Some features can be found on virtually any part of a
plant, these are named, surface
features. Generally the surface features refers to the presence or
absence of hairs (trichomes)
or other
characteristic, such as glands,
wax coatings, colours,
patterns etc. that combine
to give many surface characteristics. To describe the hairiness of an
organ (for example a
leaf, a
fruit, a spine ) botanists
describe the trichomes, their
abundance, and orientation, collectively called the
indumentum. There are over 25
terms used to describe surface features. The following are some
of the more common terms:
- Dendritic: tree-like
trichomes
-
Felty:
Resembling felt, characterized by short dense packaged and interlaced
hairs.
- Glandular: glands filled with oil or resin cover the surface.
- Glabrous: the surface is smooth, without pubescence of
any kind.
- Glabrescent: Becoming glabrous over time. In other words, the
hairs fall off as the leaf ages.
- Glaucous: Having a
waxy blue-grey appearance due to a bloom or a powdery coating of
wax.
- Hispid: With stout, stiff hairs.
- Hirsute: With rough, coarse hairs.
- Papillose: (Also:
Papillar; Papillate; Papillary): covered with
many papillae.
- Pruinose:
Covered by a waxy powdery substance like in certain
fruits (plum and grape)
- Pubescent: Short,
dense, soft downy hairs on the
surface.
- Rugose: Surface
is wrinkly with coarse lines or furrows.
- Scabrous: covered with short, prickly hairs.
- Stellate: With stellate hairs (hairs that branch and look like
small stars).
- Strigose: With long, stiff, appressed hairs.
- Tomentose: Covered with
long, soft, matted hairs. Wooly..
- Tuberculate:
Covered with
tubercles; covered
with warty prominences.
- Verrucose:
About the same as tuberculate warted, with warty outgrowths
- Villous: Covered
with long, soft, straight hairs
- Viscid: Sticky
- Wolly:
covered with woolly-like, matted or free hairs
See also: Surface patterns |
