Definitions

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

  • noun A layer of nutritive tissue in the seed of certain flowering plants that is derived from the nucellus and surrounds the embryo.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In bot., a name originally proposed by Jussieu for the albumen or nutritive matter stored up in the seeds of plants; by later authors restricted to the albumen which is stored up outside the embryo-sac. Compare endosperm.
  • noun The pericarp or even the integuments of a seed.

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

  • noun (Bot.) The albumen of a seed, especially that portion which is formed outside of the embryo sac.

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

  • noun biology The layer of nutritive tissue, derived from the nucellus, that surrounds the embryo of a seed in some angiosperms.

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

  • noun the nutritive tissue outside the sac containing the embryo in some seeds

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French périsperme. See peri- and sperm.

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