a. [a. F. sutural, or mod.L. sūtūrālis: see SUTURE and -AL.] Of, pertaining or relating to, or situated in a suture. a. Bot. esp. of dehiscence taking place at the suture of a pericarp.
1819. Lindley, trans. Richard’s Observ. Fruits & Seeds, 21. A seed attached to an axile, parietal, or sutural trophosperm. Ibid. (1832), Introd. Bot., 164. If [the dehiscence takes place] along the inner edge of a simple fruit it is called sutural.
1847. W. E. Steele, Field Bot., 206. Placentæ sutural, with 1 or 2 seeds.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, p. x. Ovules sutural or basal.
1872. Oliver, Elem. Bot., I. vii. 92. The sutural placentation of apocarpous pistils.
b. Entom., etc. Also Anat. pertaining to the sutures of the skull.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., III. xxxv. 600. The sutural and anal angles exist only where the elytra are truncated at the apex.
1836–9. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., II. 883/2. The common sutural connexion of some of the bones in man.
1854. Owen, in Orr’s Circ. Sci., Org. Nat., I. 165. They are united together at their thick margins by rough or ‘sutural’ surfaces.
1876. Dunglison, Med. Lex., Sutural Ligament.
c. Pertaining to, resulting from, a surgical suture.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., III. 595. The sutures were passed through the fibrous structures of the parietes…. A little sutural abscess formed about one parietal stitch.
Hence Suturally adv., by means of, or in the manner of, a suture or sutures.
1854. Owen, in Orr’s Circ. Sci., Org. Nat., I. 178. The hæmapophysis is subdivided into two, three, or more pieces,… suturally interlocked together.
1875. Huxley, in Encycl. Brit., I. 754/2. The short premaxillæ … are united suturally in the middle line.
