Glossary

The entries use words like umbel, leaflet and glabrous because there are no honest synonyms: "that umbrella shaped thing" does not tell wild carrot from hemlock, and the difference between them kills. These are the terms the entries actually use, counted across every entry, defined in the language of someone holding the plant.

Our own words

Edible: In this app this label means one thing only: traditionally used as food. It never means you can eat it. The distinction is not legal hedging: a 2023 study tested the most used identification apps and five of eleven toxic species were called edible by at least one of them. The decision belongs to whoever is in the field, book in hand, with too many doubts to risk it.
Endemic: A plant that occurs naturally nowhere else in the world. Madeira and the Azores have dozens, which is why the island entries were worth writing even knowing fewer people search for them. An endemic species lost is lost for good.
Entry: A species page in this guide. Each is written and reviewed by hand, with field marks, look alikes, season and warnings. It is not generated automatically or machine translated: it exists in Portuguese, English and Spanish because it was written in all three.
Family: The larger group the species belongs to, with a name almost always ending in aceae. It matters more in the field than it looks: recognising the family cuts thousands of possibilities to dozens, and some whole families deserve caution, such as Apiaceae, which include both carrot and hemlock.
Invasive and naturalised: Naturalised means a plant that came from elsewhere and now reproduces on its own without doing harm. Invasive means one that has taken the place of others: it forms dense stands, changes the soil, and in some cases planting or moving it is an offence. Many of the prettiest plants in the Azores and Madeira are invasive, which makes the entry a warning and not a garden suggestion.
Look alike: Another plant this one is confused with in the field. Not a relative: a trap. Every entry lists its own and, for each, the concrete sign that tells them apart, because saying two plants look alike without saying how to separate them helps nobody. Severity runs from 1 to 3, and 3 means the confusion can kill.
Medicinal: A label of traditional use, always in the past. It says what was done, not what should be done, and in no case gives a dose, a preparation or a therapeutic indication. Many plants with a long medicinal reputation are also toxic at the wrong dose, and the wrong dose is easy.
Scientific name: Two Latin words: the genus and the species, as in Olea europaea. It exists because common names change from village to village and the same name often covers different plants. One caution: the same plant may have had several scientific names over time. These are called synonyms, and they are the reason a search sometimes fails.
Toxic and irritant: Two different things, and the difference matters. An irritant harms from outside: it burns skin, eyes or mouth, and passes. A toxic plant harms from inside, when swallowed, and may not pass. A plant can be both. Our danger rating runs from 0 to 3, and from 2 upwards the warning is shown before the text and before the photograph.

The flower

Bract: A modified leaf next to the flower, often coloured and mistaken for a petal. The red of a poinsettia is bracts, not flowers.
Calyx: The sepals as a whole, the green ring at the base of the flower. In many mints it persists after the flower drops, which lets you identify the dry plant out of season.
Corolla: The petals as a whole. It is called tubular when the petals are fused into a tube, as in bellflowers.
Corymb: Flowers on stalks of different lengths that all end at the same height, giving a flat top. It looks like an umbel but the stalks do not spring from one point.
Dioecious and monoecious: Dioecious means there are separate male and female plants, and only the female ones bear fruit. That is why a holly can go years without berries: it is not disease, it is sex. Monoecious has both on the same plant.
Flower head: What looks like a single flower in daisies, thistles and sunflowers is really hundreds of tiny flowers packed into a disc. That is why a daisy has no petals: it has petal shaped flowers.
Involucre: The ring of bracts beneath a flower head or an umbel. In thistles it carries the spines that matter most for telling them apart.
Panicle: A much branched, open and airy flower cluster, like the plume of a reed.
Petal: Each of the coloured parts of a flower, the showy ones. Counting them is often the first step towards the family: crucifers have four, roses five, lilies six.
Sepal: The green parts beneath the petals, which enclosed the bud before it opened. Together they form the calyx.
Spike: Stalkless flowers set directly along a long axis, as in wheat or plantain.
Stamen: The slender stalks at the centre of the flower, with a pollen sac at the tip. Their number and length separate whole families.
Stigma: The sticky tip at the centre of the flower where pollen lands. In saffron it is the three red threads that are harvested.
Tepal: When sepals and petals look alike and cannot be told apart, they are all called tepals. Lilies and daffodils are the usual case.
Umbel: Flowers arranged like the ribs of an umbrella, all springing from the same point. It is the mark of the carrot family, which includes hemlock: a white umbel is a reason for caution, not for confidence.

