Stolon
In biology, stolons known as runners, are horizontal connections between organisms. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton. In botany, stolons are stems which grow at the soil surface or just below ground that form adventitious roots at the nodes, new plants from the buds. Stolons are called runners. Rhizomes, in contrast, are root-like stems that may either grow horizontally at the soil surface or in other orientations underground. Thus, not all horizontal stems are called stolons. Plants with stolons are called stoloniferous. A stolon is a plant propagation strategy and the complex of individuals formed by a mother plant and all its clones produced from stolons form a single genetic individual, a genet. Stolons may not have long internodes; the leaves along the stolon are very small, but in a few cases such as Stachys sylvatica are normal in size. Stolons arise from the base of the plant. In strawberries the base is above the soil surface; the nodes of the stolons produce roots all around the node and hormones produced by the roots cause the stolon to initiate shoots with normal leaves.
After the formation of the new plant the stolon dies away in a year or two, while rhizomes persist for many years or for the life of the plant, adding more length each year to the ends with active growth. The horizontal growth of stolons results from the interplay of different hormones produced at the growing point and hormones from the main plant, with some studies showing that stolon and rhizome growth are affected by the amount of shady light the plant receives with increased production and branching from plants exposed to mixed shade and sun, while plants in all day sun or all shade produce fewer stolons. A number of plants have soil-level or above-ground rhizomes, including Iris species and many orchid species. T. Holm restricted the term rhizome to a horizontal subterranean, stem that produces roots from its lower surface and green leaves from its apex, developed directly from the plumule of the embryo, he recognized stolons as axillary, subterranean branches that do not bear green leaves but only membranaceous, scale-like ones.
In some Cyperus species the stolons end with the growth of tubers. Some species of crawling plants can sprout adventitious roots, but are not considered stoloniferous: a stolon is sprouted from an existing stem and can produce a full individual. Examples of plants that extend through stolons include some species from the genera Argentina, Cynodon and Pilosella, Zoysia japonica, Ranunculus repens. Other plants with stolons below the soil surface include many grasses, Ajuga and Stachys. Lily-of-the-valley has rhizomes that grow stolon-like stems called stoloniferous rhizomes or leptomorph rhizomes. A number of plants have stoloniferous rhizomes including Asters; these stolon-like rhizomes are long and thin, with long internodes and indeterminate growth with lateral buds at the node, which remain dormant. In potatoes, the stolons start to grow within 10 days of plants emerging above ground, with tubers beginning to form on the end of the stolons; the tubers are modified stolons. Since it is not a rhizome it does not generate roots, but the new stem growth that grows to the surface produces roots.
See BBCH-scale Hydrilla use stolons that produce tubers to spread themselves and to survive dry periods in aquatic habitats. Erythronium called Trout Lily, have white stolons growing from the bulb. Most run horizontally. A number of bulbous species produce stolons, such as Erythronium propullans. Flowering plants produce no stolons. Convolvulus arvensis is a weed species in agriculture that spreads by under ground stolons that produce rhizomes. In studies on grass species, with plants that produce stolons or rhizomes and plants that produce both stolons and rhizomes and physiological differences were noticed. Stolons have longer internodes and function as means of seeking out light and are used for propagation of the plant, while rhizomes are used as storage organs for carbohydrates and the maintenance of meristem tissue to keep the parent plant alive from one year to the next. In mycology, a stolon is defined as an septate hypha, which connects sporangiophores together. Root-like structures called rhizoids may appear on the stolon as well, anchoring the hyphae to the substrate.
