Definitions

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

  • adjective Having rough or spreading scalelike processes.
  • adjective Spreading or recurved at the tip.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In botany, rough with spreading processes; thickly set with divergent or recurved, commonly rigid, bracts or leaves, as the involucres of various Compositæ and the stems of some mosses; of leaves, bracts, etc., so disposed as to form a squarrose surface. Also squarrous.
  • In entomology, laciniate and prominent: noting a margin with many long thin projections divided by deep incisions, the fringe-like edge so formed being elevated.

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

  • adjective (Bot. & Zoöl.) Consisting of scales widely divaricating; having scales, small leaves, or other bodies, spreading widely from the axis on which they are crowded; -- said of a calyx or stem.
  • adjective (Bot.) Divided into shreds or jags, raised above the plane of the leaf, and not parallel to it; -- said of a leaf.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) Having scales spreading every way, or standing upright, or at right angles to the surface; -- said of a shell.
  • adjective (Bot.) doubly slashed, with the smaller divisions at right angles to the others, as a leaf.

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

  • adjective rough or scaly.

Etymologies

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

[Latin squarrōsus, scabby.]

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