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Light frost  Horticulture  ]

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names

 
     
  A frost where the air has dropped below freezing but the ground has not, noticeable by the white hoarfrost on surface objects and vegetation. Many plants can survive a light frost but cannot survive a hard frost.  
     
A light frost (down to -2°C) forms a thin and more or less patchy deposit of hoarfrost on lawn and vegetation in the night and morning.
Tender plants are killed by a light frost, but subtropical plants can take more cold than tropical plants, sometimes even a light frost.
It is possible to protect plants from a light frost by covering the plants with cloth, plastic, newspaper, straw or evergreen boughs before the frost occurs. Boxes and inverted pails can also be used. In temperate zone several light frost generally precede what is termed the first hard killing frost of the season. Frosts on opening buds can wipe out the entire blossoming.
     

 


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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
     

 

 

 

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