The stolon is found in bread molds, are seen as horizontally expanding across the mold. Some bryozoans form colonies through connection of individual units by stolons. Other colonies include erect colonies; some colonial Cnidaria develop as stolons with interconnected medusoid structures that separate. Some worm-like animals such as certain Polychaeta in the genus Myrianida, form stolons containing eggs or sperm that they trail behind the main body. Stolon based reproduction is thought to have been used by Rangeomorphs in the Ediacaran age. Offshoot Root Sprigging Vegetative reproduction
Plant stem
A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant, the other being the root. The stem is divided into nodes and internodes: The nodes hold one or more leaves, as well as buds which can grow into branches. Adventitious roots may be produced from the nodes; the internodes distance one node from another. The term "shoots" is confused with "stems". In most plants stems are located above the soil surface but some plants have underground stems. Stems have four main functions which are: Support for and the elevation of leaves and fruits; the stems keep the leaves in the light and provide a place for the plant to keep its flowers and fruits. Transport of fluids between the roots and the shoots in the xylem and phloem Storage of nutrients Production of new living tissue; the normal lifespan of plant cells is one to three years. Stems have cells called meristems. Stems are specialized for storage, asexual reproduction, protection or photosynthesis, including the following: Acaulescent – used to describe stems in plants that appear to be stemless.
These stems are just short, the leaves appearing to rise directly out of the ground, e.g. some Viola species. Arborescent – tree like with woody stems with a single trunk. Axillary bud – a bud which grows at the point of attachment of an older leaf with the stem, it gives rise to a shoot. Branched – aerial stems are described as being branched or unbranched Bud – an embryonic shoot with immature stem tip. Bulb – a short vertical underground stem with fleshy storage leaves attached, e.g. onion, tulip. Bulbs function in reproduction by splitting to form new bulbs or producing small new bulbs termed bulblets. Bulbs are a combination of stem and leaves so may better be considered as leaves because the leaves make up the greater part. Caespitose – when stems grow in a tangled mass or clump or in low growing mats. Cladode – a flattened stem that appears more-or-less leaf like and is specialized for photosynthesis, e.g. cactus pads. Climbing -- stems that wrap around other plants or structures. Corm – a short enlarged underground, storage stem, e.g. taro, gladiolus.
Decumbent -- stems that lie flat on the turn upwards at the ends. Fruticose -- stems. Herbaceous – non woody, they die at the end of the growing season. Internode – an interval between two successive nodes, it possesses the ability to elongate, either from its base or from its extremity depending on the species. Node – a point of attachment of a leaf or a twig on the stem in seed plants. A node is a small growth zone. Pedicel – stems that serve as the stalk of an individual flower in an inflorescence or infrutescence. Peduncle – a stem that supports an inflorescence Prickle – a sharpened extension of the stem's outer layers, e.g. roses. Pseudostem – a false stem made of the rolled bases of leaves, which may be 2 or 3 m tall as in banana Rhizome – a horizontal underground stem that functions in reproduction but in storage, e.g. most ferns, iris Runner – a type of stolon, horizontally growing on top of the ground and rooting at the nodes, aids in reproduction. E.g. garden strawberry, Chlorophytum comosum.
Scape – a stem that holds flowers that comes out of the ground and has no normal leaves. Hosta, Iris, Garlic. Stolon – a horizontal stem that produces rooted plantlets at its nodes and ends, forming near the surface of the ground. Thorn – a modified stem with a sharpened point. Tuber – a swollen, underground storage stem adapted for storage and reproduction, e.g. potato. Woody – hard textured stems with secondary xylem. Stem consist of three tissues, dermal tissue, ground tissue and vascular tissue; the dermal tissue covers the outer surface of the stem and functions to waterproof and control gas exchange. The ground tissue consists of parenchyma cells and fills in around the vascular tissue, it sometimes functions in photosynthesis. Vascular tissue provides structural support. Most or all ground tissue may be lost in woody stems; the dermal tissue of aquatic plants stems. The arrangement of the vascular tissues varies among plant species. Dicot stems with primary growth have pith in the center, with vascular bundles forming a distinct ring visible when the stem is viewed in cross section.