The leaf

Alternate leaves: One leaf at a time along the stem, zigzagging. The opposite of opposite.
Axil: The angle between leaf and stem, on the upper side. Buds, spines and many flowers arise there, and it is where you look to decide whether something is a leaf or a leaflet.
Blade: The flat, broad part of the leaf, what you would simply call the leaf in ordinary speech. It is distinguished from the petiole, which is only the stalk.
Deciduous and evergreen: Deciduous drops all its leaves at one time of year. Evergreen keeps them and replaces them gradually. In Iberia it is what separates the deciduous oaks from the holm and cork oaks, and it is a sign you read from a distance without touching anything.
Fleshy: A thick, water filled leaf or stem that gives when squeezed. It is the mark of dune, rock and cliff plants.
Glabrous: Without any hairs, smooth to the touch. Many pairs of very similar species are told apart only by one being glabrous and the other hairy.
Glaucous: Bluish or greyish green, often from a waxy bloom that rubs off with a finger.
Hairy and felted: Degrees of hairiness. Pubescent is fine short hair. Tomentose is a dense felt that makes the leaf look woolly and often grey.
Lance shaped: A narrow, long leaf, broadest near the base and tapering to the tip, like a lance blade.
Leaf stalk and sessile: The petiole is the stalk joining leaf to stem. Sessile is the opposite: the leaf sits directly on the stem with no stalk at all. It sounds like a detail and is not: in whole genera this is the only difference between two species.
Leaflet: Each part of a compound leaf. Knowing whether you are looking at one leaf with five leaflets or five leaves changes the identification: check the base, a leaf always has a bud in its axil and a leaflet does not.
Leathery: A stiff, thick leaf that feels like leather. Typical of plants that endure a dry summer, such as holm oak and strawberry tree.
Lobed: A leaf with deep indentations that stop short of splitting into leaflets, like an oak leaf.
Opposite leaves: Two leaves at the same level on the stem, one on each side. It is one of the quickest signs to read and one that rules out whole families fastest.
Pinnate: A compound leaf with leaflets ranged along both sides of an axis, like a feather. Bipinnate is the same again: each leaflet divides once more, as in acacias.
Stipule: A small appendage at the base of the leaf stalk, sometimes leaf like, spiny or sheathing. Its presence and shape separate very similar species.
Toothed margins: Three ways for a leaf margin not to be smooth. Serrate has forward leaning teeth like a saw, dentate has straight teeth, crenate has rounded scallops.
Vein: The raised lines running through a leaf. Whether they are parallel or branched, and how many leave the base, is often the decisive sign.
Whorl: Three or more leaves or flowers in a ring, all at the same level on the stem. In mints the flowers form such tiers up the stem.

The fruit

Achene: A small dry one seeded fruit that does not split open, and that most people take for the seed itself. Every fragment of a dandelion clock that flies away is an achene with its parachute.
Berry: A fleshy fruit soft all through, with the seeds loose in the pulp, like a tomato or a grape. Note: berry does not mean edible. Many of the brightest and most tempting berries belong to the most toxic plants there are.
Capsule: A dry fruit that splits open on ripening, releasing seeds through slits or pores.
Cone: Conifers have neither true flowers nor true fruits: they have cones with seeds between woody scales. Shape, size and how long they take to open separate pines that look alike from a distance.
Drupe: A fleshy fruit with a hard stone at the centre, like an olive, a cherry or a peach. Opening one to see whether there is a single stone or loose seeds quickly separates many similar species.
Pod: A long dry fruit splitting along two seams, with the seeds in a row. It is the mark of the pea family, which includes brooms and lupins, and many such pods are toxic despite looking like peas.
Samara: A dry fruit with a papery wing that makes it spin as it falls. The helicopter of maples and ashes.
Silique: A long narrow fruit that opens in two halves leaving a thin papery wall between them. It is the mark of the cabbage family.

Habit, bark and root

Annual, biennial, perennial: How long the plant lives. An annual sprouts, seeds and dies within one year. A biennial takes two, leaves in the first and flowers in the second. A perennial returns every year from the same root.
Bark: The outer layer of the trunk. It is the most useful sign in winter, when there are neither leaves nor flowers: smooth or fissured, flaking in plates or in strips, grey or reddish. A cork oak is identified by bark alone.
Bud: The closed shoot from which a leaf or flower emerges. On deciduous trees it is what remains in winter, and its position, colour and number of scales are enough to identify many species without a single leaf.
Bulb: An underground organ made of overlapping fleshy leaves, like an onion. It stores reserves so the plant can shoot up quickly when its season comes.
Habit: herb, subshrub, shrub, tree: The overall shape of the plant, and the first thing you see from a distance. A herb has no wood. A subshrub is woody only at the base with soft shoots above, like thyme. A shrub is woody and branches from the ground. A tree has a clear trunk that branches higher up.
Herbaceous: Without wood, soft stemmed, usually dying back at the end of the season.
Latex: A milky fluid that seeps out when a stem or leaf is broken. In spurges it irritates skin and eyes, so testing it by hand before knowing the plant is not worth it.
Perennial: Living for several years. Beware of the ambiguity: applied to leaves, evergreen means something else, that the plant does not shed them in winter.
Resin: A thick, sticky and usually fragrant fluid that seeps from cuts in the bark. In pines and rockroses it is one of the most reliable field signs, because the smell does not lie.
Rhizome: A stem that grows horizontally underground, sending out roots and shoots. It is what makes many invasives impossible to pull up: it breaks, and every piece sprouts again.
Rosette: Leaves in a ring flat against the ground, all from one point. Many plants spend winter like this and only raise a flowering stem in spring, which makes the same species look like two depending on the season.
Spine and prickle: Not the same thing. A spine is a modified leaf or branch and cannot be removed without wounding the plant. A prickle, as on roses and brambles, belongs only to the bark and can be flicked off with a fingernail.
Stolon, runner: A stem that runs along the surface and roots where it touches, as in strawberry.
Tuber: An underground swelling that stores reserves, like a potato. Unlike a bulb, it has no layers.
Woody: Made of wood, that is, it does not die back in winter and thickens year on year. The opposite of herbaceous.

Where it grows

Laurel forest: The humid evergreen forest of Madeira and the Azores, of broad leathery leaves, a direct survivor of the forests that covered southern Europe before the ice ages. Madeira's is a World Heritage site, and much of what grows there exists nowhere else.
Ruderal: A plant of roadsides, rubble, stockyards and ground disturbed by people and livestock. It is not an insult: these are the plants you meet most on a walk, precisely because they live where we go.
Scrub: Low woody vegetation of rockroses, heathers, gorse and lavenders, covering dry slopes and ground that was once forest or field. It is the most characteristic habitat of Iberia and where much of this catalogue lives.

Is a term missing that you met in an entry and did not understand? Tell us and it goes in. Tell us which.