Higher plant

Higher plant [ Botany ]
Synonym: Vascular plant

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names


	Any of various plants, in which the structure is made up in part of vascular tissue or vessels (the phloem that transports sugar and the xylem that transports water and salts).

They include the more highly evolved flowering plants (angiosperms), cone-bearing plants (gymnosperms, such as conifers, ginkgos, and cycads), and ferns and fern allies (spore-producing). Nonvascular plants include fungi, algae, lichens, mosses, and liverworts.

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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