NECTAR Sweet fluid from flowers, collected by bees, butterflies and other insects.     Click on Back in your browser to return to previous page.                             OVULE (sounds like "ov-yule") This is the organ containing the egg, which develops into a seed after fertilisation. In some plants, seeds can develop from unfertilised ovules. Click on Back in your browser to return to previous page.                     PERENNIAL (sounds like "per-enn-i-al") This is a plant which can grow year after year. In a herbaceous perennial, such as a buttercup or daisy, the above-ground part of the plant dies away in the winter, but under the ground, part of the plant survives, producing new growth the following spring. In a woody perennial, such as a tree, the above-ground structure survives through the winter, from which new growth springs every spring. You can compare perennial to annual and biennial.   Click on Back in your browser to return to previous page.                     PHOTOSYNTHESIS (sounds like "foh-toe-sin-the-sis") This is the process whereby plants capture energy from the sun and combine it with carbon dioxide in the air, with water from the soil. This produces food for the plant in the form of sugars and starches, and oxygen is released.   Click on Back in your browser to return to previous page.         PINNATE A leaf made up of pairs of leaflets, growing in opposite directions, along a central stem.     Click on Back in your browser to return to previous page.         POLLARDING If you wanted to encourage a tree to grow as many branches as possible, you might not think of chopping of the top of the tree. However, by cutting off the tree about 2 metres above the ground, lots of new shoots spring up from the cut edge of the trunk, growing into new branches.   Click on Back in your browser to return to previous page.                   POLLEN Tiny particles produced by the male part of a flower. Pollen is often referred to as pollen grains. Each pollen grain contains the male sex cells. Bright and sweet smelling petals often attract pollinating insects such as bees, flies, butterflies or moths. Pollen from the plant may stick onto the insect's back. The insect may then visit another plant, transporting the pollen to another plant, in what is known as pollination. The male pollen then grows a pollen tube, through which it transfers its genetic material to the female egg, in a process known as fertilisation. Many plants rely on the wind (instead of insects or other animals) to transfer pollen from plant to plant. Click on Back in your browser to return to previous page.