The outside of the stem is covered with an epidermis, covered by a waterproof cuticle. The epidermis may contain stomata for gas exchange and multicellular stem hairs called trichomes. A cortex consisting of hypodermis and endodermis is present above the pericycle and vascular bundles. Woody dicots and many nonwoody dicots have secondary growth originating from their lateral or secondary meristems: the vascular cambium and the cork cambium or phellogen; the vascular cambium forms between the xylem and phloem in the vascular bundles and connects to form a continuous cylinder. The vascular cambium cells divide to produce secondary xylem to the inside and secondary phloem to the outside; as the stem increases in diameter due to production of secondary xylem and secondary phloem, the cortex and epidermis are destroyed. Before the cortex is destroyed, a cork cambium develops there; the cork cambium divides to produce waterproof cork cells externally and sometimes phelloderm cells internally. Those three tissues form the periderm.
Areas of loosely pack
Tuber
Tubers are enlarged structures in some plant species used as storage organs for nutrients. They are used for the plant's perennation, to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season, as a means of asexual reproduction. Stem tubers form thickened stolons. Common plant species with stem tubers include yam; some sources treat modified lateral roots under the definition. The term originates from Latin tuber, meaning "lump, swelling"; some sources define the term "tuber" to mean only structures derived from stems. A stem tuber forms from thickened stolons; the top sides of the tuber produce shoots that grow into typical stems and leaves and the under sides produce roots. They tend to form at the sides of the parent plant and are most located near the soil surface; the underground stem tuber is a short-lived storage and regenerative organ developing from a shoot that branches off a mature plant. The offsprings or new tubers are attached to a parent tuber or form at the end of a hypogeogenous rhizome.
In the autumn the plant dies, except for the new offspring stem tubers which have one dominant bud, which in spring regrows a new shoot producing stems and leaves, in summer the tubers decay and new tubers begin to grow. Some plants form smaller tubers and/or tubercules which act like seeds, producing small plants that resemble seedlings; some stem tubers are long-lived, such as those of tuberous begonia, but many plants have tubers that survive only until the plants have leafed out, at which point the tuber is reduced to a shriveled-up husk. Stem tubers start off as enlargements of the hypocotyl section of a seedling but sometimes include the first node or two of the epicotyl and the upper section of the root; the stem tuber has a vertical orientation with one or a few vegetative buds on the top and fibrous roots produced on the bottom from a basal section the stem tuber has an oblong rounded shape. Tuberous begonia and Cyclamen are grown stem tubers. Mignonette vine produces aerial stem tubers on 12-to-25-foot-tall vines, the tubers fall to the ground and grow.
Plectranthus esculentus of the mint family Lamiaceae, produces tuberous under ground organs from the base of the stem, weighing up to 1.8 kg per tuber, forming from axillary buds producing short stolons that grow into tubers. Potatoes are stem tubers. Enlarged stolons thicken to develop into storage organs; the tuber has all the parts including nodes and internodes. The nodes are the eyes and each has a leaf scar; the nodes or eyes are arranged around the tuber in a spiral fashion beginning on the end opposite the attachment point to the stolon. The terminal bud is produced at the farthest point away from the stolon attachment and tubers thus show the same apical dominance as a normal stem. Internally, a tuber is filled with starch stored in enlarged parenchyma like cells; the inside of a tuber has the typical cell structures of any stem, including a pith, vascular zones, a cortex. The tuber is produced in one growing season and used to perennate the plant and as a means of propagation; when fall comes, the above-ground structure of the plant dies, but the tubers survive over winter underground until spring, when they regenerate new shoots that use the stored food in the tuber to grow.
