PARTHENOGENESIS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Parthenogenesis

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noun

parthenogenesis n.

(Biol.) The production of new individuals from virgin females by means of ova which have the power of developing without the intervention of the male element; the production, without fertilization, of cells capable of germination. It is one of the phenomena of alternate generation. Cf. Heterogamy, and Metagenesis.

(Bot.) The production of seed without fertilization, believed to occur through the nonsexual formation of an embryo extraneous to the embryonic vesicle.

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Etymology of 'Parthenogenesis'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Parthenogenesis" Quotes from Famous Books

... kinds of sexual reproduction, has evidently been developed from the condition of hermaphroditism at a late period of the organic history of the world. It is at present the universal method of propagation of the higher animals.... The so-called virginal reproduction (Parthenogenesis) offers an interesting form of transition from sexual reproduction to the non-sexual formation of germ-cells which most resembles it.... In this case germ-cells which otherwise appear and are formed exactly ...

— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot

... lines and angles of geometers are ideals, and their ideal context is entirely independent of what may be their context in the world; but they are found in the world, and their ideals are suggested by very common sensations. Had they been invented, by some inexplicable parthenogenesis in thought, it would indeed have been a marvel had they found application. Philosophy has enough notions of this inapplicable sort—usually, however, not very recondite in their origin—to show that dialectic, when it seems to control existence, must have taken more than ...

— The Life of Reason • George Santayana