Senescence

Senescence [ Biology ]
Adjective: Senile, Old

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names


	*The process of aging, decline and death.*

[From Latin verb "senescere" = to grow old ]

SENESCENCE:

The aging process:
The universal, intrinsic, progressive, and deleterious organic process of growing older and showing the effects of increasing age, the condition resulting from the transitions and accumulations of the deleterious aging processes. Cf. aging
Decline or degeneration:
Any complex deteriorative processes that terminate naturally the functional life of an organ or organism as with maturation, age or disease stress.
Agedness:
The property characteristic of old age
The period near the end of an organism's life cycle:
The state of old age characteristic of the later periods of the lifespan, the last stage in the development of multicellular organisms, during which loss of functions and degradation of biological components occur. A physiological ageing process in which cells and tissues deteriorate and finally die. In plants or plant part is the growth stage from maturity to death, characterized by an accumulation of metabolic products, an increased respiratory rate, and a loss in dry weight.
In deciduous plants, the process that occurs before the shedding of leaves:
The aging and drying of a leaf triggered by an increase in the enzymes that promote the breakdown of plant cells that prevent damage during winter. Begins when shorter days and cooler temperatures occur

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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