Category: C

  • Crownshaft

    Crownshaft

    A column of leaf sheaths tightly enclosing the developing leaves, forming a pseudostem at the tip of the stem (specialist term used in Palmae, 1986). An apparent upward extension of the trunk in certain palms, being a pseudostem (as in banana plants) made up of tightly furled sheathing bases of the fronds. Only one large…

  • Crowded

    (Of gills) So close together that spaces between the gills are hard to see.  

  • Cross-vein

    A short second or third vein that runs between veins of one order higher.  

  • Cross-pollination

    Transfer of pollen between different plants. In botany, the transfer of pollen from the anther of one plant to the stigma of a flower of another plant.  

  • Crossing

    Interbreeding of closely or distantly related individuals.  

  • Cross-fertilisation

    Fertilisation by pollen from another individual.  

  • Cross

    Another name for a hybrid, though somewhat vaguer in meaning. Any structure or figure in the shape of a cross.  

  • Crop

    Crop

    Plants grown for commercial purposes. A mass planting, usually of annual plants and usually running into acres at a time, grown for food or some other economic purpose. Crop plants are species commonly grown in this way, for example, wheat, potatoes, sunflowers.  

  • Critically endangered

    Critically endangered

    Term in an IUCN Red List for plants that are on the brink of extinction.  

  • Cristulate

    with a small crest [unusual term, not recommended].