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f a series of astringent substances resembling tannin proper, widely diffused through the vegetable kingdom, as in oak bark, willow, catechu, tea, coffee, etc.

ed from, or resembling, tartar. Tartaric acid. (a) An acid widely diffused throughout the vegetable kingdom, as in grapes, mountain-ash berries, etc., and obtained from tartar as a white crystalline substance, C2H2(OH)2.(CO2H)2, having a strong pure acid taste. It is used in medicine, in dyeing, calico printing, photog…

One of a large class or division of the vegetable kingdom, which includes those flowerless plants, such as fungi, algæ, and lichens, that consist of a thallus only, composed of cellular tissue, or of a congeries of cells, or even of separate cells, and never show a distinction into root, stem, and leaf.…

m the Tallophyta as a distinct phylum the latter is treated as the lowermost group in the vegetable kingdom.

s that the human body is composed of four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, and that vegetable medicines alone should be used; -- from the founder, Dr. Samuel Thomson, of Massachusetts.

A vegetable tissue consisting of tracheæ.

A saccharine fluid, consisting of the inspissated juices or decoctions of certain vegetables, as the sap of the birch, sycamore, and the like. Treacle mustard (Bot.), a name given to several species of the cruciferous genus Erysimum, especially the E. cheiranthoides, which was formerly used as an ingredient in Venice t…

ate for barter, or for small trade; small commodities; esp., in the United States, garden vegetables raised for the market. [Colloq.]

st frequently found in the lungs, causing consumption. Tubercle bacillus (Med.), a minute vegetable organism (Bacillus tuberculosis) discovered by Koch, a German physician, in the sputum of consumptive patients and in tuberculous tissue, and believed to be the exciting cause of tubercles and tuberculosis.…

A curious vegetable production of the Southern Atlantic United States, growing under ground like a truffle and often attaining immense size. The real nature is unknown. Called also Indian bread, and Indian loaf.

, or tunic, of the Tunicates, which resembles, or is identical with, the cellulose of the vegetable kingdom.

That upper stratum of earth and vegetable mold which is filled with the roots of grass and other small plants, so as to adhere and form a kind of mat; sward; sod. At his head a grass-green turf. Shak. The Greek historian sets her in the field on a high heap of turves. Milton.

on, Malabar, and Australia, formerly used in medicine as a purgative; -- sometimes called vegetable turpeth.

An intrusion of one vegetable cell into the cavity of another, sometimes forming there an irregular mass of cells. Goodale.

by Peyer's glands. The virus, or contagion, of this fever is supposed to be a microscopic vegetable organism, or bacterium. Called also enteric fever. See Peyer's glands. -- Typhoid state, a condition common to many diseases, characterized by profound prostration and other symptoms resembling those of typhus.…

The power possessed by living organisms, both animal and vegetable, of adapting themselves to modifications or changes in their environment, thus possibly giving rise to ultimate variation of structure or function.

Of or pertaining to the vessels of animal and vegetable bodies; as, the vascular functions.

One of the substances of which vegetable tissue is composed, differing from cellulose in its solubility in certain media.

The quality or state of being vegetable. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

A vegetable. [R.] B. Jonson.