Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small, flat, delicate structure produced by a germinating spore and bearing sex organs. It is the gametophyte of ferns and some other plants.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as prothallium.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) The minute primary growth from the spore of ferns and other Pteridophyta, which bears the true sexual organs; the oöphoric generation of ferns, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A prothallium.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin : pro– + Greek thallos, shoot (from thallein, to sprout).]

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