Definition: A forest biome is a terrestrial biome which includes, across its entire spatial extent, densely packed vegetation which strongly limits light penetration to the forest floor.
Definition: A grassland biome is a terrestrial biome which includes, across its entire spatial extent, an unbroken layer of grasses (Gramineae), sedges (Cyperaceae) or rushes (Juncaceae).
Definition: A landform consisting of loose rock particles such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, cobble, or even shell fragments along the shoreline of a body of water.
Definition: Arenosols are sandy soils, including both soils developed in residual sands after in situ weathering of usually quartz-rich sediments or rock, and soils developed in recently deposited sands such as dunes in deserts and beach lands.
Definition: Of plant duration, a plant whose life span ends within one year after germination, e.g. a winter annual germinating in the autumn and flowering in the spring (esp. in Mediterranean climates), approximately synonymous to therophyte, c.f. biennial, ephemeral, perennial, c.f. also of flowering with respect to architecture, hapaxanthic, monocarpic, pleonanthic.
Definition: Of plant duration, a plant whose life span extends over more than two growing seasons, c.f. annual, biennial, ephemeral, of flowering with respect to architecture, hapaxanthic, monocarpic, pleonanthic
Definition: a photosynthetic process in some plants. It is the first step in extracting carbon from carbon dioxide to be able to use it in sugar and other biomolecules. It is one of three known processes for carbon fixation. The C4 in one of the names refers to the four-carbon molecule that is the first product of this type of carbon fixation.
Definition: A terrestrial plant is a plant that grows on or in or from land. Other types of plants are aquatic (living in water), epiphytic (living on trees) and lithophytic (living in or on rocks)
Definition: National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (USNM), Washington, District of Columbia, USA.\r\nNMNH and USNM both refer to the National Museum of Natural History. Collections are associated with one or the other acronym. US, the US National Herbarium, is a collection within the National Museum of Natural History. URL for main institutional website, http://www.mnh.si.edu/rc/\r\nURL for institutional specimen catalog, http://collections.mnh.si.edu/