calyx

plural calyces · plural calyxes · alternative archaic calix

1. biologyThe outermost whorl of flower parts, comprising the sepals, which covers and protects the petals as they develop.

   1 more example

   Black crowberry. Empetrum nigrum. Crowberry Family. Fruit. — The black drupe is berrylike, globular, and incloses six to nine seedlike nutlets with a seed in each. The calyx is at the base and the stigma is at the apex. The drupes are solitary in the leaf axils. They are juicy, acid, edible, and serve as food for the Arctic birds.

   1905, Maude Gridley Peterson, How to Know Wild Fruits: A Guide to Plants When Not in Flower by Means of Fruit and Leaf, Macmillan, page 202

2. Any of various cup-like structures.
   1. anatomyA chamber in the mammalian kidney through which urine passes.
   2. anatomyThe crown containing the viscera of crinoids and similar echinoderms, entoprocts, and the polyps of some cnidarians.
   3. anatomyA funnel-shaped expansion of the vas deferens or oviduct of insects.
   4. anatomyA flattened cap of neuropil in the brain of insects.