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A class of flowerless plants, embracing ferns, horsetails, club mosses, quillworts, and other like plants. See the Note under Cryptogamia. -- Pter"i*do*phyte`, n.

The theca of mosses.

ing under the foot, as soft, wet earth; spongy; boggy. "O'er the watery strath, or quaggy moss." Collins.

A rootlike filament or hair growing from the stems of mosses or on lichens; a rhizoid.

ing as an efflorescence. -- Rock milk. (Min.) See Agaric mineral, under Agaric. -- Rock moss, a kind of lichen; the cudbear. See Cudbear. -- Rock oil. See Petroleum. -- Rock parrakeet (Zoöl.), a small Australian parrakeet (Euphema petrophila), which nests in holes among the rocks of high cliffs. Its general color i…

A pile of roots, set with plants, mosses, etc., and used as an ornamental object in gardening.

a small rostrum; as, the rostellum of the stigma of violets, or of the operculum of many mosses; the rostellum on the head of a tapeworm.

hrubs, and often do great damage to fruit trees. See Orange scale,under Orange. -- Scale moss (Bot.), any leafy-stemmed moss of the order Hepaticæ; -- so called from the small imbricated scalelike leaves of most of the species. See Hepatica, 2, and Jungermannia.

Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of bright red carnivorous mites found among grass and moss, especially Thombidium holosericeum and allied species. The young are parasitic upon spiders and insects. -- Scarlet oak (Bot.), a species of oak (Quercus coccinea) of the United States; -- so called from the scarlet color o…

bristles or stiff hairs on the leaves of some plants, or the pedicel of the capsule of a moss.

the route traversed by Spanish treasure ships from the New to the Old World. -- Spanish moss. (Bot.) See Tillandsia. -- Spanish needles (Bot.), a composite weed (Bidens bipinnata) having achenia armed with needlelike awns. -- Spanish nut (Bot.), a bulbous plant (Iris Sisyrinchium) of the south of Europe. -- Spanis…

Growing in moss of the genus Sphagnum.

Pertaining to moss of the genus Sphagnum, or bog moss; abounding in peat or bog moss.

A genus of mosses having white leaves slightly tinged with red or green and found growing in marshy places; bog moss; peat moss.

That alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which is nonsexual, but produces spores in countless numbers. In ferns it is the leafy plant, in mosses the capsule. Cf. Oöphore.

Strong; vigorous; powerful. A stark, moss-trooping Scot. Sir W. Scott. Stark beer, boy, stout and strong beer. Beau. & Fl.

A cushionlike swelling on any organ; especially, that at the base of the capsule in many mosses.

To cut off a part of; to reduce to a stump; to lop. Around the stumped top soft moss did grow. Dr. H. More.

the upper part of each one is covered by the base of the next higher leaf, as in hepatic mosses of the genus Plagiochila.

a marsh in producing trees and shrubs, while the latter produce only herbage, plants, and mosses. Farming Encyc. (E. Edwards, Words). Swamp blackbird. (Zoöl.) See Redwing (b). -- Swamp cabbage (Bot.), skunk cabbage. -- Swamp deer (Zoöl.), an Asiatic deer (Rucervus Duvaucelli) of India. -- Swamp hen. (Zoöl.) (a) An A…