Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The spore-bearing layer of the fruiting body of certain fungi, containing asci or basidia.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In botany, the fructifying surface in fungi, especially when the spores are naked.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) The spore-bearing surface of certain fungi, as that on the gills of a mushroom.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun mycology The sporebearing surface of a fungus.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun spore-bearing layer of cells in certain fungi containing asci or basidia

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin, from Greek humenion, diminutive of humēn, membrane; see hymen.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ancient Greek ὑμενίων (humeniōn), diminutive of ὑμήν (humēn, "membrane").

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Examples

  • The cap of a basidiomycete, an expanded structure at the top of the stipe that bears the hymenium (gills, etc.) on its undersurface.

    Medallion Vulcan | SciFi, Fantasy & Horror Collectibles 2009

  • It is called from the prickly appearance of the under surface, or _hymenium_, the hedgehog mushroom

    Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children W. Houghton

  • The substance proceeding from and of like nature with the part that bears the hymenium -- the framework of the gills.

    Among the Mushrooms A Guide For Beginners Caroline A. Burgin

  • This hymenium is composed of a number of swollen, club-shaped cells, called basidia, and close to them, side by side, are sterile, elongated cells, named paraphyses.

    Among the Mushrooms A Guide For Beginners Caroline A. Burgin

  • Every mushroom has a spore-bearing layer of cells, which is called the hymenium.

    Among the Mushrooms A Guide For Beginners Caroline A. Burgin

  • Thallus usually verrucose, areolate or subareolate, tending toward squamulose conditions, better developed than in other members of the family, scarcely ever showing granulate conditions, and never disappearing entirely; apothecia also larger than in the other genera, adnate to immersed, usually black, but rarely white-pruinose; hypothecium usually dark brown; hymenium pale to light brown; spores

    Ohio Biological Survey, Bull. 10, Vol. 11, No. 6 The Ascomycetes of Ohio IV and V Leafy Jane Corrington Hilker 1894

  • A portion of a section through an apothecium of _Peltigera canina_, showing part of the hymenium of interwoven hyphae below and the bases of three paraphyses above.

    Ohio Biological Survey, Bull. 10, Vol. 11, No. 6 The Ascomycetes of Ohio IV and V Leafy Jane Corrington Hilker 1894

  • Thallus granulose to verrucose and subareolate, sometimes inconspicuous and evanescent; apothecia minute to middle-sized, adnate or more or less immersed, exciple usually prominent and persistent, but sometimes becoming covered, disk flat to convex; hypothecium and hymenium pale to brown; spores simple, hyaline, minute, numerous in each ascus.

    Ohio Biological Survey, Bull. 10, Vol. 11, No. 6 The Ascomycetes of Ohio IV and V Leafy Jane Corrington Hilker 1894

  • Thallus commonly granulose, and often passing into verrucose and chinky conditions, but scarcely ever areolate, sometimes scant and evanescent; apothecia usually minute or small, and commonly adnate, exciple weak and often becoming covered; hypothecium and hymenium passing from pale through shades of brown, the former becoming darker than the latter, this rarely tinged blue or violet above; spores hyaline, 2-celled.

    Ohio Biological Survey, Bull. 10, Vol. 11, No. 6 The Ascomycetes of Ohio IV and V Leafy Jane Corrington Hilker 1894

  • Thallus light colored, usually thin and smooth, rarely disappearing; apothecia minute to middle-sized, 0.2 to 1 mm. in diameter, adnate scattered or crowded, flat or slightly convex, the disk pruinose, and the exciple persistent; hypothecium lighter or darker brown; hymenium usually pale; paraphyses coherent and becoming indistinct; asci cylindrico-clavate; spores oblong-ellipsoid, 3 to 5 mic. long and 1 to

    Ohio Biological Survey, Bull. 10, Vol. 11, No. 6 The Ascomycetes of Ohio IV and V Leafy Jane Corrington Hilker 1894

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