On some pollen morphological concepts

The paper reviews some widely used pollen morphological concepts which are slightly vague and ambiguous. To meet the needs of palynological descriptions, the terminology has to be precise and, as far as possible, numerically defined. The terms oncus, verruca, annulus, prolate and oblate are discussed and redefined. The words sculpture and structure are discusssed, delimited and defined, and it is proposed that they be accepted as terms. A new term, pseudo-annulus has been proposed.