Ostrya

Thesaurus

Noun

Ostrya - deciduous monoecious trees of Europe and Asia and America; sometimes placed in subfamily or family Carpinaceaegenus Ostryahamamelid dicot genus - genus of mostly woody relatively primitive dicotyledonous flowering plants with flowers often unisexual and often borne in catkinsBetulaceae, birch family, family Betulaceae - monoecious trees and shrubs (including the genera Betula and Alnus and Carpinus and Corylus and Ostrya and Ostryopsis)hop hornbeam - any of several trees resembling hornbeams with fruiting clusters resembling hopsOld World hop hornbeam, Ostrya carpinifolia - medium-sized hop hornbeam of southern Europe and Asia MinorEastern hop hornbeam, Ostrya virginiana, ironwood tree, ironwood - medium-sized hop hornbeam of eastern North America

Ostrya

(hop-hornbeam), a genus of deciduous monoecious trees of the family Betulaceae. The trees are 10–25 m tall and have longitudinally fissured bark. The leaves are alternate and irregularly double-toothed. The staminate flowers have no perianth and are arranged in a single cylindrical catkin along the longitudinal axis. The pistillate flowers have a plain perianth and are arranged in two’s in reduced dichasia, which are gathered, in turn, into short, thick catkins. Each pistillate flower is surrounded by a pitcher-shaped membranous involucre formed of concresced bracts, giving the cone-shaped female catkin a resemblance to the female inflorescences of hop plants. The involucre is closed when fruits are present; the fruits are nuts.

There are five species (according to other sources, ten) of hophornbeam, distributed in the northern hemisphere. The species O. carpinifolia occurs in the USSR; it grows wild in the mixed forests of the Caucasus. A tree reaching 15 m in height (sometimes to 22 m), it has double-toothed, short-petioled leaves and rough, scaly bark. The bark is a source of dyes and is used for tanning leather. The wood is valuable, but the reserves of this relict species are not great. The American hop-hornbeam (O. virginiana) is cultivated in the European USSR and in the Caucasus.

REFERENCE

Derev’ia i kustarniki SSSR, vol. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1951.

V. N. GLADKOVA

Ostrya

Related to Ostrya: Eastern Hophornbeam

noun

Synonyms for Ostrya

noun deciduous monoecious trees of Europe and Asia and America

Synonyms

genus Ostrya

Related Words

hamamelid dicot genus
Betulaceae
birch family
family Betulaceae
hop hornbeam
Old World hop hornbeam
Ostrya carpinifolia
Eastern hop hornbeam
Ostrya virginiana
ironwood tree
ironwood