''Decurrent'' (sometimes decurring) is a term used in

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

and

mycology Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans, including as a source for tinder, traditional medicine, food, and entheogens, as ...

to describe plant or fungal parts that extend downward. In botany, the term is most often applied to leaf blades that partly wrap or have wings around the stem or petiole and extend down along the stem. A "decurrent branching habit" is a plant form common for

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

s and most

angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

trees, contrasted with the excurrent or "cone-shaped crown" common among many

gymnosperm The gymnosperms ( lit. revealed seeds) are a group of seed-producing plants that includes conifers, cycads, ''Ginkgo'', and gnetophytes, forming the clade Gymnospermae. The term ''gymnosperm'' comes from the composite word in el, γυμνό� ...

s. The decurrent habit is characterized by having weak apical dominance that eventually produces a rounded or spreading

tree crown The crown of a plant refers to the total of an individual plant's aboveground parts, including stems, leaves, and reproductive structures. A plant community canopy consists of one or more plant crowns growing in a given area. The crown of a wo ...

. Examples of trees with decurrent habit are most

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

trees:

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

hickory Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mexi ...

maple ''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since http ...

, etc.Claud L. Brown, Robert G. McAlpine, Paul P. Kormanik, "Apical Dominance and Form in Woody Plants: A Reappraisal", ''American Journal of Botany'', Vol. 54, No. 2 (February 1967), pp. 153–162, In mycology, the term is most often applied to the

hymenophore A hymenophore refers to the hymenium-bearing structure of a fungal fruiting body. Hymenophores can be smooth surfaces, lamellae, folds, tubes, or teeth. The term was coined by Robert Hooke Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was ...

of a

basidiocarp In fungi, a basidiocarp, basidiome, or basidioma () is the sporocarp of a basidiomycete, the multicellular structure on which the spore-producing hymenium is borne. Basidiocarps are characteristic of the hymenomycetes; rusts and smuts do not ...

(such as the

lamellae Lamella (plural lamellae) means a small plate or flake in Latin, and in English may refer to: Biology * Lamella (mycology), a papery rib beneath a mushroom cap * Lamella (botany) * Lamella (surface anatomy), a plate-like structure in an animal * ...

or "gills" of a mushroom or the "pores" of a

bracket fungus A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

) when it is broadly attached to and extends down the stipe.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite book , author=Ammirati J, Trudell S. , title=Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest: Timber Press Field Guide (Timber Press Field Guides) , publisher=

Timber Press Workman Publishing Company, Inc., is an American Publishing companies, publisher of Tradebook, trade books founded by Peter Workman. The company is comprised of either Imprint (trade name), imprints: Workman, Workman Children’s, Workman Calenda ...

, location=Portland, Oregon , year=2009 , page=316 , isbn=0-88192-935-2 Claud L. Brown, Robert G. McAlpine, Paul P. Kormanik, "Apical Dominance and Form in Woody Plants: A Reappraisal", ''American Journal of Botany'', Vol. 54, No. 2 (February 1967), pp. 153–162, {{doi, 10.2307/2440793 {{cite journal , last=Harris RW. , title=Structural Development of Trees , journal=Journal of Arboriculture , volume=6 , issue=4 , pages=105–107 , publisher=International Society of Arboriculture , date=April 1980 Plant morphology Fungal morphology and anatomy