Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A reproductive plant part, such as a seed, fruit, or spore, that is modified for dispersal.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In phytogeography, the body by which a plant is propagated, whether seed, spore, offshoot, etc., or the whole plant.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A seed fruit that has been
modified formigration .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[dissemin(ate) + –ule.]
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Examples
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hernesheir commented on the word disseminule
(n): the dispersal of the reproductive part of a plant that can grow into a new plant.
In pines, the disseminule is a seed plus papery tissues of the cone scale that form a wing. In maples, the "helicopters" or "keys" are each individual carpels of the 2- or 3-parted fruit bearing a seed within. Thus, in higher plants, disseminules may be comprised of the seed only, or the seed plus various anatomical layers of the fruit or fruiting body tissues.
Curiously, the spider lily, a large shrubby plant widely used in southern (US) landscapes, has no seed coat on its pecan-sized disseminules - they are essentially naked embryos.
January 1, 2009