Cancer

Cancer [ Biology - Phytopathology ]	Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names
Synonym: Tumour , Cancerous growth

A general term for several diseases characterized by massive uncontrolled clonal growth of the cells of a tissue or of an organ in a multicellular organism. Also called a tumour.

Cancer is a class of diseases characterized by uncontrolled cell division whit potentially unlimited growth. The resulting mass, or tumor, can invade and destroy surrounding normal tissues. Cancer can develop in any organ of the body and can have many different forms in each body area. This unregulated growth is caused by a series of acquired or inherited mutations to DNA within cells, damaging genetic information that define the cell functions and removing normal control of cell division.
As a result cancer cell undergo continuing mitotic divisions and are not inhibited in their growth when they come in contact with neighbouring cells. Thus, cancers obliterate the normal architecture of the host tissue.

Plant cancer is similar and can be defined as a 'massive cellular growth without cellular differentiation'.

Plant cancer is most often seen as 'galls'.

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Holdfast roots [ Botany ]
Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names

Some species of climbing plants develop holdfast roots which help to support the vines on trees, walls, and rocks. By forcing their way into minute pores and crevices, they hold the plant firmly in place.

Climbing plants, like the poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata), and trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans), develop holdfast roots which help to support the vines on trees, walls, and rocks. By forcing their way into minute pores and crevices, they hold the plant firmly in place. Usually the Holdfast roots die at the end of the first season, but in some species they are perennial. In the tropics some of the large climbing plants have hold-fast roots by which they attach themselves, and long, cord-like roots that extend downward through the air and may lengthen and branch for several years until they strike the soil and become absorbent roots.

Major references and further lectures:
1) E. N. Transeau “General Botany” Discovery Publishing House, 1994