Botanical Glossary

Terms used in this database are mainly from:

• Flora of Australia glossary, compiled by Alison McCusker
• APW glossary, compiled by Peter Stevens
• The Kew Plant Glossary: An Illustrated Dictionary of Plant Terms - Second Edition, compiled by Henk Beentje.

Draft state at present. The database schema uses around 800 botanical terms, but the glossary overall has over 1200. You can select to search only the schema terms to see how they are used here, or the whole glossary for a wider reference.

Searches are made from the beginning of the word. So, if you search for the letter 'a' you will get all terms beginning with 'a'. If you don't know the botanical Latin/Greek for a characteristic, e.g. say claw or flattened, you can enter the English word in the Meaning field which searches the glossary definitions. This also searches synonyms, for example when you don't find glaucous in the search form, try here to find which term is used instead.

• There are often multiple terms that apply to, or terms whose meanings broadly or narrowly overlap, the same condition. Many terms have diverse, even contradictory meanings. I have tried to pick the 'best' of these, i.e. what I find the most logical or most accepted. I'm happy to be corrected.
• I preference Latin/Greek terms where possible to help those with native languages other than English. This also reduces the potential for ever-expanding terms and makes using a schema/database possible.
• I've also try to use the less specialised terms where possible (e.g. bristles/hairs/scales instead of pappus) for consistency, simplicity and schema/database organisation.