Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A vascular plant, such as a cycad or conifer, whose seeds are not enclosed within an ovary.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A plant belonging to the Gymnospermæ, characterized by naked seeds. Compare
angiosperm . Also calledgymnogen .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A plant that bears naked seeds (i. e., seeds not inclosed in an ovary), as the common pine and hemlock. Cf.
angiosperm .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun botany Any
plant such as aconifer whoseseeds are not enclosed in anovary .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun plants of the class Gymnospermae having seeds not enclosed in an ovary
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The receptive part of the gymnosperm ovule is called the micropyle.
Pollination Wikipedia 2009
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There are 794 angiosperm genera, 77% of China's total angiosperm species, 24 gymnosperm, 70 pteridophyte and 102 bryophyte genera.
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Vegetation within the desert consists of a thin scrub of Anabasis brevifolia while the peripheral areas support a dwarf woodland dominated by saxaul bush (Haloxylon ammodendron) and the gymnosperm Ephedra przewalskii.
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Dominant species include the cold-tolerant, xerophytic shrub, Haloxylon ammodendron (Goosefoot Family Chenopodiaceae), the tamarisk (Reaumuria spp.), and the gymnosperm Ephedra przewalski.
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Endemism is particularly high in 33 angiosperm and six gymnosperm, and fern families, most of which are ancient or primitive with restricted relict distributions.
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The only gymnosperm tree, Podocarpus (= Nageia) wallichianus, is also endemic.
Biological diversity in the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka 2008
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The relict gymnosperm Welwitschia mirabilis, which represents the sole surviving member of its family, is found throughout the ecoregion.
Kaokoveld desert 2008
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The distribution of this relict gymnosperm extends from the Kuiseb River in Namibia to Namibe in southern Angola.
Namib desert 2008
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The famous relict gymnosperm Welwitschia mirabilis is also found throughout the ecoregion, and it is often the most conspicuous feature of the vegetation, scattered about the arid plains at intervals of 50 to 100 m.
Kaokoveld desert 2008
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Shady conditions at ground level favor woody climbers that include strangler figs (Ficus spp.) and the cablelike Gnetum, an unusual climbing gymnosperm.
trivet commented on the word gymnosperm
"naked seed"
February 13, 2007