Bot. Pl. suffrutices; also 7 erron. -ages (but cf. FRUITAGE 3). [mod.L., f. suf- SUB- 22 + FRUTEX.] A plant having a woody base, but a herbaceous annual growth above.
1567. Maplet, Gr. Forest, 27. A fourth kind [of plant] which they cal Suffutrex [sic] a mean betwene the Herbe and the shrub.
1691. Ray, Creation, I. (1692), 154. Odoriferous and ever-green Shrubs and Suffrutices.
a. 1706. Evelyn, Silva (1776), 509. Herbaceous Suffrutages.
1726. Dict. Rust. (ed. 3), Suffrutex, is a low Woody perennial Plant, that sends out no leaves from its Roots; and beginning to be branch’d from the very bottom of the Stalk, as Lavender, Sage, Rue, and the like.
1866. in Treas. Bot.
