Pl. -amina. [L. vēlāmen, f. vēlāre to cover.]
1. Bot. The outer envelope or covering of the aerial roots of some arums and orchids.
1882. Vines, trans. Sachs’s Bot., 690. Rain or dew which moistens the root-envelope (velamen) or wounded surfaces.
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner., 227. A continuous layer of air-containing tracheides covers, as a sheath or velamen, the aerial roots of epiphytic orchids.
2. Anat. A membranous covering or integument.
In recent Dicts., which also give velamentum in the same sense.
