sepal
Americannoun
noun
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One of the usually separate, green parts that surround and protect the flower bud and extend from the base of a flower after it has opened. Sepals tend to occur in the same number as the petals and to be centered over the petal divisions. In some species sepals are colored like petals, and they can even be indistinguishable from petals, as in the lilies (in what are called tepals). In some groups, such as the poppies, the sepals fall off after the flower bud opens.
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See more at flower
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sepal
< New Latin sepalum (1790), irregular coinage based on Greek sképē covering and Latin petalum petal
Vocabulary lists containing sepal
Plants (Botany) - Middle School
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Plants (Botany) - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
By mutating genes that control polyploidy in the mustardlike plant Arabidopsis thaliana, she and her team discovered that if the sepal had too few polyploid cells, it was stiff and upright and blooming was impeded.
From Science Magazine ● Aug. 23, 2023
Goethe recognized that all the parts of a flower, from pistil to sepal, are modified leaves.
From Nature ● Aug. 5, 2019
Parts of same, two of each kind, separated and displayed; the torus or receptacle in the centre; a, a sepal; b, a petal; c, a stamen; d, a pistil.
From The Elements of Botany For Beginners and For Schools by Asa Gray
The vascular bundles sometimes form a prominent rib, which indicates the middle of the sepal; at other times they form several ribs.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 5 "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" by Various
Imschootiana is huge even above its fellows, for a flower may be nine inches across; the colour of sepal and petal mauve, with a crimson-purple lip of splendour beyond conception.
From The Woodlands Orchids by Frederick Boyle
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
