TUBE: Any hollow, elongated body or part of an organ. This is especially applied to a gamopetalous corolla or gamosepalous calyx, and also to a united circle of stamens.
TUBER: A tuber is a thickened, usually underground, food-storing organ (like a corm) that lacks both a basal plate and tunic-like covering, which corms and bulbs have. (Go see bulbs and corms to distinguish.). Roots and shoots grow from growth buds, called "eyes", on the surface of the tuber. Some tubers, such as caladiums, diminish in size as the plants grow, and form new tubers at the eyes. Others, such as tuberous begonias, increase in size as they store nutrients during the growing season and develop new growth buds at the same time. Tubers may be shriveled and hard or slightly fleshy. They may be round, flat, odd-shaped, or rough.
TUBERCLE: 1. Any knob-like outgrowth. 2. A small wart-like swelling on cactus stems, formed by the horizontal division of a rib. 3. A very small tuber. 4. A tuberous root bearing adventitious buds, and functioning like a tuber.
TUBEROID: A thickened, underground storage organ with stem and root tissues.
TUBEROUS: Resembling a tuber; bearing tubers.
TUBEROUS ROOTS: Tuberous roots look like tubers, but are actually swollen, nutrient-storing root tissue. During the growing season, they put out fibrous roots to take up moisture and nutrients. New growth buds, or eyes, form at the base of the stem where it meets the tuberous root. This area is called the crown. To increase tuberous roots, cut off a piece of the root with a section of the crown containing an eye. Daylilies, dahlias, and foxtail lilies have tuberous roots.
TUBULIFLOROUS: When all the flowers of a head have tubular corollas, such as in the Campanulaceae and the Compositae.
TUMP: To form a mass of earth or a round embankment.
TUNIC: A loose, outer covering or skin surrounding some corms and bulbs. Examples are the Onion, Tulip and Crocus.
TURBINATE: Shaped like a top or a cone, narrow at the base and broad at the top.
TURF: 1. The surface of grassy land, consisting of soil or mold filled with the roots of grass and other small plants, so as to form a kind of mat; earth covered with grass. 2. A piece of such earth or mold dug from the ground; a sod. 3. In Ireland, same as peat.
TURGID: Swollen, bloated beyond its natural or regular state by some internal agent or expansive force: often said of an enlarged part of the body.
TUSSOCK: A tuft, or small hillock of growing grass.