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1840 North Amer. & Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia) 18 July It would have been considered as admirable for..its curious mechanical structure of the flower, and its water-holding and insect-catching apparatus of the leaves, but for [etc.].

1852 Rep. Select Comm. Coal Mines 32 in Parl. Papers (H.C. 509) I. 1 The water-holding strata are not of great thickness.

1874 Lady Barker Boys 282 Basil, artfully leading the conversation round to water-holding plants, would tell him about the pitcher-plants of the West Indies.

1894 Australasian (Melbourne) 8 Sept. 435/5 Professor Spencer thus describes the water-holding frog found by the Horn exploring party.

1909 Proc. Iowa Acad. Sci. 16 107 A test was made of the effect of manure and peat on the water holding capacity of soils.

1993 New Scientist 15 May 53/4 The frogs described..were probably water-holding frogs of the family Leptodactylidae, native to the arid regions of Australia.

2008 C. Maser et al. Trees, Truffles, & Beasts iii. 56 The decomposing wood is gradually incorporated into the soil, where it imparts a healthy, spongy structure that..increases the soil's water-holding capacity.