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An extensive and curious genus of African plants of the natural order Asclepiadaceæ (Milkweed family). They are succulent plants without leaves, frequently covered with dark tubercles giving them a very grotesque appearance. The odor of the blossoms is like that of carrion.

A small plant of the genus Stellaria, having star-shaped flowers; star flower; chickweed. Gray. Water starwort, an aquatic plant (Callitriche verna) having some resemblance to chickweed. -- Yellow starwort, a plant of the genus Inula; elecampane.

A kind of chickweed (Stellaria Holostea). [Written also stitchwort.]

extenuate the latitude of the curse upon the earth, or stint it only to the production of weeds. Woodward. She stints them in their meals. Law.

A poisonous plant (Datura Stramonium); stinkweed. See Datura, and Jamestown weed.

A fiber, as of a plant; a little, fibrous root. Duckweed putteth forth a little string into the water, from the bottom. Bacon.

hemorrhage when applied to the bleeding part; astringent. [Written also stiptic.] Styptic weed (Bot.), an American leguminous herb (Cassia occidentalis) closely related to the wild senna.

To make mellow; to break, as land; also, to destroy, as weeds.

A poisonous plant (Vincetoxicum officinale) of the Milkweed family, at one time used in medicine; -- also called white swallowwort. African swallowwort, a plant of the genus Stapelia.

To beat off the tops of without pulling up the roots; -- said of weeds. [Prov. Eng.] Forby.

A coarse blackish seaweed (Fuscus nodosus). Dr. Prior. Tang sparrow (Zoöl.), the rock pipit. [Prov. Eng.]

Any large blackish seaweed, especially the Laminaria saccharina. See Kelp. Coral and sea fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the ocean. C. Kingsley.

Covered with tangle, or seaweed. Prone, helpless, on the tangly beach he lay. Falconer.

A weed that grows among wheat and other grain; -- alleged by modern naturalists to be the Lolium temulentum, or darnel. Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field From whence then hath it tares Matt. xiii. 27. The "darnel" is said to be the tares of Scripture, and is the only deleterious species belonging to the whole o…

A nonsexual spore, one of a group of four regularly occurring in red seaweeds. -- Tet`ra*spor"ic, a.

called because it was the initial letter of thorn, a spine. Thorn apple (Bot.), Jamestown weed. -- Thorn broom (Bot.), a shrub that produces thorns. -- Thorn hedge, a hedge of thorn-bearing trees or bushes. -- Thorn devil. (Zoöl.) See Moloch, 2. -- Thorn hopper (Zoöl.), a tree hopper (Thelia cratægi) which lives on…

ng narrow leaves and showy orange and yellow flowers; -- called also butter and eggs, flaxweed, and ramsted.

ender, hairlike cell which receives the fertilizing particles, or antherozoids, in red seaweeds. -- Trich`o*gyn"ic, a.

arn in a knitting machine. Ear trumpet. See under Ear. -- Sea trumpet (Bot.), a great seaweed (Ecklonia buccinalis) of the Southern Ocean. It has a long, hollow stem, enlarging upwards, which may be made into a kind of trumpet, and is used for many purposes. -- Speaking trumpet, an instrument for conveying articulate…

iction; also, a part of a woman's dress; a stomacher. [Obs.] Nares. Puts off his palmer's weed unto his truss, which bore The stains of ancient arms. Drayton.