Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Pyxidium
‖
Pyx-id′i-um
,Noun.
pl.
Pyxidia
(#)
. [NL., fr. Gr. [GREEK], dim. a [GREEK] a box. See
Pyx
.] (Bot.)
(a)
A pod which divides circularly into an upper and lower half, of which the former acts as a kind of lid, as in the pimpernel and purslane.
(b)
The theca of mosses.
Definition 2024
pyxidium
pyxidium
English
Noun
pyxidium
pyxidium (plural pyxidia)
- (botany) A seed capsule in the form of a box, the seeds being released when the top splits off.
- 1979, Organization for Flora Neotropica, New York Botanical Garden, Flora Neotropica: Issue 21, Part 1, p. 221:
- Key to Species of Cariniana Inflorescence predominantly terminal and subterminal; pyxidium without teeth at line of opercular dehiscence.
- 1924, Samuel James Record, Clayton Dissinger Mell, Timbers of Tropical America, p. 467:
- The pyxidium has the trigonoidly cylindrical or obconical form of that of Couratari, but it is much thicker, heavier, and more solid in substance.
- 1913, Georges Victor Legros, Fabre: Poet of Science, p. 176:
- The capsule of gold−beater's skin, in which the grubs of the Cione are enclosed, divides itself, at the moment of liberation, into two hemispheres "of a regularity so perfect that they recall exactly the bursting of the pyxidium when the seed is distributed".
- 1836, Asa Gray, Elements of Botany, p. 221:
- A fruit of this kind is sometimes termed a pyxidium; that is, a little chest.
- 1979, Organization for Flora Neotropica, New York Botanical Garden, Flora Neotropica: Issue 21, Part 1, p. 221: