GREEN a.
ame. It consists of sulphur and potassium chlorate, with some salt of barium (usually the nitrate), to which the color of the flame is due. -- Green fly (Zoöl.), any green species of plant lice or aphids, esp. those that infest greenhouse plants. -- Green gage, (Bot.) See Greengage, in the Vocabulary. -- Green gland…
HOLOPHYTIC a.
of nutrition, characteristic of vegetable organisms, in which carbonic acid, ammonia, and nitrates are absorbed as food, in distinction from the animal mode of nutrition, by the ingestion of albuminous matter.
LUNAR a.
wth, character, or properties; as, lunar herbs. Bacon. Lunar caustic (Med. Chem.), silver nitrate prepared to be used as a cautery; -- so named because silver was called luna by the ancient alchemists. -- Lunar cycle. Same as Metonic cycle. See under Cycle. -- Lunar distance, the angular distance of the moon from the…
NITRIC a.
oxide; nitric acid. Nitric acid, a colorless or yellowish liquid obtained by distilling a nitrate with sulphuric acid. It is powerfully corrosive, being a strong acid, and in decomposition a strong oxidizer. -- Nitric anhydride, a white crystalline oxide of nitrogen (N2O5), called nitric pentoxide, and regarded as the…
SALTPETER; SALTPETRE n.
Potassium nitrate; niter, a white crystalline substance, KNO3, having a cooling saline taste, obtained by leaching from certain soils in which it is produced by the process of nitrification (see Nitrification, 2). It is a strong oxidizer, is the chief constituent of gunpowder, and is also used as an antiseptic in curin…