aecium
/ˈiːs.i.əm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 0.00 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A cuplike fruiting structure of some parasitic rust fungi that contains chains of aeciospores.
Example Sentences
- "1932 August, Ralph Ulysses Cotter, Factors Affecting the Development of the Aecial Stage of Puccinia Graminis, US Dept of Agriculture, Technical Bulletin No. 314, page 29, The writer therefore made observations to determine the conditions under which the aecia open and discharge spores most readily."
- "The receptive hyphae with binucleate cells eventually form the basal cells of the aecium.[…]Many cup-like structures, called aecia, appear on the lower surface of leaf."
- "It is a heteroecious rust and its aecia are produced on species of Oxalis, namely O. stricta, according to Arthur (1929)."
Etymology
From New Latin aecium, from Ancient Greek αἰκίᾱ (aikíā, “injury, insult”). However Merriam-Webster relates that aecium is a back-formation from aecidium and is not related to the Greek αἰκίᾱ (aikíā). The word aecium was "introduced as a substitute for aecidium by the Purdue University plant pathologist J. C. Arthur (1850–1942) in an effort to reform terminology for rust fungi; see Terminology of the Spore-Structures in the Uredinales, Botanical Gazette, vol. 39 (Mar., 1905), pp. 219-22."
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: aecium, αἰκίᾱ