Words to describe 'hairy plants'

Also see the glossaries on: New Zealand Plant Conservation Network Alter-Natives Wikipedia Glossary of Botanical Terms

Useful words for talking about hairs or hairiness of plants.

acicular: needle-shaped

appressed: lying closely and flatly against the plant's surface

arachnoid: cobwebby

canescent: gray-hairy and hoary

capillary: very slender or hairlike

cespitose: matted or growing in little dense clumps

ciliate: fringed with hairs on the margin

clavate: club-shaped (big at one end)

downy: with very short, weak, soft hairs

echinate: with stout, blunt prickles

ensiform: sword-shaped

glabrous: without hairs

hirsute: with rough hairs

hirtellous: like hirsute but with smaller or more diffuse hairs

hispid: with stiff, bristly hairs

hispidulous: like hispid but with smaller or more diffuse hairs

hoary: closely covered with a white or whitish hairiness

indumentum: a heavy covering or hairiness

lanuginose: woolly or cottony

lanulose: wooly with very short hairs

mucro: a short and abruptly sharp or spiny tip

mucronate: ending with a mucro

pilose: shaggy with soft hairs

plumose: feathery, like the pappus hairs of some composites

puberulent: like pubescent but with smaller hairs

pubescent: downy with short, soft hairs

recurved: bent or curved downward or backward

retrorse: bent or turned backward or downward

septate: divided into partitions

sericeous: silky

setose: covered with bristles

stellate: once or twice forked, or arms radiating from base

strigillose – minutely strigose

strigose – having straight hairs all pointing in more or less the same direction as along a margin or midrib

tomentose: densely wooly or soft-matted hairiness

tomentulose: like tomentose but less so

torulose: twisted or knobby

uncinate: hooked at the tip

velutinous: velvety with erect, straight, moderately firm hairs

villous: shaggy with long, soft, not matted hairs