Deciduous in deer, deciduous teeth (baby teeth) in some mammals (including humans); or decidua, the uterine lining that sheds off after birth. Wood from deciduous trees is used in a variety of ways in several industries including lumber for furniture, construction and flooring (oak), ornamental, bowling pins and baseball bats (maple) and furniture, cabinets, plywood and paneling (birch). In botany and horticulture, deciduous plants, including trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials, are those that lose all of their leaves for part of the year. This process is called abscission. In some cases leaf loss coincides with winter—namely in temperate or polar climates.
Deciduous repairing leaves and keeping them functional may be more costly than just losing and regrowing them. Removing leaves also reduces cavitation which can damage xylem vessels in plants. This then allows deciduous plants to have xylem vessels with larger diameters and therefore a greater rate of transpiration (and hence CO uptake as this occurs when stomata are open) during the summer growth period. The deciduous characteristic has developed repeatedly among woody plants. Trees include maple, many oaks and nothofagus, elm, aspen, and birch, among others, as well as a number of coniferous genera, such as larch and "Metasequoia". Deciduous shrubs