Pl. blastemata. [a. Gr. βλάστημα a sprout, also, in Hippocrates, a morbid humour causing scab or disease, f. vbl. stem βλαστε-, βλαστα- to sprout, bud.]
1. Biol. The primary formative material of plants and animals; protoplasm. Now applied spec. to the initial matter or growth out of which any part is developed.
1849. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 100/2. The structureless fluid just referred to is termed blastema.
1855. Owen, Skel. & Teeth, 5. The primitive basis, or ‘blastema,’ of bone is a subtransparent glairy matter.
1879. trans. De Quatrefages’ Human Spec., 124. Adam, who sprang from a primordial blastema called clay in the Bible.
transf. 1870. Huxley, Lay Serm., xiii. (1874), 309. A nebular blastema.
2. Bot. The budding or sprouting part of a plant; the thallus of a lichen.
1880. Gray, Bot. Text-Bk., 399.
