Definition of "caruncle" [car•un•cle]

• Biology A fleshy naked outgrowth, such as a fowl's wattles. (noun)
• Botany An outgrowth or appendage at or near the hilum of certain seeds, as of the castor-oil plant. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "If you're wondering, the part of gallinaceous anatomy that Danilo is mimicking is called a caruncle, or cockscomb."
• "However, his collections from Altai and Yili in Xinjiang Province possess the so-called "caruncle" only in some fruits from the same plant."
• "Chinese herbaria do not exhibit the key anatomical character described by Janischevsky (1924), i.e., that the fruit base becomes elongated and forms a "caruncle"."