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One-leaved; composed of a single leaf; as, a monophyllous involucre or calyx.

The fruit is a smooth nut, called an acorn, which is more or less inclosed in a scaly involucre called the cup or cupule. There are now recognized about three hundred species, of which nearly fifty occur in the United States, the rest in Europe, Asia, and the other parts of North America, a very few barely reaching the…

Money; riches; lucre; gain; -- generally conveying the idea of something ill-gotten or worthless. It has no plural. "Mucky pelf." Spenser. "Paltry pelf." Burke. Can their pelf prosper, not got by valor or industry Fuller.

A saclike involucre which incloses the young fruit in most hepatic mosses. See Illust. of Hepatica.

The leafy involucre surrounding the fruit stalk of mosses; perichætium; perichete.

The involucre which surrounds the common receptacle in composite flowers.

ss; -- opposed to Ant: common noun; as, John, Boston, America. -- Proper perianth or involucre (Bot.), that which incloses only a single flower. -- Proper receptacle (Bot.), a receptacle which supports only a single flower or fructification.

s, consisting of perennial herbs with showy pedunculate heads, having a hemispherical involucre, sterile ray flowers, and a conical chaffy receptacle. There are about thirty species, exclusively North American. Rudbeckia hirta, the black-eyed Susan, is a common weed in meadows.

A special involucre formed of one leaf and inclosing a spadix, as in aroid plants and palms. See the Note under Bract, and Illust. of Spadix.

lis gummifera, a native of the Mediterranean region. A vicid gum resin flows from the involucre. -- Scotch thistle, either the cotton thistle, or the musk thistle, or the spear thistle; -- all used national emblems of Scotland. -- Sow thistle, Sonchus oleraceus. -- Spear thistle. Same as Bull thistle. -- Star thist…

gia are borne on threadlike receptacles rising from the middle of cup-shaped marginal involucres. Several species are common in conservatories; two are native in the United States.

or largest set of rays in a compound umbel; -- opposed to partial umbel. A universal involucre is not unfrequently placed at the foot of a universal umbel.

Usury. [Obs.] Wyclif. Foul usure and lucre of villainy. Chaucer.

or villainous; extreme depravity; atrocious wickedness; as, the villainy of the seducer. "Lucre of vilanye." Chaucer. The commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy. Shak.

A genus of composite plants in which the scales of the involucre are united so as to form a kind of bur; cocklebur; clotbur.