calyptra

plural calyptras · plural calyptrae

1. biologyIn bryophytes, a thin hood of tissue that forms from the archegonium and covers the developing sporophyte and is shed as it ripens.

   (b) sporophyte with foot reduced, the entire sporophyte enveloped by the calyptra, which is ± stipitate at the base.

   1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 4

2. biologyany cap-like covering of a flower or fruit, such as the operculum over the unopened buds of Eucalyptus flowers
3. biologyAny of various coverings at the tips of structures, in the terminology of various authors; for example rootcaps and the apical cells of trichomes.
4. biologyIn flies such as the housefly, Musca, in the taxonomic order Diptera, zoological section Schizophora, subsection Calyptrata, the calyptra is a membranous rearward extension of the forewing; it covers the haltere.