Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various widely distributed lichens of the genus Usnea, characterized by a pendulous, usually branched thallus, often growing on trees.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A small genus of gymnocarpous parmeliaceous lichens, typical of the family Usneëi.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A genus of lichens, most of the species of which have long, gray, pendulous, and finely branched fronds.
Usnea barbata is the common bearded lichen which grows on branches of trees in northern forests.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
lichen of the genusUsnea .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun widely distributed lichens usually having a greyish or yellow pendulous freely branched thallus
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word usnea.
Examples
-
Another powerful herb with antibiotic, antiviral, and antibacterial properties, usnea is used internally or externally against bacterial, fungal, or viral infections.
Matthew Stein: When a Superbug Strikes Close to Home, How Can You Deal With it? 2009
-
The tree heathers include Phillippia trimera, P. kingaensis, P. phillippia and P. johnstonii, some up to 20 m high and most are draped with usnea lichen.
-
Yes, Carrie, I'm taking the echinacea/goldenseal/usnea/vitamin C cocktail at least twice a day -- it may be keeping me going.
-
Yes, Carrie, I'm taking the echinacea/goldenseal/usnea/vitamin C cocktail at least twice a day -- it may be keeping me going.
January 2007 2007
-
Yes, Carrie, I'm taking the echinacea/goldenseal/usnea/vitamin C cocktail at least twice a day -- it may be keeping me going.
-
All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.
Walden 2004
-
The principal forest-trees are hemlock, spruce, and Nootka cypress, with a few pines (P. contorta) on the margin of the meadow, some of them nearly a hundred feet high, draped with gray usnea, the bark also gray with scale lichens.
Travels in Alaska John Muir 1876
-
We camped in a boggy hollow on a bluff among scraggy, usnea-bearded spruces.
Travels in Alaska John Muir 1876
-
"I love to see occasionally," he adds, "a man from whom the usnea (lichen) hangs as gracefully as from a spruce."
Oldport Days 1873
-
The most primitive places left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows shaggy with usnea.
The Maine Woods 1858
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.