Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In botany, having the character of a suffrutex; small with woody stems, or having the stems woody at the base and herbaceous above; somewhat shrubby: noting a plant or a stem.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Bot.) Woody in the lower part of the stem, but with the yearly branches herbaceous, as sage, thyme, hyssop, and the like.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective botany Having a
woody base, butshrubby higher up
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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It is a very vigorous species with the most rapid growth of all the peonies that, in a former classification, were grouped together as suffruticose peonies.
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The savannas dominated by grasses are essentially free of shrubs and trees; but in some cases, low shrubby or suffruticose elements may be present, thus classifying as shrubby meadows of scrub savannas.
Guyanan savanna 2008
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Vegetation is the same, no more dense aggregations of Artemisia fruticosa are seen, but the plants consisting of scattered Artemisia of yesterday, barely suffruticose, Peganum, Astragalus, Astragaloid Muscoideus, and Senecio glaucescens.
Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries William Griffith
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One-half of the arrow was made of a slender hard twig of cliff rose; the other half was formed of some pithy suffruticose herb which I could not determine satisfactorily, as I saw only the cut sections and was not permitted to handle these.
The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 379-468 Washington Matthews 1874
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Here are a few shrubs growing on these shelly heights, viz. Rhamnus frangula, Sideroxilon, Myrica, Zanthoxilon clava Herculis, Juniperus Americana, Lysium salsum; together with several new genera and species of the herbacious and suffruticose tribes, Croton, Stillingia, &c. but particularly a species of Mimosa (Mimosa virgatia) which in respect of the elegancy of its pinnated
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[Footnote 1: A species of one of the suffruticose _Acanthacea_ which grows abundantly in the mountain ranges of Ceylon.
Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836
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[Footnote 1: A species of one of the suffruticose _Acanthaccæ_
Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon James Emerson Tennent 1836
fbharjo commented on the word suffruticose
a characteristic of sage
December 3, 2010