Ephemeral

Ephemeral (plant) [ Botany ]

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names


	(1) A plant that has a very short life cycle and may complete more than one life cycle within a year. Such plant are often referred to as annuals.
Examples are certain desert plants that grow, flower, and set seed in brief periods of rain. Compare annual; biennial; perennial. Ephemeral organs

	(2) A plant that grows for a short time only. Many desert plants are ephemeral as they grow seasonally only for brief periods and then came back in a more or less long dormancy phase.
Many desert plants have a short growing season corresponding to favourable whether condition (e.g. spring ephemerals plants that complete the annual growing cycle after snow melt within the spring season before the summer rest or plants that depends for their growth or flowering to particularly heavy precipitation or storm events and thus discontinues its growth during dry seasons) Most of the plants of more arid regions may be classified as ephemeral plants. (See: Blooming desert)

Ephemeral organs [ Botany]


	Plants organs lasting a markedly brief time, sometimes only a day. Like the cotyledons and grass coleoptiles that disappears after a few days of seedling development.

Photo 1: Ephemeral leaves of Opuntia aciculata

Example of Ephemeral organs:

Ephemeral Flowers: Flower lasting for a very short time, beginning and ending in a day; existing only, or no longer than, a day. Many nocturnal blooming cacti have ephemeral flowers (e.g. Echinopsis and Hylocereus)
Ephemeral leaves: Transitory leaves enduring a very short time. Leaves of cacti - when present - are ephemeral (Photo 1: Ephemeral leaves of Opuntia aciculata)

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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