a. Bot. [f. mod.L. spor-a SPORE + -(I)FEROUS.] Bearing spores. Also Sporification, the process of forming spores. Sporigenous a., producing spores. Sporigerous a., bearing spores.
1836. Berkeley, in Smiths Eng. Flora, V. II. 341. Quaternate *sporiferous branchlets. Ibid. The sporiferous state.
1857. Henfrey, Bot., 158. The fructification or sporiferous apparatus of the Ferns is produced upon the leaves.
1882. Vines, trans. Sachs Bot., 316. The distribution of the bands of sporiferous filaments in the colourless sterile tissue.
1887. Challenger Rep., XVIII. I. p. cxxxvii. *Sporification has been hitherto observed only in a very small number of genera.
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., II. i. 303. Bringing the whole into contact with *sporigenous cells.
1866. Treas. Bot., 100/1. The distinction from *sporigerous fungi is not therefore as definite as might be wished.
1897. Allbutts Syst. Med., II. 308. Germs or sporules which rapidly develope into sporigerous bacilli.