As the main shoot develops from the tuber, the base of the shoot close to the tuber produces adventitious roots and lateral buds on the shoot. The shoot produces stolons that are long etiolated stems; the stolon elongates during long days with the presence of high auxins levels that prevent root growth off of the stolon. Before new tuber formation begins, the stolon must be a certain age; the enzyme lipoxygenase makes a hormone, jasmonic acid, involved in the control of potato tuber development. The stolons are recognized when potato plants are grown from seeds; as the plants grow, stolons are produced around the soil surface from the nodes. The tubers form close to the soil surface and sometimes on top of the ground; when potatoes are cultivated, the tubers are planted much deeper into the soil. Planting the pieces deeper creates more area for the plants to generate the tubers and their size increases; the pieces sprout shoots. These shoots generate short stolons from the nodes while in the ground.
When the shoots reach the soil surface, they produce roots and shoots that grow into the green plant. A tuberous root or storage root, is a modified lateral root, enlarged to function as a storage organ; the enlarged area of the root-tuber, or storage root, can be produced at the end or middle of a root or involve the entire root. It is thus similar in function and appearance to a stem tuber. Examples of plants with notable tuberous roots include the sweet potato and dahlia. Root tubers are perennating organs, thickened roots that store nutrients over periods when the plant cannot grow, thus permitting survival from one year to the next; the massive enlargement of secondary roots represented by sweet potato, have the internal and external cell and tissue structures of a normal root, they produce adventitious roots and stems which again produce adventitious roots. In root-tubers, there are reduced leaves. Root tubers have one end called the proximal end, the end
Turmeric
Turmeric is a flowering plant of the ginger family, the roots of which are used in cooking. The plant is rhizomatous and perennial, is native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, requires temperatures between 20 and 30 °C and a considerable amount of annual rainfall to thrive. Plants are gathered each year for their rhizomes, some for propagation in the following season and some for consumption; when not used fresh, the rhizomes are boiled in water for about 30–45 minutes and dried in hot ovens, after which they are ground into a deep orange-yellow powder used as a coloring and flavoring agent in many Asian cuisines for curries, as well as for dyeing. Turmeric powder has a warm, black pepper-like flavor and earthy, mustard-like aroma. Although long used in Ayurvedic medicine, where it is known as haridra, no high-quality clinical evidence exists for use of turmeric or its constituent, curcumin, as a therapy. Turmeric has been used in Asia for thousands of years and is a major part of Ayurveda, Siddha medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and the animistic rituals of Austronesian peoples.
It was first used as a dye, later for its supposed properties in folk medicine. Although the precise origin of turmeric is not known, it appears to have originated from tropical Southeast Asia, it is most associated with India today. The greatest diversity of Curcuma species by number alone is at around 40 to 45 species. Thailand is much smaller than India. Other countries in tropical Asia have numerous wild species of Curcuma. Recent studies have shown that the taxonomy of Curcuma longa is problematic, with only the specimens from South India being identifiable as C. longa. The phylogeny, relationships and interspecific variation, identity of other species and cultivars in other parts of the world still need to be established and validated. Various species utilized and sold as "turmeric" in other parts of Asia have been shown to belong to several physically similar taxa, with overlapping local names. Furthermore, in the case of the use and spread of turmeric by the Austronesian peoples into Oceania and Madagascar, there is strong linguistic and circumstantial evidence that it pre-dated contact with India.
The populations in Polynesia and Micronesia, in particular, never came into contact with India, but use turmeric for both food and dye. Thus independent domestication events are likely; the origin of the name is Indian. It derives from Middle English or Early Modern English as turmeryte or tarmaret, it may be of terra merita. The name of the genus, Curcuma, is derived from the Sanskrit kuṅkuma, referring to both turmeric and saffron, used in India since ancient times. Turmeric is a perennial herbaceous plant. Branched, yellow to orange, aromatic rhizomes are found; the leaves are arranged in two rows. They are divided into leaf sheath and leaf blade. From the leaf sheaths, a false stem is formed; the petiole is 50 to 115 cm long. The simple leaf blades are 76 to 115 cm long and up to 230 cm, they are oblong to elliptical, narrowing at the tip. At the top of the inflorescence, stem bracts are present on; the hermaphrodite flowers are threefold. The three sepals are 0.8 to 1.2 cm long and white, have fluffy hairs.
