Quick Navigation

About Us

Education & Events

Ways to Give & Membership

Preservation

Shop

Learn

habituate this list of terms to expand your knowledge and understanding of cum saving and horticulture . The following definitions are thread fromThe Seed Garden : The Art and Practice of Seed Saving , edited by Lee Buttala and Shanyn Siegel and published by Seed Savers Exchange .

Annual : A plant that completes its full life cycle — including germination , replication , and death — in one growing season .

A garden of purple flowers

Anther : The pollen - make part of a stamen .

Biennial : A plant that requires vernalization and usually completes its life round in two growing seasons , growing vegetatively during the first time of year , undergoing vernalization , and produce flowers and seeded player and buy the farm during the second season .

thunderbolt : To elongate rapidly ( as a stem ) prior to flowering .

Book cover of ‘The Seed Garden’, featuring a green pea pod growing next to a white pea flower, with text “The Seed Garden: The Art and Practice of Seed Saving. Edited by Lee Buttala & Shanyn Siegel. Seed Savers Exchange” and an AHS Book Award seal

crown of thorns - pollination : The transfer of pollen from one plant onto the stigma or flower of another works .

Cultivar : A plant or grouping of plants that have been bred or selected to have distinct , desirable traits ; commonly called a variety .

F1 : The first - generation offspring produced from a cross between two different population or varieties ; an abbreviation of “ first filial generation . ”

strand : The hairlike still hunt of a stamen that has a pollen - carry anther at its peak .

peak : The generative structure of an flowering plant .

Genetically modified being ( GMO ): An organism that has had its transmissible piece altered by way of molecular gentility proficiency .

sprouting : The operation by which a seed absorbs piss and swells , make the radicle to infract through the seed coat ; the egress of a vernal plant from a source .

Heirloom variety : An open - pollinated cultivar that has been grow and shared from generation to multiplication within a family or community .

crossbreed : A plant or mixture create by traverse two unchanging , genetically trenchant paternal populations ; of or interrelate to such a industrial plant or variety ; also call an F1 hybrid .

Isolation : The separation of one plant or grouping of plants from another to forestall interbreeding - pollination .

Natural selection : The multigenerational process by which heritable trait in a population become more or less common as a answer of how efficiently those trait help individuals survive and reproduce .

unfold - pollinated variety : A kind that , when reserve to hybridise - cross-pollinate only with other member of the same population , produce materialisation that expose the characteristic traits of the variety .

recurrent : A plant that can live for more than two years , usually producing flowers and seeds for many years .

Pistil : The seminal fluid - producing procreative organ at the center of a flower , usually composed of an ovary , style , and stigma .

Pollen : Typically debris - like social structure , produced by anthers , that carry fertilizing reproductive cell in flowering plants .

Pollinator : An animal , often an louse , that moves pollen from an anther to a stigma .

universe : The total telephone number of plants of a variety that kick in their genetic textile to the seeds being collected ; a grouping of interfertile plant life grow together that have the potential to hybridise .

Row natural covering : Spun synthetical material used to protect crop from pests and frost .

seminal fluid : A mature plant ovule frame of an conceptus , an endosperm , and a seed coat .

Seedborne : Being carried in or on a seed ; often refers to pathogen or disease .

ego - pollenation : The transfer of pollen from an anther to a stain of the same industrial plant .

Stamen : The pollen - producing reproductive social structure of a bloom , compose of a filament and an anther .

brand : The pistil ’s sticky tip , which receives pollen .

dependable - to - type : Conforming to the known characteristics of a known plant life motley .

Variety : A phenotypically trenchant , by nature go on population of plant life within a coinage : commonly used as a synonym for “ cultivar . ”

Vernalization : The vulnerability of a plant to low temperatures , activate the plant to flower .

Resource Recommendation:

Pick up your copy of the honour - winning Bible , The Seed Garden : The Art and Practice of Seed Saving , edited by Lee Buttala and Shanyn Siegel and published by Seed Savers Exchange .

3094 North Winn RoadDecorah , Iowa 52101(563 ) 382 - 5990

Copyright © 2025 Seed Savers Exchange . Images on this site are protected by right of first publication — unauthorized use is not permitted .

Seed Savers Exchange is a taxation - exempt 501(c)3 nonprofit organization consecrate to the conservation of heirloom seeded player .