List of Important Botany Terms and Description

Term	Description
Achenes	A dry non-fleshy fruit containing a seed; the coat of this fruit is somewhat hard.
Acid	It is a substance which releases hydrogen ions in water and has a pH less than 7, e.g. hydrochloric acid in the human stomach.
Adolescence	It is the period in the human life cycle between puberty and maturity.
Additive	In food technology, any natural or artificial chemical added to prolong the shelf life of processed foods (salt or nitrates), alter the color or flavor of food, or minerals).
Anaerobe	It is an organisation which requires oxygen to survive.
Agar	It is a jelly obtained from seaweeds which is used as a medium for culturing bacteria.
Algae	A large group of primitive plants, mostly aquatic and capable of photosynthesis.
Anatomy	It is the study of the structure of the body and its components parts, especially the human body, as distinguished form physiology, which is the study of bodily functions.
Antibiotic	It is a substance, synthesizes by micro organism, which damages or kills other micro organism.
Anther	In a flower, the upper part of a stamen containing pollen grains.
Aquatic	It means living in water. All life originated in the early oceans.
Asexual reproduction	It is reproduction in which new organisms are formed a single parent without gamete production.
Autogamy	It means self fertilization.
Autoclave	It is a pressure cooker used for the sterilization of materials.
Auxins	These are plant hormones which control many aspects of plant growth.
Awn	This refers to a needle-like bristle at the tip of a floral scale in grasses, sedges, and other plants.
Baermann funnel	It is an apparatus used to isolate organisms living in soil water, e.g. algae protozoa.
Balanced diet	It is the diet that includes carbohydrated, protein, fat, vitamins, water, minerals and roughage.
Benthos	These are the flora and fauna of the bottom of oceans and lakes.
Beriberi	It is inflammation of the nerve endings, mostly occurring in the tropics and resulting from a deficiency of vitamin B (thiamine).
Biology	It is the study of living things. There are many specializations including cytology (the study of cells), zoology (the study of animals), and ecology (the study of the environment).
Biotechnology	It is the industrial use of living organisms to manufacture food, drugs or other products.
Biofuel	It is a kind of fuel which is made from natural materials or waste.
Biomass	It is the total weight of all the organisms in a particular habitat.
Biosphere	It is the entire zone of air, land and water at the surface of the earth that is occupied by living things.
Bulb	It is an organ of storages and vegetative reproduction.
Caffeine	It is a mildly addictive alkaloid found in a number of plants, such as tea, coffee and cola.
Capillary action	It is the spontaneous movement of liquids up or down narrow tubes such as plant xylem vessels or the spaces existing between soil particles.
Canines	These are sharp pointed tearing teeth near the front of the mouth used for killing prey and ripping of pieces of food.
Cannabis	It is the source of a fibre and drugs like hashish and marijuana. Also called the Indian hemp or bhang plant.
Cartilage	It is a flexible bluish-white connective tissue made up of the protein collagen.
Casein	It is the main protein of milk, from which it can be separated by the action of acid, the enzyme rennin, or bacteria (souring); It is also the main component of cheese
Carpel	It is the female reproductive organ of a flower (megas-poprophyII) bearing the ovules which mature into seeds after fertilization.
Cell	It is the smallest functional and structural unit of all living organisms.
Cereal	It is the grass grown for its edible starch seeds. The term cereal refers primarily to barley and wheat, but may also refer to oats, maize, rye, millet and rice.
Chlorophyll	It is the green coloured pigment university found in plants, responsible for capturing the energy for photosynthesis.
Clavicle	It is the collar bone, in humans, it is vulnerable to fracture.
Cornea	It is the transparent front section of the eye. The cornea is curved and behaves as a fixed lens, so that light entering the eye is partly focused before it reaches the lends.
Corolla	It is a collective name for the petals of a flower.
Death rate	It is the number of deaths, measured in the human population as the number of deaths in one year per 1000 of population.
Deciduous	These are trees and shrubs that shed their leaves before the onset of winter or a dry season.
Defoliant	It is a chemical sprayed on plants that causes leaves to fall of prematurely.
Desertification	It is the natural or man made conversation of arable or forest land into barren deserts.
Down’s syndrome	It is a human abnormality caused by a mutation in which the ovum has an extra chromosome.
Ecology	It is the study of structure and function of nature.
Ectotherm	It is a cold-blooded animal, such as a lizard, that relies on external warmth to raise its body temperature so that it can become active.
Egestion	It is the removal of undigested food or faeces from the gut.
Enzyme	It is a biological catalyst produced in cells and capable of speeding up the chemical reactions necessary for life by converting one molecule (substrate) into another.
Epidermis	It is the outermost layers of cells on an organism’s body.
Faeces	These are remains of food and other debris passed out of the digestive tract of animals.
Fallopian	It is a tube or oviduct in mammals one of the two tubes that carry ova (eggs) from the ovary to the uterus.
Fibrin	It is an insoluble blood protein used by the body to stop bleeding.
Fossil	These are remains or traces of animal and plant life of the past found embedded in rock.
Fossil fuel	It is the fuel such as coal, oil and natural gas. These are remains of organism embedded in the surface of the earth.
Fungi	These are primitive members of the plant family.
Fungus	It is a kind of living thing, a simple plant which cannot make its own food.
Grafting	It is the process of uniting parts of two plants to form a single plant.
Habitat	It is the locality or external environment in which a plant or animal lives.
Haploid	It is an organism or structure having a single set of unpaired chromosomes.
Herbarium	It is an organized collection of plant specimens for identification and reference purposes.
Hermaphrodite	It is an organism having both male and female reproductive organs in the same individual.
Horticulture	It is a branch of agriculture dealing with garden crops, generally fruits, vegetables and ornamentals.
Iris	It is the structure in the vertebrate eye which controls the size of the pupil and hence the amount of light entering the eye.
Metabolism	It describes all the change that happens inside living things.
Ossicles	These are the three tiny linked bones in the mammalian middle ear.
Ovule	It is a somewhat oval body attached to the ovary wall in a flower which matures into a seed after fertilization.
Parasitism	It is a biological association between organisms in which one, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host.
Palate	It is in mammals, the ceiling of the mouth.
Predator	It is an animal that feeds on other animals which are called the prey.
Radiocarbon dating	It is the method of finding out the age of fossils by determining the amount of radiocarbon remaining in them.
Retina	It is light-sensitive tissue lining the interior of the vertebrate eye, and consisting of two types of cells.
Rhizome	It is an organ of vegetative reproduction in flowering plants consisting of a horizontal underground stem growing from a parent plant.
Root	It is part of a flowering plant that normally grows down into the soil.
Savannah	It is a grassland with scattered trees.
Saprophyte	It is an organism that feeds on dead and decaying plants and animals, causing decomposition.
Short sight	It is Myopia.
Transplantation	It is the relocation of seedlings from nursery beds to the actual site of plantation.
Tropism	It is a plant growth movement in response to a stimulus, for example, light.
Tuber	It is an organ of vegetative reproduction in flowering plants.