sporophyl

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In botany, the leaf or leaf-like organ which bears the spores, or receptacles containing the spores, in many of the vascularcryptogams. It is usually more or less modified and unlike the normal leaves, as in the spikes of Lycopodium, Selaginella, Ophioglossum, etc. See cuts under these words, also under Osmunda, polypody, and sorus.
2. n. In algol., a leaflet-like outgrowth upon which occur the sporangia, arising below the large terminal blade in Alaria and other closely related genera of the Phæophyceæ.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. leaf in ferns and mosses that bears the sporangia