The three bright-yellow petals are fused into a corolla tube up to 3 cm long. The three corolla lobes have a length of 1.0 to 1.5 cm and are triangular with soft-spiny upper ends. While the average corolla lobe is larger than the two lateral, only the median stamen of the inner circle is fertile; the dust bag is spurred at its base. All other stamens are converted to staminodes; the outer staminodes are shorter than the labellum. The labellum is yellowish, with a yellow ribbon in its center and it is obovate, with a length from 1.2 to 2.0 cm. Three carpels are under a constant, trilobed ovary adherent, sparsely hairy; the fruit capsule opens with three compartments. In East Asia, the flowering time is in August. Terminally on the false stem is an inflorescence; the bracts are ovate to oblong with a blunt upper end with a length of 3 to 5 cm. Turmeric powder is about 60–70% carbohydrates, 6–13% water, 6–8% protein, 5–10% fat, 3–7% dietary minerals, 3–7% essential oils, 2–7% dietary fiber, 1–6% curcuminoids.
Phytochemical components of turmeric include diarylheptanoids, a class including numerous curcuminoids, such as curcumin, demethoxycurcumin, bisdemethoxycurcumin. Curcumin constitutes up to 3.14% of assayed commercial samples of turmeric powder. Some 34 essential oils are present in turmeric, among which turmerone, germacrone and zingiberene are major constituents. Turmeric is one of the key ingredients in many Asian dishes, imparting a mustard-like, earthy aroma and pungent bitter flavor to foods, it is used in savory dishes, but is used in some sweet dishes, such as the cake sfouf. In India, turmeric leaf is used to prepare special sweet dishes, patoleo, by layering rice flour and coconut-jaggery mixture on the leaf closing and steaming it in a special u
Rhubarb
Rhubarb is a cultivated plant in the genus Rheum in the family Polygonaceae. It is a herbaceous perennial growing from thick rhizomes. Different plants have been called "rhubarb" in English and used for two distinct purposes; the roots of some species were first used in medicine. The fleshy, edible stalks of other species and hybrids were cooked and used for food; the large, triangular leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid. The small flowers are grouped in large compound leafy greenish-white to rose-red inflorescences; the precise origin of culinary rhubarb is unknown. The species Rheum rhabarbarum and R. rhaponticum were grown in Europe before the 18th century and used for medicinal purposes. By the early 18th century, these two species and a possible hybrid of unknown origin, R. × hybridum, were grown as vegetable crops in England and Scandinavia. They hybridize, culinary rhubarb was developed by selecting open-pollinated seed, so that its precise origin is impossible to determine. In appearance, culinary rhubarb varies continuously between R. rhabarbarum.
However, modern rhubarb cultivars are tetraploids with 2n = 44, in contrast to 2n=22 for the wild species. Although rhubarb is a vegetable, it is put to the same culinary uses as fruits; the leaf stalks can be used raw, when they have a crisp texture, but are most cooked with sugar and used in pies and other desserts. They have a tart taste. Many cultivars have been developed for human consumption, most of which are recognised as Rheum × hybridum by the Royal Horticultural Society. Rhubarb is grown and with greenhouse production it is available throughout much of the year. Rhubarb grown in hothouses is called "hothouse rhubarb", is made available at consumer markets in early spring, before outdoor cultivated rhubarb is available. Hothouse rhubarb is brighter red and sweeter-tasting than outdoor rhubarb. In temperate climates, rhubarb is one of the first food plants harvested in mid- to late spring, the season for field-grown plants lasts until the end of summer. In the northwestern US states of Oregon and Washington, there are two harvests, from late April to May and from late June into July.
