Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner, 1822–88, English jurist and historian, educated at Cambridge. A pioneer in the historical and comparative study of institutions, he viewed the history of laws as the m...

(Encyclopedia) Neuharth, Al (Allen Harold Neuharth), 1924–2013, American media executive, b. Eureka, S.Dak., grad. Univ. of South Dakota (1950). In 1954 he began working as a reporter for The Miami Herald, and by ...

(Encyclopedia) Stanford University, at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. ...

(Encyclopedia) Stewart, Martha, 1941–, American entrepeneur and tastemaker, b. Jersey City, N.J., as Martha Helen Kostyra, grad. Barnard College (1963). Moving to Westport, Conn., she started (1976) a successful c...

(Encyclopedia) Lexington. 1 City (1990 pop. 225,366), seat of Fayette co., N central Ky., in the heart of the bluegrass region; inc. 1832, made coextensive with Fayette co. 1974. The outstanding center in the United...

(Encyclopedia) nursery, in horticulture, an establishment or area for the propagation, breeding, and early cultivation of plants. In North America the term nursery originally specified a place where hardy woody plan...

(Encyclopedia) cone or strobilus strŏbˈələs [key], in botany, reproductive organ of the gymnosperms (the conifers, cycads, and ginkgoes). Like the flower in the angiosperms (flowering plants), the cone is actual...

(Encyclopedia) poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac, woody vines and trailing or erect shrubs of the family Anacardiaceae (sumac family), native to North America. They are sometimes considered as several specie...

(Encyclopedia) gall, abnormal growth, or hypertrophy, of plant tissue produced by chemical or mechanical (e.g., the rubbing together of two branches) irritants or hormones. Chemical irritants are released by parasit...

(Encyclopedia) Offaly ŏfˈəlē [key], county (1991 pop. 58,494), 771 sq mi (1,997 sq km), central Republic of Ireland. The county seat is Tullamore. A part of the central plain of Ireland, the county is mostly fla...