HENDERSON'S HANDBOOK OF PLANTS. 



261 



ACH 



seeded, and indehiscent. This is other- 

 wise termed a nut. 2. Where the peri- 

 carp is inferior, and, consequently, in- 

 vested by the calyx; in other respects 

 resembling the last, but usually not so 

 hard. The seeds of the Composite are 

 the best examples. 



Achlamydeous. Having neither calyx nor 

 corolla, so that the essential parts of the 

 flower are without a covering. Applied to 

 flowers without any distinct perianth; as 

 in the Willows, where the stamens and 

 pistil are merely subtended by a bract. 



Acidolus. Where the branches or other 

 organs terminate in a spine or hard 

 point. 



Acicula. A bristle. The bristle-like abor- 

 tive flower of a Grass. 



Acicular. Of a slender form, shaped like a 

 needle. 



Aciculated. Marked by fine impressed lines, 

 as if produced by the point of a needle. 



Acies. The edge of anything. The angles 

 of certain stems. 



Acinaciform. Cimeter- shaped; that is to 

 say, curved, rounded toward the point; 

 thick on the straighter side, thin on the 

 convexity. 



Acinarious. When a stem or branch is 

 covered with little spherical and stalked 

 vesicles looking like grape seeds; as in 

 some sea-weeds. 



Acini. The small stones or seeds in Grapes, 

 Strawberries, etc. 



Acinus. A bunch of fleshy fruits, as of 

 Currants or Grapes, now confined to the 

 berries of such bunches. 



Acotyledonous. Having no cotyledons or 

 seed lobes, as in Cuscuta. In systematic 

 botany, applied to spore-bearing plants 

 which do not produce cotyledons, as 

 Ferns; also to spores themselves, which 

 are embryos without cotyledons. 



ACK 



Acotyledons. A name often applied to 

 Cryptogamia, or flowerless plants, in conse- 

 quence of their reproductive organs or 

 spores, when germinating, having no seed 

 leaves or cotyledons. There are, how- 

 ever, few rules without an exception, and 

 some Lycopods present, when young, 

 something very like cotyledons. Though 

 Cryptogamia have no true cotyledons, 

 their spores produce, mostly by cell divi- 

 sion, a mass of threads, a leafy expansion, 

 or a solid body, to which the name false 

 cotyledons (pseudo-cotyledons) has been 

 given, and such productions, as the false 

 cotyledons of Mosses for example, have 

 often been considered as distinct plants, 

 belonging to a distinct natural order 

 from the parent plant. Under this name 

 are included all those plants called by Lin- 

 naeus Cryptogamia, because he was unable 

 to discover their organs of fertilization, if 

 they had any. They comprehend Sea- 

 weeds, Fungi, Lichens, Mosses, Ferns, 

 and their allies, which see. It is now 

 known that all are multiplied by a sexual 

 apparatus in structure wholly different 

 from that of Phaenogamous plants, but in 

 function the same. In the higher orders, 

 that is to say, in Ferns, Lycopoias, and 

 Horsetails, the plant, properly so called, 

 does not proceed directly from the spore 

 or seed, but from a rudimentary inter- 

 mediate organ, called prothallium, on 

 which the organs of fertilization are 

 formed, these organs not producing a 

 spore or seed, but the very plant itself. 



Acramphibrya. Plants that grow both at 

 the point and along the sides, as Endo- 

 gens and Exogens. 



Acrobrya. A term used by Endlicher, sy- 

 nonymous with Acrogena 



Acrocarpi. A division of Mosses containing 

 those species in which the female fruit 



