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

Style 3-cleft; spikelets narrow, terete or nearly so, few–many-flowered, the scales closely appressed and the broad wings of the jointed rhachis enclosing the triangular 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

Stem simple, 1–2° high; leaves nearly as in the next; pedicels jointed at or below the middle; valves of the fruiting calyx round-heart-shaped, thin, finely reticulated, naked, many times larger than 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

Culm continuous and sharply 4-angled; achene finely reticulated, with a conical flattened distinct tubercle.—Shallow water, central N. Y. to Mich., and southward; rare.

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

Annual, twining or procumbent, low, roughish, the joints naked; leaves halberd-heart shaped, pointed; flowers in small interrupted corymbose racemes; outer calyx-lobes keeled; achene smoothish.—Cult. and waste grounds, common.

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