Definitions

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

  • adjective Clasping the stem, as the bases of certain leaves do.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In botany, nearly surrounding or embracing the stem, as the base of some leaves.

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

  • adjective (Bot.) Clasping or embracing a stem, as the base of some leaves.

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

  • adjective botany, of leaves Having lobes (usually auriculate) that completely surround the stem.

Etymologies

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

[Latin amplexus, an embracing; see amplexus + Latin caulis, stem.]

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Examples

  • These large flowers are produced in bunches of six or ten on each branch, at the height of about eighteen inches; there are many stems, and each one is well branched, the species being very floriferous; the leaves are herb-like, lance-shaped, pointed, amplexicaul, and smooth; root-leaves spathulate.

    Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, Rockeries, and Shrubberies. John Wood

  • The _leaf-blade_ is convolute when young, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, variable from 1/4 to 2 inches long and 1/10 to 1/6 inch wide, acuminate, flat or somewhat wavy, glabrous on both the surfaces, rigidly pungent, densely crowded and distichously imbricate in the lower part of the stem, base is amplexicaul, and the margin is distantly serrate and rigidly ciliate.

    A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses K. Rangachari

  • The _leaf-blade_ is linear, cordate and amplexicaul at base, acute, flat, flaccid, with scattered tubercle-based hairs on both the surfaces,

    A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses K. Rangachari

  • The _third_ and _fourth glumes_ are half-amplexicaul, empty, epaleate, flabelliform, 4-lobed, 7-nerved, shortly awned at the back, villous; the side lobes are acuminate or aristate and the central lobes are shortly awned.

    A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses K. Rangachari

  • The _leaf-blade_ is broadly lanceolate, cordate at base, amplexicaul, acuminate or acute, with scattered long hairs both above and below, and some of the hairs of the under surface are tubercle-based, convolute when young; margin of the leaf is wavy, minutely serrate, and ciliated with distant hairs towards the lower half of the leaf when young; the midrib is prominent below.

    A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses K. Rangachari

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