Saccate.   Pouch-like

Sagittate.   Lobe pointed and oriented downward or inward in relation to petiole or midrib; sinus depth variable; margins variable

Sagittiform.   Triangular-ovate with two straight or slightly incurved basal lobes

Salient, Porrect, or Projected.   Pointed outward, usually said of teeth

Salverform.   Trumpet-shaped; with slender tube and limb nearly at right angles to tube

Samara.   A winged, dry fruit

Samaracetum.   An aggregation of samaras, as in Liriodendron

Sapromyiophily.   Pollinated by carrion or dung flies

Sarcocauly.   Fleshy stems

Sarcous.   With the seed coat fleshy

Scaberulent.   Approaching scabrous

Scabridulous.   Minutely scabrous

Scabrous.   Having a harsh surface

Scale.   Small, non-green leaf on bud and modified stem; small, scarious to coriaceous flattened bodies within the perianth, as in the Cyperaceae and Asteraceae. Scale Leaf - Small, usually appressed and imbricate; e.g., Juniperus, Thuja

Scape.   A naked flowering stem with or without a few scale leaves, arising from an underground stem

Scapose.   With a solitary flower on a leafless peduncle or scape, usually arising from a basal rosette

Scarious.   Thin and dry, appearing shriveled

Scarred.   With old leaf base, stipular and/or branch scar regions

Schizocarp.   Separated body, as in separating fruits (achenes, berries, carcerules, follicules, mericarps, nutlets, samaras), splitting apart at maturity

Sclerocauly.   Hard, dryish stems

Sclerous.   Hard

or Lentiginous.  Scurfy or Lentiginous With exfoliating scaly incrustations

Seasonally.   Occurring during a seasonal cycle, or each season

Secund or Unilateral.   Flowers or other structures on one side of axis

Seed.   A matured ovule. Seed Coat - Outer protective covering of seed

Segment.   The ultimate division or unit of a dissected fern leaf

Semataxis.   Arrangement of semaphylls (petals, sepals, tepals), primarily advertising (pollinator attracting) in function

Semicarpous.   With ovaries of adjacent carpels partly fused, stigmas and styles separate

Semicraspedodromous.   With a single primary vein, the secondary veins branching just within the margin, one branch from each terminating at the margin and the other forming a marginal loop and joining the superadjacent secondary vein

Sepal.   A calyx member or segment; a unit of the calyx

Sepaliferous.   Most frequently at the base of sepals

Sepaloid.   Sepal-like in shape, texture and/or color

Septal.   At the junction of the septa in the ovary

Septate.   Divided by internal partitions into locules or cells

Septum or Dissepiment.   Partition. Septicidal Capsule - One that dehisces longitudinally through the septa, as in Penstemon

Sericeous.   With long, silky trichomes, usually appressed

Serotinal.   Opening late; appearing in late summer

Serrate.   Saw-toothed; teeth sharp and ascending, but cut 1/16-1/8 distance to midrib or midvein

Serrated.   Cut into sawlike teeth

Serrulate.   Diminutive of serrate, but cut to 1/16 distance to midrib or midvein

Sessile.   Without a petiole or petiolule

Seta.   A hair-like extension of the leaf, as in homophyllous species of Selaginella

Setose, Setaceous.   Having setae or bristlelike trichomes

Sheath.   Any more or less tubular portion of the leaf surrounding the stem or culm, as in the Poaceae

Sheathing.   Having tubular structure enclosing stem below apparent insertion of blade or petiole

Shining, Nitid, or Laevigate.   Lustrous, polished

Shrub.   A much-branched woody perennial plant usually without a single trunk

Silicle.   A dry, dehiscent fruit derived from two or more carpels that dehisce along two sutures and which has a persistent partition after dehiscence and is as broad as, or broader, than long

Silique.   A silicle type fruit that is longer than broad

Simple.   Not composed of more than one anatomically or morphologically equivalent unit

Sinistrorse.   Rising helically from left to right, a characteristic of twining stems

Sinuate.   Long horizontal curves in the body of the structure parallel to the central axis

Siphonostele.   A stele having vascular tissue in the form of a hollow cylinder, with a central pith

Soboliferous.   With loosely clumped shoots arising some distance apart from rhizomes or under ground suckers

Solenostele.   A siphonostele having phloem both internal and external to the xylem

Solitary.   One-flowered, not an inflorescence

Sorosis.   Fruits on a common axis that are usually coalesced and derived from the ovaries of several flowers, as in Morus

Sorus.   A cluster of sporangia

Spadix.   Unbranched, indeterminate inflorescence with flowers embedded in the rachis

Spathe.   An enlarged bract enclosing an inflorescence

Spathulate or Spatulate.   Oblong or obovate apically with a long attenuate base

Spatulate.   Foliate, erect embryo with variable cotyledons, thin to thick and slightly expanded to broad

Spherical.   With multi-dimensional radial symmetry

Sphingophily.   Pollinated by hawk moths and nocturnal lepidoptera

Spiculate.   With crystals in or on the surface

Spike.   Unbranched, indeterminate, elongate inflorescence with sessile flowers

Spikelet or Locusta.   A small spike; the basic inflorescence unit in grasses and sedges

Spine.   Sharp-pointed petiole, midrib, vein, or stipule

Spinose or Pungent.   Acuminate but coriaceous and stiff

Spiral.   Twisted like a corkscrew

Spirolobal.   With incumbent cotyledons folded once

Spongy.   Cellular; sponge-like

Sporangiophore.   The umbrella-shaped sporangium-bearing unit of the strobilus, as in Equisetum

