caducous

English

Etymology

(deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin cadūcus (“falling; transitory”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kəˈdjuːkəs/

Adjective

caducous (comparative more caducous, superlative most caducous)

1. (biology) Of a part of an organism, disappearing in the normal course of development.
   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 4:

     The Jubulaceae have a leaf whose lobule, usually transformed into a water-sac, is normally very narrowly attached to the stem and to the dorsal lobe; indeed some Frullania taxa reproduce vegetatively by dropping the dorsal lobes, but not the lobules, and Neohattoria has caducous lobules but persistent lobes.

2. (botany) Tending to fall early.

   caducous leaves

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “caducous”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)