Crossword clues for deciduous
deciduous
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Deciduous \De*cid"u*ous\ (?; 135), a. [L. deciduus, fr. dec?dere to fall off; de- + cadere to fall. See Chance.] (Biol.) Falling off, or subject to fall or be shed, at a certain season, or a certain stage or interval of growth, as leaves (except of evergreens) in autumn, or as parts of animals, such as hair, teeth, antlers, etc.; also, shedding leaves or parts at certain seasons, stages, or intervals; as, deciduous trees; the deciduous membrane.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
a. 1 (context biology English) Describing a part that falls off, or is shed, at a particular time or stage of development. 2 (context botany English) Of or pertaining to trees which lose their leaf in winter or the dry season. 3 transitory, ephemeral, not lasting
WordNet
adj. (of plants and shrubs) shedding foliage at the end of the growing season [ant: evergreen]
(of teeth, antlers, etc.) being shed at the end of a period of growth; "deciduous teeth"
Wikipedia
Deciduous Texas forest in autumn
Deciduous Denmark forest in winter
Mixed deciduous Texas forest in spring
Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and it is typically used in order to refer to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally (most commonly during autumn) and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe. In a more general sense, deciduous means "the dropping of a part that is no longer needed" or "falling away after its purpose is finished". In plants it is the result of natural processes. "Deciduous" has a similar meaning when referring to animal parts, such as deciduous antlers in deer or deciduous teeth, also known as baby teeth, in some mammals (including humans).
The term deciduous refers to a biological process of losing or dropping appendages of the organism.
Specifically, the term may refer to:
- deciduous trees, plants which shed their leaves regularly
- deciduous teeth (milk teeth, baby teeth), that fall out during the course of normal development
- other body parts that are shed, such as antlers, are also described as deciduous
Usage examples of "deciduous".
How was he going to explain, without lapsing, into pedantry, that while Accord was a product of parallel evolution, the principal plant families were more like the year around, nonflowering gymno-sperms than the deciduous trees of Terra.
Many things in the way of deciduous flowering shrubs may be grown with them, their bareness in winter and shade during summer favouring their enjoyment and growth.
Annual and perennial plants, deciduous and evergreen trees, plants inhabiting different stations and fitted for extremely different climates, can often be crossed with ease.
Great diversity in the size of two plants, one being woody and the other herbaceous, one being evergreen and the other deciduous, and adaptation to widely different climates, does not always prevent the two grafting together.
In the north, a new kind of ecology appeared, a temperate woodland of mixed conifers and deciduous trees.
Dundalis or Weedy Meadow, except that, being on the western border of Alpinador, it was a colder place, with more hardy evergreens and fewer deciduous trees.
For the animals, the living offered by the taiga was meager compared to the old mixed deciduous and coniferous temperate forests.
In rare instances where a ravine opened into a watered valley, sheltered from the incessant, driving wind and supplied with sufficient moisture, the coniferous and small-leafed deciduous trees more closely approached their true proportions.
The lower slopes were thick with bracken and buckbrush, but as we went higher, we entered an open forest of deciduous trees.
The Enfield Tennis Academy occupies probably now the nicest site in En-field, some ten years after balding and shaving flat the top of the big abrupt hill that constitutes a kind of raised cyst on the township's elbow, the better part of 75 hectares of broad lawns and cloverleafing paths and topologically cutting-edge erections, 32 asphalt tennis courts and sixteen Har-Tru composition tennis courts and extensive underground maintenance and storage and athletic-training facilities and briers and calliopsis and pines mixed artfully in on the inclines with deciduous trees, the E.
Its mouth chewed slowly, crammed full of the fat deciduous leaves that were its principal diet.
The calligraphy of trees, deciduous and evergreen, full of cursives and flourishes, was continuously erased only to be half revealed again by the lazily roiling mist.
The thin limbs of deciduous trees and brush d in white from a coating of freezing rain, which accentuated md branch, captivating Ayla with their winter beauty.
The Marre pines and kuello-firs gave way quickly to sysal and curly-bark river lingot, lighter-limbed deciduous trees that required wetter soil.
Each one of the massive, palm-shaped, deciduous horns that emerged from their heads grew larger each year and in a mature male could reach twelve feet in length.