Abiotic

Abiotic Adj. [ Biology - Ecology ]
Synonym: Inorganic

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names


	The word abiotic (some times called inorganic) means devoid of life, non-living, not caused by or resulting from the activity of living organisms ( For example, abiotic disease ) usually applied to environmental features.

In ecology an ecosystem involves interactions between abiotic and biotic factors. (For instance climate is an abiotic component of the ecosystems other examples of nonliving physical and chemical factors in the environment are: air, temperature, water, sunlight, land formations, rock, soil (excluding microbes), pH, nutrient levels. etc.)

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