Definition: Arenosols are sandy soils, including both soils developed in residual sands after in situ weathering of usually quartz-rich sediments or rock, and soils developed in recently deposited sands such as dunes in deserts and beach lands.
Definition: A desert biome is a terrestrial biome which loses more liquid water by evapotranspiration than is supplied by precipitation and includes communities adapted to these conditions.
Definition: Of plant duration, a plant whose life span ends within one year after germination, e.g. a winter annual germinating in the autumn and flowering in the spring (esp. in Mediterranean climates), approximately synonymous to therophyte, c.f. biennial, ephemeral, perennial, c.f. also of flowering with respect to architecture, hapaxanthic, monocarpic, pleonanthic.
