George Bentham

“ The Fruit, consisting of the pistil or its lower portion, which persists or remains attached to the plant after the remainder of the flower has withered and fallen off. It enlarges and alters more or less in shape or consistence, becomes a seed-vessel, enclosing the seed until it is ripe, when it either opens to discharge the seed or falls to the ground with the seed. In popular language the term fruit is often limited to such seed-vessels as are or look juicy and eatable. ”

“ The Leaflets, Segments, Lobes, or Veins of leaves are
pinnate (feathered) , when there are several succeeding each other on each side of the midrib or petiole, compared to the branches of a feather. A pinnately lobed or divided leaf is called lyrate when the terminal lobe or segment is much larger and broader than the lateral ones, compared, by a stretch of imagination, to a lyre; runcinate, when the lateral lobes are curved backwards towards the base of the leaf; pectinate, when the lateral lobes are numerous, narrow, and regular, like the teeth of a comb. ”

“ The term tuber is applied to a short, thick, more or less succulent rootstock or rhizome, as well as to a root of that shape (20) , although some botanists propose to restrict its meaning to the one or to the other. An Orchis tuber, called by some a knob, is an annual tuberous rootstock with one bud at the top. A potato is an aimual tuberous rootstock with several buds.
26. A bulb is a stock of a shape approaching to globular, usually rather conical above and flattened underneath, in which the bud or buds are concealed, or nearly so, under scales. ”

“ Although roots proceed usually from the base of the stem or stock, they may also be produced from the base of any bud, especially if the bud lie along the ground, or is otherwise placed by nature or art in circumstances favourable for their development, or indeed occasionally from almost any part of the plant. ”

“ The ordinary or perfect Leaf consists of a flat blade or lamina, usually green, and more or less horizontal, attached to the stem by a stalk called a footstalk or petiole. When the form or dimensions of a leaf are spoken of, it is generally the blade that is meant, without the petiole or stalk. ”

“ Suckers are young plants formed at the end of creeping, underground rootstocks. Scions, runners, and stolons, or stoles, are names given to young plants formed at the end or at the nodes (31) of branches or stocks creeping wholly or partially above-ground, or sometimes to the creeping stocks themselves.
31. A node is a point of the stem or its branches at which one or more leaves, branches, or leaf-buds (16) are given off. An internode is the portion of the stem comprised between two nodes. ”

“ Determinate inflorescence is usually centrifugal. Indeterminate inflorescence is always centripetal. Both inflorescences may be combined on one plant, for it often happens that the main branches of an inflorescence are centripetal, whilst the flowers on the lateral branches are centrifugal ”

“ Plants are usually terrestrial, that is, growing on earth, or aquatic, i. e. growing in water; but sometimes they may be found attached by their roots to other plants, in which case they are epiphytes when simply growing upon other plants without penetrating into their tissue, parasites when their roots penetrate into and derive more or less nutriment from the plant to which they are attached. ”

“ Leaves or their parts, when flat, or any other flat organs in plants, are linear, when long and narrow, at least four or five times as long as broad, falsely compared to a mathematical line, for a linear leaf has always a perceptible breadth. ”

“ Every portion of a plant which has a distinct part or function to perform in the operations or phenomena of vegetable life is called an Organ.
8. What constitutes vegetable life, and what are the functions of each organ, belong to Vegetable Physiology ; the microscopical structure of the tissues composing the organs, to Vegetable Anatomy ”

“ Bracts are generally placed singly under each branch of the inflorescence, and under each pedicel; bracteoles are usually two, one on each side, on the pedicel or close under the flower, or even upon the calyx itself; but bracts are also frequently scattered along the branches without axillary pedicels ”

“ Bulbs are annual or perennial, usually imderground or close to the ground, but occasionally buds in the axils of the upper leaves become transformed into bulbs. Bulbs are said to be scaly when their scales are thick and loosely imbricated, tunicated when the scales are thinner, broader, and closely rolled round each other in concentric layers. ”

“ In the lower classes, the ferns, mosses, fungi, moulds or mildews, seaweeds, etc., called by botanists cryptogamous plants, the flowers, the fruit, and not unfrequently one or more of the organs of vegetation, are either wanting, or replaced by organs so different as to be hardly capable of bearing the same name. ”

“ They are generally much smaller and more sessile. They often partake of the colour of the flower, although they very frequently also retain the green colour of the leaves. When small they are often called scales.
61. Floral leaves or leafy bracts are generally the lower bracts on the upper leaves at the base of the flowering branches, intermediate in size, shape, or arrangement, between the stem-leaves and the upper bracts. ”

“ Many tall shrubs and trees lose annually their flowering branches like undershrubs. And the same botanical species may be an annual or a perennial, a herbaceous perennial or an undershrub, an undershrub or a shrub, a shrub or a tree, according to climate, treatment, or variety. ”

“ Weak climbing stems are said to twine, when they support themselves by winding spirally round any object ; such stems are also called voluble. When they simply climb without twining, they support themselves by their leaves, or by special clasping organs called tendrils (169) , or sometimes, like the Ivy, by small root-like excrescences. ”

“ At the same time mathematical accuracy must not be expected. The forms and appearances assumed by plants and their parts are infinite. Names cannot be invented for all ; those even that have been proposed are too numerous for ordinary memories. ”

“ There are numerous cases where inflorescences are intermediate between some two of the above, and are called by different botanists by one or the other name, according as they are guided by apparent or by theoretical similarity. ”

“ Such stocks will increase yearly, so as at length to form dense tufts. They will often preserve through the winter a few leaves, amongst which are placed the buds which grow out into stems the following year, wliilst the under side of the stock emits new roots from or amongst the remains of the old ones. ”

“ The Stock.
22. The Stock of a herbaceous perennial, in its most complete state, includes a small portion of the summits of the previous year's roots, as well as of the base of the previous year's stems. ”

“ The joints where they separate are called articulations, each separate piece an article. The name oi joint is, in common language, given both to the articulation and the article, but more especially to the former. ”

“ Arrangement of the Elementary Tissues, or Structure of the Organs of Plants xxix
§ 3. Growth of the Organs xxxi
§ 4. Functions of the Organs xxxii
Chap. IV. Collection, Preservation, and Determination of Plants xxxiv ”