vaginula

See also: Vaginula

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin vāgīnula, diminutive of vagina (“sheath”).

Noun

vaginula (plural vaginulas or vaginulae)

1. (botany) A little sheath, such as that about the base of the pedicel of most mosses.
   • 1837, The transactions of the Linnean Society of London, page 468:

     In Sphagnum it is shaped somewhat like a button , having a very narrow neck, which is firmly embraced by the vaginula.

   • 1980, Anthony John Edwin Smith, The Moss Flora of Britain and Ireland, page 483:

     The plant is distinctive in the reddish brown tomentum, the longly hairy vaginula and the erect or spreading peristome teeth (normally corticolous species have reflexed teeth and normally saxicolous species a ± glabrous vaginula).

Related terms

• vagina
• vaginule

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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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