Rhubarb is ready to consume as soon as harvested, freshly cut stalks are firm and glossy. In the United Kingdom, the first rhubarb of the year is harvested by candlelight in forcing sheds where all other light is excluded, a practice that produces a sweeter, more tender stalk; these sheds are dotted around the "Rhubarb Triangle" between Wakefield and Morley. Rhubarb damaged by severe cold should not be eaten, as it may be high in oxalic acid, which migrates from the leaves and can cause illness; the colour of rhubarb stalks can vary from the associated crimson red, through speckled light pink, to light green. Rhubarb stalks are poetically described as "crimson stalks"; the colour results from the presence of anthocyanins, varies according to both rhubarb variety and production technique. The colour is not related to its suitability for cooking: The Chinese call rhubarb "the great yellow", have used rhubarb root for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, it appears in The Divine Farmer's Herb-Root Classic, thought to have been compiled about 1,800 years ago.
Though Dioscurides' description of ρηον or ρά indicates that a medicinal root brought to Greece from beyond the Bosphorus may have been rhubarb, commerce in the drug did not become securely established until Islamic times. During Islamic times, it was imported along the Silk Road, reaching Europe in the 14th century through the ports of Aleppo and Smyrna, where it became known as "Turkish rhubarb", it started arriving via the new maritime routes, or overland through Russia. The "Russian rhubarb" was the most valued because of the rhubarb-specific quality control system maintained by the Russian Empire; the cost of transportation across Asia made rhubarb expensive in medieval Europe. It was several times the price of other valuable herbs and spices such as cinnamon and saffron; the merchant explorer Marco Polo therefore searched for the place where the plant was grown and harvested, discovering that it was cultivated in the mountains of Tangut province. The value of rhubarb can be seen in Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo's report of his embassy in 1403–05 to Timur in Samarkand: "The best of all merchandise coming to Samarkand was from China: silks, musk, diamonds and rhubarb..."The high price as well as the increasing demand from apothecaries stimulated efforts to cultivate the different species of rhubarb on European soil.
Certain species came to be grown in England to produce the roots. The local availability of the plants grown for medicinal purposes, together with the increasing abundance and decreasing price of sugar in the 18th century, galvanised its culinary adoption. Grieve claims a date of 1820 in England. Though it is asserted that rhubarb first came to the United States in the 1820s, John Bartram was growing medicinal and culinary rhubarbs in Philadelphia from the 1730s, planting seeds sent him by Peter Collinson. From the first, the familiar garden rhubarb was not the only Rheum in American gardens: Thomas Jefferson planted R. undulatum at Monticello in 1809 and 1811, observing that it was "Esculent rhubarb, the leaves excellent as Spinach." The advocate of organic gardening Lawrence D. Hills listed his
Venus flytrap
The Venus flytrap is a carnivorous plant native to subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of the United States in North Carolina and South Carolina. It catches its prey—chiefly insects and arachnids—with a trapping structure formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves, triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces; when an insect or spider crawling along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap prepares to close, snapping shut only if another contact occurs within twenty seconds of the first strike. Triggers may occur; the requirement of redundant triggering in this mechanism serves as a safeguard against wasting energy by trapping objects with no nutritional value, the plant will only begin digestion after five more stimuli to ensure it has caught a live bug worthy of consumption. Dionaea is a monotypic genus related to the waterwheel plant and sundews, all of which belong to the family Droseraceae. In 1760, the North Carolina colonial governor, Arthur Dobbs, penned the first written description of the plant in a letter to English botanist Peter Collinson.
It was dated Jan.. 24, 1760. The great wonder of the vegetable kingdom is a curious unknown species of Sensitive, it is a dwarf plant. The leaves are like a narrow segment of a sphere, consisting of two parts, like the cap of a spring purse, the concave part outwards, each of which falls back with indented edges, it bears a white flower. To this surprising plant I have given the name of Fly trap Sensitive; this seems to be the earliest notice of the plant by Europeans and is before the letters of John Ellis on the subject. The Venus flytrap is a small plant whose structure can be described as a rosette of four to seven leaves, which arise from a short subterranean stem, a bulb-like object; each stem reaches a maximum size of about three to ten centimeters, depending on the time of year. Flytraps that have more than seven leaves are colonies formed by rosettes that have divided beneath the ground; the leaf blade is divided into two regions: a flat, heart-shaped photosynthesis-capable petiole, a pair of terminal lobes hinged at the midrib, forming the trap, the true leaf.
