Gemmae

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of asexual reproductive structure found in certain plants and fungi, capable of developing into a new organism
2. Small buds or outgrowths in mosses and some other plants, used for vegetative propagation
3. Specialized structures that allow organisms to reproduce without seeds, often seen in liverworts and lichens

Etymology: "Gemmae" is the plural of "gemma," a word borrowed directly from Latin "gemma," meaning "bud on a plant." The Latin term is also the ancestor of the English word "gem," which entered the language through Old French and came to mean a precious stone, and of the given name Gemma. Both English words are doublets of "gemma," meaning they descend from the same Latin source by different routes, one of which was a learned borrowing that kept the original sense closer to its roots. The Latin sense of a bud is the one that survives in the biological term. In botany, gemmae are small, detachable clusters of cells that a plant uses to form a new individual, so the word still points back to the idea of something budding forth. Liverworts produce them in cup-shaped structures on the thallus, and some lichens produce them as well, letting a fragment drop off and grow into a new organism without any seed or spore stage.