Parthenocarpy

Parthenocarpy [ Botany ]
Synonym: Seedless
Adjective: Partenocarpic

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names


	The parthenocarpy is the process of fruit development in the absence of pollination/fertilization of ovules.

Parthenocarpic fruit are found only in a small number of species, such fruits are seedless. Parthenocarpy occasionally occurs as a mutation in nature, but it is a defect, as the plant can no longer reproduce. Humans, however, often see seedlessness as a desirable quality and have selected and artificially propagated parthenocarpic varieties of many plants, including citrus, banana and cucumber.

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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