caducous

Latin cadūcus (“falling; transitory”).

• IPA^(key): /kəˈdjuːkəs/

caducous (comparative more caducous, superlative most caducous)

1. (biology) Of a part of an organism, disappearing in the normal course of development.
   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 4:

     The Jubulaceae have a leaf whose lobule, usually transformed into a water-sac, is normally very narrowly attached to the stem and to the dorsal lobe; indeed some Frullania taxa reproduce vegetatively by dropping the dorsal lobes, but not the lobules, and Neohattoria has caducous lobules but persistent lobes.

2. (botany) Tending to fall early.

   caducous leaves

• “caducous”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.