Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A modified calyx, composed of scales, bristles, or featherlike hairs, in plants of the composite family, such as the dandelion and the thistle.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Down, as that on the seeds of some plants.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) The hairy or feathery appendage of the achenes of thistles, dandelions, and most other plants of the order Compositæ; also, the scales, awns, or bristles which represent the calyx in other plants of the same order.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun botany The markedly reduced
sepals of anAsteraceae floret that take the form oftrichomes orscale attached to theovary orseed .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun calyx composed of scales or bristles or featherlike hairs in plants of the Compositae such as thistles and dandelions
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The sepals (here called the "pappus") (_p_) have the form of fine hairs.
Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany For High Schools and Elementary College Courses Douglas Houghton Campbell
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_C_, a single flower, × 2. _o_, the ovary. _p_, the "pappus" (calyx lobes). _an. _ the united anthers.
Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany For High Schools and Elementary College Courses Douglas Houghton Campbell
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Dandelion has what is called a "pappus" attached to its seed, rather similar to the feathery tail of the Traveller's Joy.
Wildflowers of the Farm Arthur Owens Cooke
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With so little pappus to intercede between steel and flesh, the snarling blades bit time and again.
Deadheading 2010
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For instance, Cody and Overton (1996) found that species in the Asteraceae on islands tended to have reduced dispersal capabilities (i.e., larger seed mass and smaller pappus) relative to the same species on the mainland [7].
Seed dispersal Wikipedia 2009
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Owing to long years of particular evolutionary sagacity in developing winged seeds to be wafted from the silky pappus of its ripe flowerheads over wide areas of land, [148] the Dandelion exhibits its handsome golden flowers in every field and on every ground plot throughout the whole of our country.
Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie
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These are compact little bundles, at first of a dull yellow colour, until presently the florets fall off and leave the white woolly pappus of the seeds collected together, somewhat resembling the hoary hairs of age.
Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie
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-- Stem globose, 3 in. to 5 in. high, thickly clothed with long, narrow, pointed tubercles, the bases of which are set in white wool, whilst the apices are crowned with tiny stars of white silky spines; more like the pappus of a Composite than the spines usually found on Cactuses.
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Goldfinch often lines her nest with the soft pappus of the
Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie
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Each plant is named "Senecio" because of the grey woolly pappus of its seeds, which resemble the silvered hair of old age.
Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie
slumry commented on the word pappus
It is what allows a dandelion or thistle seed to sail through the air.
August 1, 2007
oroboros commented on the word pappus
Peach fuzz, according to NPR's Says You.
November 1, 2014