noun
- a tubular sheath formed by the fusion of stipules around the stem in certain plants, especially those in the buckwheat family
Usage: botanical
Examples
- The ochrea is a distinctive feature of plants in the Polygonaceae family.
- Botanists use the presence of an ochrea to help identify buckwheat relatives.
- The papery ochrea surrounds the stem at each node of the smartweed plant.
- Students learned to recognize the ochrea as a key identifying characteristic.
- The ochrea may be entire or fringed depending on the species.
- Knotweed plants display a prominent ochrea at their stem joints.