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o seventy years, according to climate, in attaining maturity, when it produces a gigantic flower stem, sometimes forty feet in height, and perishes. The fermented juice is the pulque of the Mexicans; distilled, it yields mescal. A strong thread and a tough paper are made from the leaves, and the wood has many uses.…

A genus of plants, one species of which (A. Mexicanum) has lavender-blue flowers in dense clusters.

Collected into a rounded head of flowers.

(Bot.) Composed of several florets within a common involucre, as in the daisy; or of several carpels formed from one flower, as in the raspberry.

A cavity containing air to act as a spring for equalizing the flow of a liquid in a pump or other hydraulic machine.

Any device, as a balloon, aëroplane, etc., for floating in, or flying through, the air.

A flower bud. Gray.

the integuments of the seed in many plants, but not incorporated in the embryo. It is the floury part in corn, wheat, and like grains, the oily part in poppy seeds, the fleshy part in the cocoanut, etc.

A genus of fleshy Alcyonaria, its polyps somewhat resembling flowers with eight fringed rays. The term was also formerly used for certain species of sponges.

Divination by means of flour. Encyc. Brit.

An instrument for determining the expansive properties, or quality, of gluten in flour. Knight.

Flour made of aleurone, used as a substitute for ordinary flour in preparing bread for diabetic persons.

The Honey mesquite (Prosopis juliflora), a small tree found from California to Buenos Ayres; also, its sweet, pulpy pods. A valuable gum, resembling gum arabic, is collected from the tree in Texas and Mexico.

arid and semiarid regions, containing an unusual amount of soluble mineral salts which effloresce in the form of a powder or crust (usually white) in dry weather following rains or irrigation. The basis of these salts is mainly soda with a smaller amount of potash, and usually a little lime and magnesia. Two main cla…

Even; just. (Often a mere intensive adjunct.) [Obs. or Poet.] All as his straying flock he fed. Spenser. A damsel lay deploring All on a rock reclined. Gay. All to, or All-to. In such phrases as "all to rent," "all to break," "all-to frozen," etc., which are of frequent occurrence in our old authors, the all and the to…

. The name is also given to other aromatic shrubs; as, the Carolina allspice (Calycanthus floridus); wild allspice (Lindera benzoin), called also spicebush, spicewood, and feverbush.

Pertaining to, contained in, or composed of, alluvium; relating to the deposits made by flowing water; washed away from one place and deposited in another; as, alluvial soil, mud, accumulations, deposits.

Wash or flow of water against the shore or bank.

Deposits of earth, sand, gravel, and other transported matter, made by rivers, floods, or other causes, upon land not permanently submerged beneath the waters of lakes or seas. Lyell.

A species of clover with pinkish or white flowers; Trifolium hybridum.