Basipetally
1. The development of plant tissues from an apex region (of shoots or roots), for example such as a leaf tip, to the base of a plant. This downward (or inward) movement in the leaves occurs when they start to cease cell division and stop photosynthesising; they die back from the leaf tip progressing down the leaf to turning it a sickly yellow colour.
2. The movement of substances, such as carbohydrates, in solution, from an apex region to the base of a plant.
Blade
The main, often flat part of a grass leaf, which is also called the lamina. It excludes other grass features such as the ligule and auricle as they form what is actually the leaf.
Botany
A multi-disciplinary scientific study of plants. It includes how they live; where they live; what they look like; how they are related to other plants; and how they interact with other plants and their environment. Botany is an important, but often neglected, aspect of good turf management.
Bract
A small or scale like leaf often at the base of flowers. A glume on a grass flower are bracts.
Bristle
A fine and firm projection from either some grass seeds (called an awn) or alternatively as an extension of a leaf vein where the bristles protrude beyond the epidermis of a leaf margin.
Bud
An undeveloped feature of a plant, which is usually located at the leaf axil (axillary bud), tip of a stem (apical bud), or from a node on a stolon or rhizome (adventitious bud), which is common in grasses. The feature will develop into either a flower, a shoot and leaves, or an adventitious root.
Bundle Sheath
The layer of cells which immediately surround a vascular bundle in C4 plants and which is the site of the Calvin cycle.
C3 Grasses
Mostly cool-season grasses which utilise the most common way to fix carbon during photosynthesis, initially creating a three-carbon compound. This process is called the C3 pathway. See Calvin Cycle.
C4 Grasses
Mostly warm-season grasses which create a four-carbon compound during photosynthesis. This process is called the C4 pathway. See Hatch-Slack Pathway.
Calyx