Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) ampelopsis ămˌpĭlŏpˈsəs [key] [Gr.,=looking like a vine], botanic name for woody ornamental vines of the genus Ampelopsis, but in horticulture also traditionally applied to the Virginia creeper,...

(Encyclopedia) ballad, in literature and music, short, narrative poem or song usually relating a single, dramatic event. Two forms of the ballad are often distinguished—the folk ballad, dating from about the 12th ...

(Encyclopedia) Sophists sŏfˈĭsts [key], originally, itinerant teachers in Greece (5th cent. b.c.) who provided education through lectures and in return received fees from their audiences. The term was given as a ...

(Encyclopedia) Friel, Brian frēl [key], 1929–2015, Irish playwright, b. Killyglogher, Northern Ireland. Treating themes that enmesh both Irelands, he became the most acclaimed Irish dramatist of the late 20th cen...

(Encyclopedia) liana lēänˈ [key], name for any climbing plant that roots in the ground. The term is most often used for the woody vines that form a characteristic part of tropical rain-forest vegetation; they are...

(Encyclopedia) hyssop hĭsˈəp [key], aromatic, perennial, somewhat woody herb (Hyssopus officinalis) of the family Labiatae (mint family), native to the Old World but partially naturalized in North America. The pl...

(Encyclopedia) tagua täˈgwä [key], fruit of the ivory, or ivory-nut, palms (Phytelephas species), which flourish in tropical America from Paraguay to Panama. The female palms bear large woody, burrlike fruits, ea...

(Encyclopedia) liberal arts, term originally used to designate the arts or studies suited to freemen. It was applied in the Middle Ages to seven branches of learning, the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and...

(Encyclopedia) loosestrife, common name for the Lythraceae, a widely distributed family of plants most abundant as woody shrubs in the American tropics but including also herbaceous species (chiefly of temperate zon...

(Encyclopedia) cambium kămˈbēəm [key], thin layer of generative tissue lying between the bark and the wood of a stem, most active in woody plants. The cambium produces new layers of phloem on the outside and of ...