equitant

American  

[ek-wi-tuhnt] / ˈɛk wɪ tənt /

adjective

Botany.

1. straddling or overlapping, as leaves whose bases overlap the leaves above or within them.

---

equitant British  

/ ˈɛkwɪtənt /

adjective

1. (of a leaf) having the base folded around the stem so that it overlaps the leaf above and opposite

---

Etymology

Origin of equitant

1820–30; < Latin equitant- (stem of equitāns ) (present participle of equitāre to ride), equivalent to equit- (stem of eques; equites ) + -ant- -ant

Example Sentences

Fibrous-rooted, with equitant leaves and perfect 3- or 6-androus flowers.

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

Root not bulbous; leaves equitant in two ranks.

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

Seeds ascending, appendaged at each end with a long bristle-form tail.—Rootstock creeping, bearing linear equitant leaves, and a simple stem or scape, terminated by a simple dense bracteate raceme; pedicels bearing a linear bractlet.

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

In these there are seven strata of coals, equitant upon each other, with beds of clay and stone intervening; amongst which clay are found shells and fern branches.

From The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation by Darwin, Erasmus

The leaf-sheath is short, pale, glabrous, somewhat compressed, striate, equitant below and upper are longer, terete and green.

From A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses by Rangachari, K.