Bot. [mod.L., f. Gr. σπορά SPORE + ἀγγεῖον vessel.] A receptacle containing spores; a spore-case or capsule.
1821. W. J. Hooker, Flora Scotica, II. 78. Filaments gelatinous,… within filled with elliptical sporangia.
1839. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (ed. 3), 266. If the interior of the sporangium be now investigated. Ibid., 267.
1863. M. J. Berkeley, Brit. Mosses, i. 8. In many cases life ceases in the parent plant after the formation of the sporangia.
1881. Nature, XXIV. 560. Another genus … is allied by the structure of its sporangium to Angiopteris.
attrib. 1875. Cooke, Fungi, 51. The sporangia-bearers are at first always branchless and without partitions.
