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tuber

(Encyclopedia)tuber, enlarged tip of a rhizome (underground stem) that stores food. Although much modified in structure, the tuber contains all the usual stem parts—bark, wood, pith, nodes, and internodes. The ey...

bulb

(Encyclopedia)bulb, thickened, fleshy plant bud, usually formed under the surface of the soil, which carries the plant over from one blooming season to another. It may have many fleshy layers (as in the onion and h...

viroid

(Encyclopedia)viroid, microscopic infectious agent, much smaller than a virus, that infects higher plants such as potatoes, tomatoes, chrysanthemums, and cucumbers, causing stunted or distorted growth and sometimes...

stem

(Encyclopedia)stem, supporting structure of a plant, serving also to conduct and to store food materials. The stems of herbaceous and of woody plants differ: those of herbaceous plants are usually green and pliant ...

oxalis

(Encyclopedia)oxalis ŏkˈsəlĭs [key] or wood sorrel, any species of the plant genus Oxalis. Most of the cultivated kinds are tropical herbs used as window plants. The leaves are usually cloverlike and respond to...

truffle

(Encyclopedia)truffle trŭfˈəl [key] [Fr.], subterranean edible fungus that forms a mutually beneficial (symbiotic) relationship with the roots of certain trees and plants. The part of the fungus used as food is ...

root, in botany

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Longitudinal cross section of a root root, in botany, the descending axis of a plant, as contrasted with the stem, the ascending axis. In most plants the root is underground, but in epiphytes ...

potato

(Encyclopedia)potato or white potato, common name for a perennial plant (Solanum tuberosum) of the family Solanaceae (nightshade family) and for its swollen underground stem, a tuber, which is one of the most widel...

reproduction

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Examples of asexual reproduction reproduction, capacity of all living systems to give rise to new systems similar to themselves. The term reproduction may refer to this power of self-duplicati...

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