In the present case, vegetation (7)
I believe the answer is:
herbage
'vegetation' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'in the present case' is the wordplay.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'the present' becomes 'here' (I've seen this before).
'case' becomes 'bag' (bag is a kind of case**).
'here' enclosing 'bag' is 'HERBAGE'.
(Other definitions for herbage that I've seen before include "Plant life" , "Vegetation" .)