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 For more information visit: http://www.nzpcn.org.nz/help_glossary.asp
