Definitions

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

  • noun A cluster of sporangia borne on the underside of a fern frond.
  • noun A reproductive structure in certain fungi and lichens.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In botany, a heap or aggregation.

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

  • noun (Bot.) One of the fruit dots, or small clusters of sporangia, on the back of the fronds of ferns.
  • noun In parasitic fungi, any mass of spores bursting through the epidermis of a host plant.
  • noun In lichens, a heap of soredia on the thallus.

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

  • noun botany Any reproductive structure, in some lichens and fungi that produces spores
  • noun botany A cluster of sporangia on the edge or underside of a fern frond

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

  • noun cluster of sporangia usually on underside of a fern frond
  • noun a spore-producing structure in certain lichens and fungi

Etymologies

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

[New Latin sōrus, from Greek sōros, heap; see teuə- in Indo-European roots.]

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