Sporangium.   A spore case

Sporocarp.   A hard, nut-like structure containing the sporangia in heterosporous ferns

Sporophyll.   A spore bearing leaf

Spotted.   The color disposed in small spots

Spur.   A short shoot on which flowers and fruits or leaves are borne; a tubular or pointed projection from the perianth

Squamose.   Having coarse scales

Squarrose.   Usually sharply curved downward or outward in the apical region, as the bracts of some species of Aster

Stamen.   Male sporophyll within the flower; floral organ that bears pollen in angiosperms

Staminal.   Most frequently at base of filament

Staminate or Male.   With stamens only in the flower

Staminodial.   Frequently entire structure is nectariferous

Staminodium.   Sterile stamen, may be modified as a nectary or petaloid structure. Staminal Disc - A fleshy, elevated cushion formed from coalesced staminodia or nectaries

Standard, Banner, or Vexillum.   The upper, usually wide petal in a papilionaceous corolla

Stele.   The central primary vascular system of the stem and associated tissues delimited from the cortex by endodermis and pericycle, Delimited from the cortex by endodermis and pericycle

Stellate.   Star-shaped

Stem.   A supporting and conducting organ usually developed initially from the epicotyl and growing upward

Stereomorphic.   Flowers 3-dimensional with basically radial symmetry; parts many or reduced, and usually regular; e.g., Narcissus, Aquilegia

Stigma.   Pollen-receptive portion of pistil

Stipe, Podogyne, Carpopodium.   Basal stalk. Stipe Bundles - The vascular bundles of the fern petiole

Stipellate.   With stipels

Stipels.   Paired scales, spines, or glands at the base of petiolule

Stipulate.   With stipules

Stipules.   Paired scales, spines, glands, or blade-like structures at the base of a petiole. Stipular Scar - A mark indicating former place of attachment of stipule

Stolon.   Runner or indeterminate, elongate, above ground propagative stem, rooting at the tip producing new plants. Underground Stolon - A determinate, elongate, underground propagative stem with long internodes forming a bulb or tuber at the tip

Stoloniferous.   Bearing stolons; sarmentose

Stomate.   Opening or pore in leaf epidermis; intercellular space between two guard cells

Stomium.   Lip cell region of a fern sporangium

Striate.   With longitudinal lines

Strict.   Stiff and rigid

Strigillose.   Diminutive of strigose

Strigose.   Covered with sharp, coarse, bent trichomes usually with a bulbous base

Striped.   Longitudinal stripes of one color crossing another

Strobilus.   Stem with short internodes and spore-bearing appendages; a cone

Strombiform.   Elongate snail-shaped

Strophiolate.   With elongate aril or strophiole in the hilum region

Style.   Attenuated, non-ovule-bearing portion of pistil between stigma and ovary

Stylocarpellous.   With a style and without a stipe, the normal carpel

Stylocarpepodic.   With a style and stipe

Stylopodic.   With a stylopodium or discoid base, as in the Apiaceae

Subacrocaulous.   With branches at or near tip of main stem

Subapical.   At one side near apex of ovary

Subbasal.   Near the base

Subbasicaulous.   With branches at or near base of main stem

Subbasifixed.   Anther attached near its base to apex of filament

Suberous.   Corky

Subglabrate.   Almost glabrous

Subglobose.   Almost round or spherical

Submersed.   Beneath the surface of the water

Submersicaulous.   With submersed stems

Subtend.   To stand below and close to

Subterminal.   Near the apex

Subterranean or Hypogeous.   Below the surface of the ground

Subulate.   Very narrow and tapering; awl-shaped; linear

Sucker Shoots.   Shoots that develop from adventitious buds on old stumps or roots, usually after cutting or injury, which have elongate internodal lengths and intervals

Suffrutescent.   Woody basally, herbaceous apically

Sulcate.   With longitudinal grooves

Summer Annual.   Germinating in spring or early summer and flowering and fruiting in late summer or early fall, then dying

Superior.   Other floral organs attached below ovary

Supervolute.   With lamina with one edge tightly enrolled and with the other loosely enrolled covering the first, loosely convolute

Supine.   Prostrate, with parts oriented upward

Suprafoliar.   On the stem above the leaves, as in the Arecaceae

Suprarhizous.   On top of the root

Surcarpous.   With fruits on surface of ground

Surcurrent.   Extending along stem upward from leaf base

Surficial or Epigeous.   Upon or spread over the surface of the ground

Syconium.   A syncarp with the achenes borne on the inside of a hollowed-out receptacle or peduncle, as in Ficus

Syleptic Shoots.   Abnormal shoots that develop from lateral buds before they have reached maturity

Sympetalous.   With fused petals

Sympatric.   Collocated, together

Sympodial.   Branching without a main axis but with many, more or less, equal laterals

Synantherous.   With leaves and flowers appearing at same time

Syncarpous.   With fused carpels

Syncotyly.   Cotyledons coalesced, forming a funnel or trumpet

Syngenesious.   With fused anthers

Synovarious.   With ovaries of adjacent carpels completely fused, styles and stigmas separate

Synsepalous.   With fused sepals

Synstylovarious.   With ovaries and styles of adjacent carpels completely fused, stigmas separate

Syntropous.   With radicle pointing toward hilum