Bot. Also englished as cladode. [mod.L., f. late Gr. κλαδώδ-ης ‘with many shoots’ (f. κλάδος shoot, slip): cf. phyllodium, etc.] ‘A term applied by Martius to an axis flattened and more or less leaf-like’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.). Hence Cladodial a.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 378. Ruscus, Butcher’s Broom … Leaves minute scales, bearing in the axils leaf-like branches (cladodes).
1880. Gray, Struct. Bot., iii. § 3. 66. To those branches definitely restricted to one internode, and which so closely counterfeit leaves, Kunth gave the name of Cladodia.
