Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One of the usually green leaflike structures composing the outermost part of a flower. Sepals often enclose and protect the bud and may remain after the fruit forms.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In botany, a calyx-leaf; one of the individual leaves or parts that make up the calyx, or outer circle of floral envelops. See
calyx , cut in preceding column, and cuts underantisepalous and dimerous.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A leaf or division of the calyx.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun botany One of the component parts of the
calyx , when this consists of separate (not fused) parts.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun one of the green parts that form the calyx of a flower
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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"The green thing on the back of a rose is the calyx and each of its leaflets is called a sepal," said Ethel Brown by way of fixing the definition firmly in her mind.
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The sepal is the outermost, green, leaf-like floral organ, which acts defensively to enclose and protect the developing reproductive structures.
PLoS Biology: New Articles Adrienne H. K. Roeder et al. 2010
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In the plant, the eye or germinative point opens to a leaf, then to another leaf, with a power of transforming the leaf into radicle, stamen, pistil, petal, bract, sepal, or seed.
Representative Men 2006
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The lamina or expanded portion of a monopetalous corolla or of a petal or sepal.
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Also he only mentioned one Federal position in his sepal about how it would be tough to win a primary.
Archive 2004-05-02 2004
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Thus we may come across a rose, an outer petal of which appears in the form of a leaf of the calyx (sepal), or one of the sepals is found to have grown into an ordinary rose leaf.
Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs
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Leaf, sepal, petal, etc., much as they differ outwardly, yet showed themselves to him as manifestations of one and the same spiritual archetype.
Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs
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Sanders, singular in the inequality of the calyx and the great development of the posticous sepal.
Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries William Griffith
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Again, another fable says, with respect to the five petals and the five sepals of the Pansy, two of which petals are plain in colour, whilst each has a single sepal, the three other petals being gay of hue, one of these (the largest of all) having two sepals; that the Pansy represents a family of husband, wife, and four daughters, two of the latter being step-children of the wife.
Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie
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The calyx of five sepals is very large, whence the specific name, and each sepal is nearly round and cupped, whence the old common name, "Cup St. John's Wort"; the five petals are 2in. long and widely apart; stamens very numerous, long, thready, and arranged in tufts.
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