nutlet

noun — 2 senses

nutlet

noun

Etymology From nut + -let.

1

A small nut.

  • Black crowberry. Empetrum nigrum. Crowberry Family. Fruit. — The black drupe is berrylike, globular, and incloses six to nine seedlike nutlets with a seed in each. The calyx is at the base and the stigma is at the apex. The drupes are solitary in the leaf axils. They are juicy, acid, edible, and serve as food for the Arctic birds.1905, Maude Gridley Peterson, How to Know Wild Fruits: A Guide to Plants When Not in Flower by Means of Fruit and Leaf, Macmillan, page 202:
  • Other maloid genera with hard nutlets are Cotoneaster, Hesperomeles, Osteomeles, and Pyracantba, but each of these is quite different from Mespilus and Crataegus.2003, James B. Phipps, Robert J. O'Kennon, Ronald W. Lance, Hawthorns and Medlars, Portland, O.R.: Timber Press, →ISBN, page 57:
1 more example
  • The only other identifiable plant macrofossil present was a nutlet of club-rush that was morphologically most similar to grey club-rush (Schoenoplectus cf tabernaemontani). This form of club-rush is most often found near the sea, although it also grows in marshes and dune-slacks.2017 January 9, Dan Garner, Hillforts of the Cheshire Ridge, Archaeopress Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 253:
2

Biology, Botany, Natural sciences One of the lobes or sections of the mature ovary of some members of the Boraginaceae, Verbenaceae, and Lamiaceae.

Related terms
nutlike, nuttish, nutty

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.