen or is known only in cultivation.

Cultivar (cv., cvs): An agricultural or horticultural variety, which has originated and persisted under cultivation, as distinct from a botanical variety.

Cuneate: Wedge-shaped; triangular, with the narrow end at the point of attachment, as the bases of leaves or petals.

Cuspidate: Abruptly tipped with a sharp rigid point.

Cyme: A determinate inflorescence, often flat-topped, in which the central flowers open first.   

Cytology: The science dealing with the structure, function and life history of the cell.

Cytoplasm: The protoplasm of a cell excluding the nucleus.

Cytoplasmic: Pertaining to or centred in the cytoplasm.

Cytoplasmic inheritance: Inheritance dependent upon hereditary units in the cytoplasm, e.g., cytoplasmic male sterility.