Blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold.
--Milton.
2. Consisting of, or comprising, plants; as, the vegetable
kingdom.
{Vegetable alkali} (Chem.), an alkaloid.
{Vegetable brimstone}. (Bot.) See {Vegetable sulphur}, below.
{Vegetable butter} (Bot.), a name of several kinds of
concrete vegetable oil; as that produced by the Indian
butter tree, the African shea tree, and the {Pentadesma
butyracea}, a tree of the order {Guttifer[ae]}, also
African. Still another kind is pressed from the seeds of
cocoa ({Theobroma}).
{Vegetable flannel}, a textile material, manufactured in
Germany from pine-needle wool, a down or fiber obtained
from the leaves of the {Pinus sylvestris}.
{Vegetable ivory}. See {Ivory nut}, under {Ivory}.
{Vegetable jelly}. See {Pectin}.
{Vegetable kingdom}. (Nat. Hist.) See the last Phrase, below.
{Vegetable leather}.
(a) (Bot.) A shrubby West Indian spurge ({Euphorbia
punicea}), with leathery foliage and crimson bracts.
(b) See {Vegetable leather}, under {Leather}.
{Vegetable marrow} (Bot.), an egg-shaped gourd, commonly
eight to ten inches long. It is noted for the very tender
quality of its flesh, and is a favorite culinary vegetable
in England. It has been said to be of Persian origin, but
is now thought to have been derived from a form of the
American pumpkin.
{Vegetable oyster} (Bot.), the oyster plant. See under
{Oyster}.
{Vegetable parchment}, papyrine.
{Vegetable sheep} (Bot.), a white woolly plant ({Raoulia
eximia}) of New Zealand, which grows in the form of large
fleecy cushions on the mountains.
{Vegetable silk}, a cottonlike, fibrous material obtained
from the coating of the seeds of a Brazilian tree
({Chorisia speciosa}). It us used for various purposes, as
for stuffing, and the like, but is incapable of being spun
on account of a want of cohesion among the fibers.
{Vegetable sponge}. See 1st {Loof}.
{Vegetable sulphur}, the fine highly inflammable spores of
the club moss ({Lycopodium clavatum}); witch.
{Vegetable tallow}, a substance resembling tallow, obtained
from various plants; as, {Chinese vegetable tallow},
obtained from the seeds of the tallow tree. {Indian
vegetable tallow} is a name sometimes given to piney
tallow.
{Vegetable wax}, a waxy excretion on the leaves or fruits of
certain plants, as the bayberry.
2. A plant used or cultivated for food for man or domestic
animals, as the cabbage, turnip, potato, bean, dandelion,
etc.; also, the edible part of such a plant, as prepared
for market or the table.