The upper surface of these lobes contains its edges secrete mucilage. The lobes exhibit rapid plant movements, snapping shut; the trapping mechanism is tripped when prey contacts one of the three hair-like trichomes that are found on the upper surface of each of the lobes. The mechanism is so specialized that it can distinguish between living prey and non-prey stimuli, such as falling raindrops; the edges of the lobes are fringed by stiff hair-like protrusions or cilia, which mesh together and prevent large prey from escaping. These protrusions, the trigger hairs are homologous with the tentacles found in this plant's close relatives, the sundews. Scientists have concluded that the snap trap evolved from a fly-paper trap similar to that of Drosera; the holes in the meshwork allow small prey to escape because the benefit that would be obtained from them would be less than the cost of digesting them. If the prey is too small and escapes, the trap will reopen within 12 hours. If the prey moves around in the trap, it tightens and digestion begins more quickly.
Speed of closing can vary depending on the amount of humidity, size of prey, general growing conditions. The speed with which traps close can be used as an indicator of a plant's general health. Venus flytraps are not as humidity-dependent as are some other carnivorous plants, such as Nepenthes, most Heliamphora, some Drosera; the Venus flytrap exhibits variations in petiole shape and length and whether the leaf lies flat on the ground or extends up at an angle of about 40–60 degrees. The four major forms are: the most common, with broad decumbent petioles. Except for'filiformis', all of these can be stages in leaf production of any plant depending on season, length of photoperiod, intensity of light; the plant's common name refers to the Roman goddess of love. The genus name, refers to the Greek goddess Aphrodite, while the species name, muscipula, is Latin for "mousetrap"; the plant was known by the slang term "tipitiwitchet" or "tippity twitchet" an oblique reference to the plant's resemblance to human female genitalia.
Most carnivorous plants selectively feed on specific prey. This selection is due to the type of trap used by the organism. With the Venus flytrap, prey is limited to beetles and other crawling arthropods. In fact, the Dionaea diet is 33% ants, 30% spiders, 10% beetles, 10% grasshoppers, with fewer than 5% flying insects. Given that Dionaea evolved from an ancestral form of Drosera (carnivorous plant
Shoot
In botany, shoots consist of stems including their appendages, the leaves and lateral buds, flowering stems and flower buds. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot. In the spring, perennial plant shoots are the new growth that grows from the ground in herbaceous plants or the new stem or flower growth that grows on woody plants. In everyday speech, shoots are synonymous with stems. Stems, which are an integral component of shoots, provide an axis for buds and leaves. Young shoots are eaten by animals because the fibres in the new growth have not yet completed secondary cell wall development, making the young shoots softer and easier to chew and digest; as shoots grow and age, the cells develop secondary cell walls that have a tough structure. Some plants produce toxins that make their shoots less palatable. Many woody plants have long shoots. In some angiosperms, the short shoots called spur shoots or fruit spurs, produce the majority of flowers and fruit. A similar pattern occurs in some conifers and in Ginkgo, although the "short shoots" of some genera such as Picea are so small that they can be mistaken for part of the leaf that they have produced.
A related phenomenon is seasonal heterophylly, which involves visibly different leaves from spring growth and lammas growth. Whereas spring growth comes from buds formed the previous season, includes flowers, lammas growth involves long shoots. Bud Heteroblasty, abrupt change in the growth pattern of some plants as they mature Lateral shoot Sterigma, the "woody peg" below the leaf of some conifers Thorn, true thorns, as distinct from spines or prickles, are short shoots
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