Floral remnant

Floral remnant [ Botany ]	Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names

A more or less distinct dried residue of a flowers calyx or corolla at the apex of some fruit.

A floral remnant in a fruit is a usually more or less visible small dry part, or remaining trace of the flower lodged against the fruit surface on the apex of the fruit, floral remnants can be persistent or deciduous, when deciduous as the fruit grows, the floral remnants splits and soon is sloughed off.
Floral remnants vary from a showy whole dry flower to a mere thin tip or scar, or thin membrane partially covering the newly-set fruit.

Usually floral remnants signifying a false fruit E.g.: the flower remnant at the base of a pome (the apple and pear fruits)
The fruit of many cacti (false berry) typically carries the old flower remnant on the top.
Fruit infection may also occur where an infected flower remnant is lodged against the fruit surface

Left: Dry floral remnants on the fruit of Hamatocactus setispinus

Advertising

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