from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A spore-bearing structure, especially in fungi.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A spore-producing organ, especially a fungus hypha specialized to carry spores.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A placenta.
- n. That alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which is nonsexual, but produces spores in countless numbers. In ferns it is the leafy plant, in mosses the capsule. Cf. oöphore.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In botany: A placenta.
- n. The branch or part of the thallus which bears spores or spore mothercells. The various forms are further distinguished as gonidiophore, sporangiophore, ascophore, etc.
- n. In Archegoniateæ, a sporophyte. Also called encarpium.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. a spore-bearing branch or organ: the part of the thallus of a sporophyte that develops spores; in ferns and mosses and liverworts is practically equivalent to the sporophyte
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Hymenium, at the beginning, borne on the free outer surface of the compound sporophore, or if at first enclosed by a pseudo-peridium or veil it soon becomes exposed before the maturity of the spores; mushrooms, etc. HYMENOMYCETES.