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plant of the genus Tropæolum, geraniaceous herbs, having mostly climbing stems, peltate leaves, and spurred flowers, and including the common Indian cress (Tropæolum majus), the canary-bird flower (T. peregrinum), and about thirty more species, all natives of South America. The whole plant has a warm pungent flavor, a…

Floating in water, as the leaves of water lilies, or submersed, as those of many aquatic plants.

A European perennial succulent herb (Cotyledon umbilicus), having round, peltate leaves with a central depression; -- also called pennywort, and kidneywort.

One of the needle-shaped secondary leaves of pine trees. See Pinus.

A book-shaped needlecase, having leaves of cloth into which the needles are stuck.

A genus of climbing plants found in India, Malaya, etc., which have the leaves prolonged into a kind of stout tendril terminating in a pitcherlike appendage, whence the plants are often called pitcher plants and monkey-cups. There are about thirty species, of which the best known is Nepenthes distillatoria. See Pitcher…

The arrangement of nerves and veins, especially those of leaves; neuration. The outlines of the fronds of ferns, and their nervation, are frail characters if employed alone for the determination of existing genera. J. D. Hooker.

One of the nerves of leaves.

To build and occupy a nest. The king of birds nested within his leaves. Howell.

The arrangement or distribution of nerves, as in the leaves of a plant or the wings of an insect; nervation.

t.) A tall, liliaceous herb (Phormium tenax), having very long, sword-shaped, distichous leaves which furnish a fine, strong fiber very valuable for cordage and the like. (b) The fiber itself. -- New Zealand tea (Bot.), a myrtaceous shrub (Leptospermum scoparium) of New Zealand and Australia, the leaves of which are u…

A white waxy substance having a hot, bitter taste, extracted from tobacco leaves and called also tobacco camphor.

To promote growth; to furnish nutriment. Grains and roots nourish more than their leaves. Bacon.

The tendency of certain plant organs, as leaves, to assume special "sleeping" positions or make curvatures under the influence of darkness. It is well illustrated in the leaflets of clover and other leguminous plants.

Any tree or shrub of the genus Quercus. The oaks have alternate leaves, often variously lobed, and staminate flowers in catkins. 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…

Overlapping; contorted; convolute; -- applied primarily, in botany, to two opposite leaves, each of which has one edge overlapping the nearest edge of the other, and secondarily to a circle of several leaves or petals which thus overlap.

posterior segment of the skull and surrounds the great foramen by which the spinal cord leaves the cranium. In the higher vertebrates it is usually composed of four bones, which become consolidated in the adult. -- Occipital point (Anat.), the point of the occiput in the mesial plane farthest from the ophryon.…

A book composed of sheets each of which is folded into eight leaves; hence, indicating more or less definitely a size of book so made; -- usually written 8vo or 8º.

Having eighteen leaves to a sheet; as, an octodecimo form, book, leaf, size, etc.

Having eight petals or flower leaves.