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An extract got from a body by boiling it in water. If the plant be boiled in water, the strained liquor is called the decoction of the plant. Arbuthnot. In pharmacy decoction is opposed to infusion, where there is merely steeping. Latham.

hat which is morphologically one organ into two or more, as the division of an organ of a plant into a pair or cluster.

A plant (Liatris odoratissima) whose fleshy leaves give out a fragrance compared to vanilla. Wood.

e. Milton. Degenerate from their ancient blood. Swift. These degenerate days. Pope. I had planted thee a noble vine . . . : how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me Jer. ii. 21.

A gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any particular or organs; hereditary degradation of type.

To degenerate; to pass from a higher to a lower type of structure; as, a family of plants or animals degrades through this or that genus or group of genera.

or organs in a partially developed condition, or lacking certain parts. Some families of plants are degraded dicotyledons. Dana.

Characterized by dehiscence; opening in some definite way, as the capsule of a plant.

Hurtful; noxious; destructive; pernicious; as, a deleterious plant or quality; a deleterious example. -- Del`e*te"ri*ous*ly, adv. -- Del`e*te"ri*ous*ness, n.

A petrified or fossil shrub, plant, or part of a plant.

Nascent epidermis, or external cuticle of plants in a forming condition.

, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Gray. Desert flora (Bot.), the assemblage of plants growing naturally in a desert, or in a dry and apparently unproductive place. -- Desert hare (Zoöl.), a small hare (Lepus sylvaticus, var. Arizonæ) inhabiting the deserts of the Western United States. -- Desert mouse (Zoö…

A microscopic plant of the family Desmidiæ, a group of unicellular algæ in which the species have a greenish color, and the cells generally appear as if they consisted of two coalescing halves.

To leave destitute; to forsake; to abandon. [Obs.] To forsake or destitute a plantation. Bacon.

Destructible. [R.] Plants . . . scarcely destroyable by the weather. Derham.

ning the relations of an object, as regards genus and species; the referring of minerals, plants, or animals, to the species to which they belong; classification; as, I am indebted to a friend for the determination of most of these shells.

Determinative tables (Nat. Hist.), tables presenting the specific character of minerals, plants, etc., to assist in determining the species to which a specimen belongs.

o assign to its true place in a system; as, to determine an unknown or a newly discovered plant or its name.

her in structure or function; as, a blossom develops from a bud; the seed develops into a plant; the embryo develops into a well-formed animal; the mind develops year by year. Nor poets enough to understand That life develops from within. Mrs. Browning.

from a leading theme or motive. Development theory (Biol.), the doctrine that animals and plants possess the power of passing by slow and successive stages from a lower to a higher state of organization, and that all the higher forms of life now in existence were thus developed by uniform laws from lower forms, and are…