merithallus

English

Etymology

From New Latin merithallus, from Ancient Greek μερίς (merís, “part”) + θαλλός (thallós, “branch”).

Noun

merithallus (plural merithalli)

1. (botany) An internode.
   • 1835 December 21, M. Mirrel, “Report on a Memoir of M. Gaudichaud, relative to the Development and Growth of the Stems, Leaves, and other Organs of Plants”, in The London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, volume IX, page 373:

     In fact, in the same way that we see in the monocotyledonous embryo, which has taken all its normal expansion, a radicular mamilla which constitutes its descending system, and a cauliculus, a cotyledon, and its support, which form together its ascending system, in the same manner also we see in the more advanced plant the root which represents the radicle, that is to say, the descending system, and the merithallus with the leaf and its petiole, which represent the cauliculus, the cotyledon, together with its support, that is to say, the ascending system.

   • 1841, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, “Of the Stem of Vascular Plants”, in Boughton Kingdon, transl., Vegetable Organography: Or, An Analytical Description of the Organs of Plants, 2nd edition, volume I, London: Houlston & Stoneman, translation of Théorie élémentaire de la botanique (in French), page 178:

     […] but when we examine the increase of this branch in part, we see, with Cassini, that each merithallus, or internode, grows principally by its lower part […]

   • 1892, “Metamorphosis and Idiomorphosis”, in Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, page 815:

     Prof. F. Delpino regards the leaf, not as an independent organ, but as a section of a merithallus, the free projecting portion of a cone of growth, the remaining elements of which are closely united with one another to form the axial shoot.

Synonyms

• internode
• merithal

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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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 “merithallus”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)