| Home | E-mail | Cactuspedia | Mail Sale Catalogue | Links | Information | Search  |

 
 
 
(1) Groundcover (habit of growth) [ Botany ]

Dictionary of botanic terminology
index of names

Synonym:  Ground cover
     
  A prostrate, creeping species with a low growing habit that tends to spread out more than growing tall.  
     
(2) Groundcover plants  (also: Ground cover)    [ Horticulture ]
     
  Plants that specifically cover the ground like a carpet and are grown for their ornamental value, often useful for low maintenance areas; can be used for bedding.  
     
Groundcover is an horticultural term applied to any low-growing spreading vegetation used to cover bare earth, to create a uniform appearance, to provide weed control or to protect soil from erosion or drought; Generally groundcover refers to broadleaf plants rather than lawn grasses. Group of groundcover plants are frequently used to provide a low-growing carpet between other plants in place of turf in particular planted in deep shade (as ivy) or on a steep slope where turf is difficult to grow.
     
(3) Ground cover vegetation (also: Groundcover [ Ecology ]
     
  Ground cover vegetation includes the entire suite of plants (as grasses, ferns and lowest shrubs) that occupies the lowest of the four possible strata in a plant community, that is the ground cover, the shrub layer, the lower tree layer, and the upper tree layer.  
     
The ground cover includes any vegetation ( ground flora) producing a protective mat on or just above the soil surface and comprises herbaceous plants (grasses, forbs, ferns and creepers) and the lowest shrubs other than saplings occupying an area, as well as any associated accumulation of dead organic matter under the trees.
Measures of ground cover condition may include the diversity of plant forms, the diversity of species, the relative density of different species, and the relative proportion of perennial to annual species. Ground cover is the major habitat for many fauna, some of which may provide an early indication of declining ground cover condition.
Some vegetation communities such as grasslands and grassy open woodlands are characterised by only one or two strata.
     
(4) Ground cover percentage  (also: Groundcover [ Ecology ]
     
  The percentage of all the material, other than bare ground, covering the land surface.  
     
It may include everything below 135 cm like live and standing dead vegetation and other decaying organic materials, litter, cobble, gravel, stones, boulders, and bedrock.

Ground cover plus bare ground would total 100 percent.
     

 


Advertising



 

 

1


 
 
 
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
     

 

 

 

| Home | E-mail | Cactuspedia | Mail Sale Catalogue | Links | Information | Search  |