Deciduous
| Deciduous forest after leaf fall |
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 | Like many deciduous plants, Forsythia flowers during the leafless season |
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Deciduous means "temporary" or "tending to fall off" (deriving from the
Latin word
decidere, to fall off).
In
botany,
deciduous plants, principally
trees and
shrubs, are those that lose all of their
foliage for part of the year. In some cases, the foliage loss coincides with the incidence of
winter in
temperate or
polar climates, while others lose their leaves during the
dry season in climates with seasonal variation in
rainfall. The converse of deciduous is
evergreen; plants which are intermediate may be called
semi-deciduous.
Many deciduous plants
flower during the period when they are leafless, as this increases the effectiveness of
pollination. The absence of
leaves improves wind transmission of pollen in the case of wind-pollinated plants, and increases the visibility of the flowers to
insects in insect-pollinated plants. This strategy is not without risks, as the flowers can be damaged by frost, or in dry season areas, result in water stress on the plant. Nevertheless, by losing leaves in the cold winter days, plants can reduce water loss since most of the water would appear as ice, and there is much less branch and trunk breakage from glaze ice storms when leafless (Lemon 1961).
In
anatomy,
deciduous teeth, also called
milk teeth, are those that fall out during the course of normal development. Other body parts that are shed, such as
antlers, are also described as deciduous.
*Lemon, P. C. (1961). Forest ecology of ice storms.
Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 88: 21.
*
Deciduous Forest Facts*
Deciduous Forest Biome
