thallophyte Bot.
(ˈθæləfaɪt)
[f. mod.L. Thallophyta, pl. f. Gr. θαλλό-ς green twig + ϕυτόν plant.]
A plant belonging to the lowest of the great groups in the vegetable kingdom, comprising those of which the vegetative body is a thallus, including Algæ, Fungi, and Lichens; a cellular cryptogam; = Lindley's thallogen.
| 1854 Balfour in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 8) V. 142/2 These tribes, from having no foliaceous axis but simply a cellular expansion, have been called Thallogens or Thallophytes. 1875 Bennett & Dyer tr. Sachs' Bot. 207 Thallophytes. Under this term are comprised Algæ and Fungi (Lichens being also included in the latter section). 1885 G. L. Goodale Physiol. Bot. (1892) 164. |
Hence thallophytic (-ˈfɪtɪk) a. Bot., of or pertaining to the thallophytes.
| 1891 in Cent. Dict. |