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runner

(Encyclopedia)runner or stolon, slender, creeping stem capable of taking root where its nodes touch the ground and thereby producing new shoots. The runner itself usually dies at the end of the season, leaving inde...

turnip

(Encyclopedia)turnip, garden vegetable of the same genus of the family Cruciferae (or Brassicaceae; mustard family) as the cabbage; native to Europe, where it has been long cultivated. The two principal kinds are t...

Aa, in European place names

(Encyclopedia)Aa ä [key] [from a word for “water” of the same Indo-European root as Lat. aqua], name of many small streams of N Europe and Switzerland. Aa, or a derivative of it, is a component part of hundred...

teeth

(Encyclopedia)CE5 A. Upper and lower teeth of an adult B. Cross section of a molar teeth, hard, calcified structures embedded in the bone of the jaws of vertebrates that perform the primary function of masticat...

Uralic and Altaic languages

(Encyclopedia)Uralic and Altaic languages yo͝orălˈĭk, ăltāˈĭk [key], two groups of related languages thought by many scholars to form a single Ural-Altaic linguistic family. However, other authorities hold ...

geometric problems of antiquity

(Encyclopedia)geometric problems of antiquity, three famous problems involving elementary geometric constructions with straight edge and compass, conjectured by the ancient Greeks to be impossible but not proved to...

Jesse

(Encyclopedia)Jesse jĕsˈē [key], in the Bible, the descendant of Rahab, the grandson of Boaz and Ruth, and the father of David. Referring to the restoration of the Davidic monarchy, the Book of Isaiah speaks of ...

vegetative propagation

(Encyclopedia)vegetative propagation, the ability of plants to reproduce without sexual reproduction, by producing new plants from existing vegetative structures. Some plants, such as the Canada thistle and most ba...

brier

(Encyclopedia)brier or briar, name sometimes given any thorny plant, more specifically the sweetbrier, and the greenbrier. French brier, or brierroot, is a name for the root of the European white heath so widely us...

carbonated beverage

(Encyclopedia)carbonated beverage, an effervescent drink that releases carbon dioxide under conditions of normal atmospheric pressure. Carbonation may occur naturally in spring water that has absorbed carbon dioxid...