achene

American  

[ey-keen, uh-keen] / eɪˈkin, əˈkin /

Or akene

noun

Botany.

1. any small, dry, hard, one-seeded, indehiscent fruit.

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achene British  

/ əˈkiːn /

noun

1. a dry one-seeded indehiscent fruit with the seed distinct from the fruit wall. It may be smooth, as in the buttercup, or feathery, as in clematis

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achene Scientific  

/ ā-kēn′ /

1. A small, dry, one-seeded fruit in which the seed sits free inside the hollow fruit, attached only by the stem of the ovule. Achenes are indehiscent (they do not split open when ripe). The fruits of the sunflower and elm are achenes.

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Other Word Forms

• achenial adjective

Etymology

Origin of achene

1835–45; < New Latin achaenium, equivalent to a- a- ⁶ + Greek chain- (stem of chaínein to gape) + Latin -ium -ium

Example Sentences

Carl Linnaeus was not kidding when he chose the name Ambrosia for it: achene, its nutritious fruit, provides lots of calories to wildlife.

From Scientific American • Sep. 9, 2011

Smoothish; flower with 8 honey-bearing yellow-glands interposed between the stamens; achene acute and entire, smooth and shining.—Old fields, remaining as a weed after cultivation, and escaping into copses.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Style 3-cleft; achene triangular; stamens 3; spikelets many-flowered, flattened, the carinate scales decurrent upon the rhachis as scarious wings; spikes in simple or compound umbels.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Like the last; spikelets usually narrowly cylindrical and acute or acutish, 2–8´´ long; achene broad and truncate, the tubercle covering the summit; bristles not exceeding the achene.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Flower enclosed by 2 inner scales, one next the axis, the other in front of the achene; bristles none.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Related Words

• kernel