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A whorl or set of bracts around a flower, umbel, or head.

Having an involucre, as umbels, heads, etc. Martyn.

An involucel.

The involucre or cup in which the acorn is fixed.

(Bot.) Composed of several florets within a common involucre, as in the daisy; or of several carpels formed from one flower, as in the raspberry.

scolymus, a plant somewhat resembling a thistle, with a dilated, imbricated, and prickly involucre. The head (to which the name is also applied) is composed of numerous oval scales, inclosing the florets, sitting on a broad receptacle, which, with the fleshy base of the scales, is much esteemed as an article of food.…

or prickly envelope of the seeds of plants, whether a pericarp, a persistent calyx, or an involucre, as of the chestnut and burdock. Also, any weed which bears burs. Amongst rude burs and thistles. Milton. Bur and brake and brier. Tennyson.

ng a single flower, but really composed of several florets inclosed in a common calyxlike involucre, as the sunflower or dandelion. -- Compound fraction. (Math.) See Fraction. -- Compound fracture. See Fracture. -- Compound householder, a householder who compounds or arranges with his landlord that his rates shall b…

s Australian flower (Actinotus helianthi), often erroneously thought to be composite. The involucre looks as if cut out of white flannel.

A genus of composite plants with white or colored dry and persistent involucres; a kind of everlasting.

p. of the genus Diodon; the porcupine fish. -- Hedgehog grass (Bot.), a grass with spiny involucres, growing on sandy shores; burgrass (Cenchrus tribuloides). -- Hedgehog rat (Zoöl.), one of several West Indian rodents, allied to the porcupines, but with ratlike tails, and few quills, or only stiff bristles. The hedg…

composite plants, with shining, commonly white or yellow, or sometimes reddish, radiated involucres, which are often called "everlasting flowers."

A plant with a conspicuous, dry, unwithering involucre, as the species of Antennaria, Helichrysum, Gomphrena, etc. See Everlasting.

A partial, secondary, or small involucre. See Illust. of Involucre.

Having an involucre; involucred.

See Involucre.

The Astrantia major, a European umbelliferous plant with a showy colored involucre.

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

ns. 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…

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