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Pseudocarp [ Botany ]

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names

Synonym: Accessory fruit, False fruit.
     
  A pseudocarp  also called false fruit or accessory fruit is a fruit in which a significant portion of the fleshy part is derived not from the ovary of a flower or flowers (or surrounding stem, if the ovary is inferior) but from some adjacent tissue.  
     
Examples are the fig (the fleshy part is a hollow ball with the flowers inside), the strawberry (the fleshy part is a peg with the carpels on it), and the apple (the fleshy part is the peduncle).

All the cactus produce accessory fruits called false berry ( derived from  the thickened, fleshy hypanthium fused with the inner ovary wall)
     

 


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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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