Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various succulent plants of the genus Sempervivum of Eurasia, having leaves arranged in rosettes and pinkish flowers, especially the common houseleek (S. tectorum). Houseleeks are often cultivated as garden plants and have traditionally been grown on roofs in Europe.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The common name of the plants of the genus Sempervivum, natural order Crassulaceæ.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A succulent plant of the genus Sempervivum (
Sempervivum tectorum ), originally a native of subalpine Europe, but now found very generally on old walls and roofs. It is very tenacious of life under drought and heat; -- called alsoayegreen .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of several
succulent plants , of the genusSempervivum , having arosette offleshy leaves
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Following our path of the night before, we walked up a ruined street which I could see was only one of scores in what had once been a very great city, until we came to the archway that I have mentioned, a large one now overgrown with plants that from their yellow, sweet-scented bloom I judged to be a species of wallflower, also with a kind of houseleek or saxifrage.
She and Allan Henry Rider Haggard 1890
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* Hen-and-chicks (houseleek) - Sempervivum tetorum - soothes minor stings and burns
Archive 2005-10-01 2005
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"I wonder if there's any houseleek on our roof?" he went on after a moment.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. Various
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Percival would have been angry had he been called upon to feel the poetry which Bertie had found only a few days before in the bit of houseleek growing on that arid waste of tiles.
Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 of Popular Literature and Science Various
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Mohl [346] remarks that, in the transformation of the stamens to the pistil in the common houseleek, the filament of the stamen generally preserves its form, the anthers alone undergoing change.
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
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It is true that in that dim light the houseleek was only a dusky little knob.
Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 of Popular Literature and Science Various
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Bertie smoked his pipe, and surveyed the houseleek as if it were a newly-discovered star.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. Various
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On the other hand, in cases like those of the common houseleek, where we meet with petaloid organs combining the attributes of anthers and of carpels, we find the inner layers devoted to the production of pollen, the outer to the formation of ovules.
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
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Fifth century drawing of houseleek (Sempervivum tectorum) from Anicia Juliana MS. of Dioscorides.
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(_Cheiranthus Cheiri_) and the houseleek (_Sempervivum tectorum_) are the best known instances.
Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation Hugo de Vries 1891
reesetee commented on the word houseleek
A succulent herb with pink flowers and thick stem and leaves, the latter forming a dense rosette close to the root, which grows commonly on walls and the roofs of houses.
February 19, 2008