Persistent

remaining beyond the period when similar parts in other plants become mature and fall; not falling off but remaining green as the leaves of evergreens.

Personate

a form of monopetalous bilabiate corolla, in which the orifice of the tube is closed by an inflated projection of the throat.

Petal

one of the foliaceous expansions of that part of the floral whorl, termed the corolla.

Petaline

of or belonging to a petal.

Petaloid

having a thin membranous character and coloured, thus assuming the more usual character of the petals of flowers.

Petiole

the stalk or support by which the blade, or limb of a leaf, is attached to the stem.

Pilose

hairy.

Pinnate

Pinnated, having the leaflets arranged on opposite sides of a common petiole; confined to pairs of leaflets that are equally or paripinnate; if terminated by an odd leaflet, they are unequally, or impari-pinnate.

Pinnatifid

having the lateral incisions (in a simple leaf) extending towards the axis; approaching the form termed pinnate.

Pistil

the female part of a flower, composed of the ovary with its ovules, and the stigma or stigmas, with sometimes (usually) an intervening style.

Pistillate

furnished with pistils; generally applied to unisexual flowers.

Pitcher-shaped

tubular, bulging below and contracted towards the orifice.

Pith

the central column of cellular tissue, in the stems and branches of exogenous plants.

Placenta

that part of the ovary which supports the ovules.

Plaited

plicate, or folded longitudinally.

Plicate

folded together in regularly disposed longitudinal plaits.

Plumose

applied to hairs invested with branches, arranged like the beard on a feather.

Pod

a two-valved seed-vessel, one-celled as in the legume or pod of the pea, and two-celled as in the silique of the wall-flower.

Pollen

the granular contents of an anther, either free and resembling dust, or variously agglutinated into waxy masses.

Pollen-mass

an agglutinated mass of pollen, such as occurs in Orchids.

Polyadelphous

having the stamens combined in several sets or bundles.

Polygamous

bearing on the same plant three descriptions of flowers; viz., hermaphrodite, male, and female.

Polypetalous

having two or more petals, and these perfectly distinct from each other.

Pome

a fleshy many-celled fruit, matured from an inferior ovary.

Pore

an aperture in the covering of any body, as in that of the anthers of heaths, which open by a hole or aperture, instead of the usual slit for the escape of the pollen.

Porose

having pores.

Pouch

a little bag; also the short silicules of some Crucifers, as in Alyssum.