Pl. strobili. [a. L. strobīlus fir-cone, a. Gr. στρόβῑλ-ος anything twisted up, fir-cone, etc.]
1. Bot. A fir-cone, or any fruit resembling a fir-cone; an inflorescence made up of imbricated scales, as that of the hop.
[1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Strobilus, the Artichoke-Plant; also a wild Pine-tree; or a Pine-apple.]
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl., Strobilus, among botanists, a kind of pericarpium, formed of a number of vaginæ with contorted points applied close to one another.
1771. Encycl. Brit., III. 479/2. (Pinus), The calix of the female is a strobilus, containing two flowers.
1861. Bentley, Bot., 325. The fruit of the Hop … is by some botanists considered as a kind of Cone with membranous scales, to which the name of Strobilus or Strobile has been given.
b. In cryptogams: An aggregation of sporophylls resembling a fir-cone.
1891. Bower, in Proc. Roy. Soc., L. 267. The sporophyte [of Phylloglossum] consists of two parts:—(i) the protocorm, with its protophylls and roots, and (ii) the strobilus, with sporophylls and sporangia. Ibid. (1893), in Phil. Trans., B. CLXXXV. 511. The strobili have been cut radially, tangentially, and transversely.
2. Zool. = STROBILA 2.
1876. Bristowe, Th. & Pract. Med. (1878), 707. The animal or rather colony of animals, in the form of a tape-worm or strobilus, occupies the alimentary canal.
