- A placenta. - That alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous
plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which is nonsexual, but
produces spores in countless numbers. In ferns it is the leafy plant,
in mosses the capsule. Cf. Oophore.
- An herbaceous plant of the nightshade family (Physalis
alkekengi) and its fruit, which is a well flavored berry, the size of a
cherry, loosely inclosed in a enlarged leafy calyx; -- also called
winter cherry, ground cherry, and strawberry tomato.
- An alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous
plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which bears antheridia and
archegonia, and so has sexual fructification, as contrasted with the
sporophore, which is nonsexual, but produces spores in countless
number. In ferns the oophore is a minute prothallus; in mosses it is
the leafy plant.