vegetative
/ˈvɛdʒɪtətɪv
/ /ˈvɛdʒɪteɪtɪv/adjective
1 Biology Relating to or denoting reproduction or propagation achieved by asexual means, either naturally (budding, rhizomes, runners, bulbs, etc.) or artificially (grafting, layering, or taking cuttings): vegetative spores a vegetative replicating phase...
- Thymus loscosii might have a combined strategy of sexual and asexual reproduction, since vegetative propagation of stolons has been observed in the field.
- The usual mode of reproduction in Hydra is vegetative, by forming asexual buds.
- Today Sargassum reproduces asexually by vegetative budding of new shoots that eventually break off to form new plants.
1.1Relating to or concerned with growth rather than sexual reproduction: environmental factors trigger the switch from vegetative to floral development...
- They suggested that, for such species, colony design may have been optimized for allocating resources to vegetative growth rather than to the production of larvae.
- These expression patterns are consistent with roles for invertases both in vegetative and sexual growth cycles.
- These are the potential meristems that are formed at the base of each leaf during vegetative growth.
2Relating to vegetation or plant life: diverse vegetative types...
- Winter chilling has two principal effects: it removes dormancy, so that when warm conditions return in the spring the plants have renewed vegetative vigour.
- Tortula ruralis is an important model system for the study of plant vegetative desiccation tolerance.
- It has been predominantly isolated from soils, vegetative plant parts, seeds, and cotton fabrics.
3 Medicine (Of a person) alive but comatose and without apparent brain activity or responsiveness. See persistent vegetative state.Diagnosis depends on careful clinical observation over many weeks, because there are no laboratory or imaging tests that reliably indicate that a patient is vegetative....
- The imminent threat of Malcolm's death or long-term permanent paralysis and vegetative state from serious brain damage had immobilized and terrified them.
- Older patients, particularly women, may have vegetative symptoms and cognitive dysfunction.
Derivatives
vegetatively
- The petunias I wrote about last week were all propagated vegetatively, from cuttings or by tissue culture.
- Very little fluorescence, if any, was detected in both transformants when they were vegetatively growing, as was consistent with the results of Northern blot analysis.
- Because Chlamydomonas is a multiple-fission alga, a cell that is growing vegetatively may yield daily two or more daughter cells, all of which need to be incapacitated by UV treatment to prevent colony formation.
vegetativeness
- The grapes were grown in Monterey County, not the best Cabernet region in the state because of a telltale vegetativeness that frequently distinguishes the varietal when it is grown there.
- After twenty-two months in barrel, the blueberry fruit seems remarkably straight forward, though a bit of vegetativeness creeps in around the edges.
- Like to but don't always get up to much, so at various points it's city exploration, sofa-based vegetativeness, recently I even went hiking in the West Sussex downs - imagine that.
Origin
Late Middle English (in sense 2): from Old French vegetatif, -ive or medieval Latin vegetativus (see vegetate).