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GYMNOSPERM
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Plants of the class Gymnospermae having seeds not enclosed in an ovary
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("gymnosperm" is a kind of...):
phanerogam; seed plant; spermatophyte (plant that reproduces by means of seeds not spores)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gymnosperm"):
progymnosperm (an ancestral fossil type from which modern gymnosperms are thought to have derived)
welwitschia; Welwitschia mirabilis (curious plant of arid regions of southwestern Africa having a yard-high and yard-wide trunk like a turnip with a deep taproot and two large persistent woody straplike leaves growing from the base; living relic of a flora long disappeared; some may be 700-5000 years old)
cycad (any tropical gymnosperm of the order Cycadales; having unbranched stems with a crown of fernlike leaves)
pteridosperm; seed fern (an extinct seed-producing fernlike plant of the order Cycadofilicales (or group Pteridospermae))
Holonyms ("gymnosperm" is a member of...):
class Gymnospermae; division Gymnospermophyta; Gymnospermae; Gymnospermophyta (plants having naked seeds not enclosed in an ovary; in some systems considered a class (Gymnospermae) and in others a division (Gymnospermophyta); comprises three subdivisions (or classes): Cycadophytina (class Cycadopsida) and Gnetophytina (class Gnetopsida) and Coniferophytina (class Coniferopsida); in some classifications the Coniferophytina are divided into three groups: Pinophytina (class Pinopsida) and Ginkgophytina (class Ginkgopsida) and Taxophytina (class Taxopsida))
Derivation:
gymnospermous (relating to or characteristic of plants of the class Gymnospermae)
