‖ hibernaculum
(haɪbəˈnækjuːləm)
Also hy-. Pl. -a.
[L. hībernāculum winter residence, usually in pl. hībernācula winter huts of soldiery, winter quarters, f. hībern-us wintry: see -cule.]
† 1. A greenhouse for wintering plants. Obs.
| 1699 Evelyn Acetaria Plan, Of Orangeries..Hybernacula, Stoves, and Conservatories. |
2. Zool. The winter quarters or place of retirement of a hibernating animal.
| 1789 G. White Selborne xxvii. (1853) 108 Hedgehogs make a deep and warm hybernaculum with leaves and moss. 1816 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. (1843) II. 348 It shall seek out appropriate hybernacula or winter quarters and in them fall into a profound sleep. 1866 Tate Brit. Mollusks iv. 135 This it lines with leaves, retires to its hybernaculum and closes the aperture of the shell. |
3. Bot. A part of a plant adapted to protect an embryonic organ during the winter, as a bulb or special bud.
| 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. (1788) Gloss. 418 Hybernaculum, Winter-lodge, the Part of a Plant that incloses and secures the Embryo from external Injuries. 1794 Martyn Rousseau's Bot. i. 25 note, He [Linnæus] names them Hybernacula, winter germs or buds, into which the whole plant retires during the winter season. 1860 Tyas Wild Fl. 31 [Butterwort] There are formed small round leafy buds or hybernacula, about half an inch in diameter. |
4. Zool. a. An encysted winter-bud of a polyzoan, which germinates in the following spring.
| 1885 E. R. Lankester in Encycl. Brit. XIX. 433/1 The only approach to a differentiation of the polypides in Paludicella is in the arrest of growth of some of the buds of a colony in autumn, which, instead of advancing to maturity, become conical and invested with a dark-coloured cuticle. They are termed hybernacula. |
b. The epiphragm or false operculum of a snail.
| 1888 Huxley & Martin Elem. Biol. 273 It is no uncommon thing to find, during the warm season, individuals [snails] to the exterior of whose shells there adhere one or more (often a great number) of..hybernacula, cast off by their fellows on emerging from the dormant state. 1888 Rolleston & Jackson Anim. Life 108 When the snail hibernates it closes the aperture of its shell by a whitish disc, the hibernaculum or epiphragma. |