Cup

Cup (Floral Cup) [ Botany ]	Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names
Synonym: Hypantium, Floral tube, Pericarpel

A tubular structure of a flower formed by the fusion of the basal portions of the sepals, petals, and stamens, and from which the rest of the floral parts emanate.

Hypantium is also called a floral cup or floral tube. It is a flat, cuplike, or tubular structure on which are included the sepals, petals, and stamens - often above the top of the ovary - with the fused bases of lower portions of stamens and perianth parts inserted on the rim or on a modified receptacle (contain stem tissue from the receptacle). ( e.g. the flower and fruit of Cactaceae (false berry) or the fruit of the apple (pome) where the pulp we eat is the thickened, fleshy hypanthium fused with the inner ovary wall)

Left: A flower of Opuntia

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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