Glossary of Terms
Aboriginal Cultural Significance: The meaning and importance that plants, animals, and places hold in Aboriginal traditions, includes importance for tools, medicine, food, ceremony, and knowledge.
Alternate Leaf Arrangement: Leaves are spaced at different heights along the stem, not directly opposite each other.
Aromatic Leaves: Leaves that emit a noticeable scent when rubbed, often due to oil glands.
Aril (Fleshy Seed Covering): A soft, often colourful outer layer surrounding a seed.
Berry: A fleshy fruit without a stone, typically containing multiple seeds.
Brackish Swamps: Wetlands with a mix of fresh and saltwater, supporting salt-tolerant vegetation.
Cauliflorous: A trait where flowers or fruit grow directly from the trunk or main branches.
Catkin: Slim cylindrical cluster of flowers.
Compound leaf: A leaf that is made up of multiple leaflets. Each leaflet resembles an individual leaf.
Concolorous: Leaf surfaces are the same colour on both sides.
Country: In Aboriginal culture, this refers to land, sky, waterways, plants, animals, and people interconnected through spirit, culture, and knowledge.
Deciduous: Trees that shed their leaves seasonally, typically in autumn.
Dioecious: Species with male and female flowers on separate plants.
Disc Depressed/Raised: The top of the fruit is either indented (depressed) or elevated (raised).
Discolorous: Upper and lower leaf surfaces are different shades.
Djeera (Mount Keira): The Aboriginal name for Mount Keira, a significant mountain near Wollongong, sacred to local Aboriginal people.
Dry Sclerophyll Forest: Forest with hard-leaved vegetation, typically found in low-nutrient soils.
Drupe: A fleshy fruit with a hard inner seed (stone), like a cherry or olive.
Epiphyte: A plant that grows on another plant.
Elliptic: Leaf shape that is oval, widest in the middle.
Endangered Ecological Community: A group of species and habitats at risk of extinction due to environmental pressures.
Environmental Weed: A plant species that spreads aggressively outside its native range, potentially disrupting local ecosystems.
Habit: The overall growth form of a plant, including height and branching style.
Habitat: is all the living and non- living factors that make up a place where an organism lives and what it needs to survive (e.g food, water, shelter).
Heath: Low-growing vegetation found in nutrient-poor soils.
Inflorescence: A cluster of flowers arranged on a stem, which may be pyramid or cone-shaped.
Lanceolate: Leaf shape that is long and narrow, tapering to a point.
Leaflets: Smaller leaf-like segments that make up a compound leaf.
Leaf Teeth (Whorls): Tiny scale-like leaves arranged in circular patterns, typical of Casuarina species.
Littoral Rainforest: Rainforest near the coast, often influenced by salt spray and wind.
Mid Vein: The central vein running down the middle of a leaf.
Minute Teeth: Tiny serrations along the leaf edge, often requiring magnification.
Moist Eucalypt Forest: Forest with high humidity and dense understorey, dominated by eucalyptus species.
Mutual Dependence: A relationship where two species rely on each other for survival (e.g., fig trees and fig wasps).
Native Plants: Plants that are indigenous to a specific region and have evolved naturally in that environment.
Oil Dots: Tiny glands on leaves that produce aromatic oils, often visible as translucent spots.
Open Crown: A tree canopy with widely spaced branches allowing light to filter through.
Open Forest: Forest with widely spaced trees and more light penetration.
Opposite Leaf Arrangement: Leaves grow in pairs directly across from each other on the stem.
Ovate: Egg-shaped leaves, broader at the base.
Pixie-cap Opercula: A cap-like structure covering flower buds, typical of Eucalyptus species.
Pod: A fruit that splits open along seams.
Rainforest: Dense forest with high rainfall and rich biodiversity.
Regeneration: The process of restoring native vegetation and ecosystems, often after land has been cleared or degraded.
Semi-Deciduous: Trees that lose some but not all their leaves seasonally.
Sickle-Shaped Leaves: Curved, narrow leaves resembling a sickle.
Simple Leaves: Leaves with a single, undivided blade.
Strangler (Epiphyte): A plant that begins life on another tree and eventually envelops and replaces its host.
Subtropical Rainforest: Warm, humid forest with high biodiversity, found in coastal regions.
Syconium: A fig fruit structure that contains flowers inside a hollow cavity, pollinated by fig wasps.
Threatened species or community: Species or vegetation community at risk of extinction.
Toothed Edges: Leaf margins with small, pointed projections.
Two-Way Knowledge Approach: A learning method that integrates Western scientific understanding with Aboriginal ways of knowing, emphasizing observation, relationship, and spiritual connection.
Trifoliolate (Trifoliate): A compound leaf made up of three leaflets.
Undulate Edges: Leaf margins that wave or curve gently.
Umbel: Type of flower cluster with flower stalks originating from a common point (like an umbrella).
Valves Enclosed: Seed-releasing parts of the fruit remain inside the capsule.
Valves Exserted: Seed-releasing parts protrude outward from the fruit.
Valves Rim Level: Seed-releasing parts sit flush with the rim of the fruit.
Warted Fruit: Fruit with small, raised bumps on the surface.
Wet Sclerophyll Forest: Moist forest dominated by eucalyptus trees and a dense understorey.
Winged Seeds: Seeds with papery extensions that aid in wind dispersal.
Woodland: Open forest areas with scattered trees and grassy ground cover.
