combining form of Gr. καρπός fruit, as in Carpogone, Carpogonium Bot. [cf. archegonium], the female reproductive organ of Thallophytes which produces a sporocarp or spore-fruit; hence Carpogonial a., relating to the carpogonium. Carpophagous a. Zool. [Gr. -φαγος eating], fruit-eating. Carpophore Bot. [Gr. -φορος bearing, f. φέρειν το bear], a prolongation of the axis of a flower, raising the pistil above the stamens, as in Geraniaceæ and Umbelliferæ; also, in Thallophytes, the stalk of a sporocarp or spore-fruit. Carpophyll Bot. [Gr. φύλλον leaf], ‘the modified leaf which by its folding produces a carpel’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.). Carpospore Bot. [Gr. σπόρος sowing, seed], in Thallophytes, the spore formed in a sporocarp or spore-fruit; hence Carposporous a., applied to Algæ that produce sporocarps or spore-fruits with carpospores.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 236. The female organ [of Thallophytes] … may be designated by the general term Carpogonium. Ibid., 292. The true fertile carpogonial branches.
1839–47. Todd, Cycl. Anat., III. 302/1. The Carpophagous Phalangers.
1870. Bentley, Bot., 298. The axis is prolonged in the form of a columella or carpophore.
1871. M. Cooke, Fungi (1874), 168. A germ-like tube, which, without originating a proper mycelium, develops at the expense of the nutritive material stored in the zygospore into a carpophore, or fruit-bearer.
1880. Gray, Bot. Text-bk., 401. Carpophyll.… Literally fruit-leaf; synonym of Carpel.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 267. The carpospores are here precisely like the ordinary non-sexual conidia.
1887. Nature, 21 April, 577/2. The carposporous forms of Algæ.
