Health

Health [ Botany - Biology - Phytopathology ]
Adjective: Healthy
Noun: Healthiness

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names

The overall condition of an organism at a given time in regard to soundness of body and freedom from disease, injury or abnormality.

Health can be defined negatively, as the absence of illness, injury, or abnormality, or positively, as the state of being vigorous, of complete fitness and well-being not just the absence of bodily disease. Health is a dynamic state on the wellness-illness continuum, ranging from high-level wellness, to states of illness/death. In any organism, health is a state of balance, with inputs and outputs of energy and matter in equilibrium (allowing for growth). Health also implies good prospects for continued survival.

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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