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Doctrine of Signatures

(Encyclopedia)Doctrine of Signatures, the concept that the key to humanity's use of various plants was indicated by the form of the plant. The red sap of the bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), for instance, was be...

mold

(Encyclopedia)mold, name for certain multicellular organisms of the various classes of the kingdom Fungi, characteristically having bodies composed of a cottony mycelium. The colors of molds are caused by the spore...

Fungi

(Encyclopedia)Fungi fŭnˈjī [key], kingdom of heterotrophic single-celled, multinucleated, or multicellular organisms, including yeasts, molds, and mushrooms. The organisms live as parasites, symbionts, or saprob...

fungal infection

(Encyclopedia)fungal infection, infection caused by a fungus (see Fungi), some affecting animals, others plants. Serious damage is done to crops each year by fungal infections of plants such as smuts, rusts, ergo...

liverwort

(Encyclopedia)liverwort, any plant of the class Marchantiopsida. Mosses and liverworts together comprise the division Bryophyta, primitive green land plants (see moss; plant); some of the earliest land plants resem...

Cohn, Ferdinand

(Encyclopedia)Cohn, Ferdinand fĕrˈdĕnänt kōn [key], 1828–98, German botanist. He is considered a founder of the science of bacteriology. From his early studies of microscopic life he developed theories of th...

entomology

(Encyclopedia)entomology, study of insects, an arthropod class that comprises about 900,000 known species, representing about three fourths of all the classified animal species. Insects are studied because of their...

Linnaeus, Carolus

(Encyclopedia)Linnaeus, Carolus kärōˈləs lĭnāˈəs [key], 1707–78, Swedish botanist and taxonomist, considered the founder of the binomial system of nomenclature and the originator of modern scientific clas...

smut

(Encyclopedia)smut, name for an order of parasitic fungi (Ustilaginales) and the various diseases of plants caused by them. Smuts produce sootlike masses of spores on the host. The spore masses may break up into a ...

prion

(Encyclopedia)prion prēˈŏn [key], abnormal form of a protein found in mammals, now generally believed to cause a group of diseases known as prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which are ...