Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small, specialized club-shaped structure typically bearing four basidiospores at the tips of minute projections. The basidium is unique to basidiomycetes and distinguishes them from other kinds of fungi.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In botany, an enlarged cell in basidiomycetous fungi, arising from the hymenium, and producing by abstriction spores borne upon slender projections at its summit.
Wiktionary
- n. A small structure, shaped like a club, found in the Basidiomycota division of fungi, that bears four spores at the tips of small projections.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A special oblong or pyriform cell, with slender branches, which bears the spores in that division of fungi called
Basidiomycetes , of which the common mushroom is an example.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a small club-shaped structure typically bearing four basidiospores at the ends of minute projections; unique to basidiomycetes
Etymologies
- bas(i)- + Latin -idium, diminutive suff. (from Greek -idion).
Examples
“Jamie's blunt forefinger flipped one off its stem, and traced the spokes of the basidium as he marshaled his next words.”
“At the apex of each basidium a flask-shaped cell, "sterigma" (d), appears.”
“In _F_, a basidium is shown, with the young spores just forming.”
Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany For High Schools and Elementary College Courses
“Each cell of the spore sends out a tube (Fig. 47, _C_), through an opening in the outer wall, and this tube rapidly elongates, the spore contents passing into it, until a short filament (basidium) is formed, which then divides into several short cells.”
Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany For High Schools and Elementary College Courses
“All of the group are characterized by the production of spores at the top of special cells known as basidia, [8] the number produced upon a single basidium varying from a single one to several.”
Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany For High Schools and Elementary College Courses
“From each one of these cells of the basidium a long, slender process (sterigma) grows out to the surface of the plant and bears the spore.”
Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc.
“Ingold CT (1992) The basidium: a spore gun of precise range.”
“(usually four) little points, at the end of which spores are formed in exactly the same way as we saw in the germinating teleuto spores of the cedar rust, all the protoplasm of the basidium passing into the growing spores (Fig. 48, _E_, _F_).”
Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany For High Schools and Elementary College Courses
“_tr_ = = trama; _sh_ = = sub-hymenium; _b_ = = basidium, the basidia make up the hymenium; _st_ = = sterigma; _g_ = = spore.”
Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc.
Lists
‘basidium’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
chained_bear "The heads of shaggy-cap mushrooms poked whitely through the mold beneath the ferns. Jamie's blunt forefinger flipped one off its stem, and traced the spokes of the basidium as he marshaled his next words."
—Diana Gabaldon, Outlander (NY: Delacorte Press, 1991), 320 Jan 2, 2010