tegmen
/ˈtɛɡmən/
noun
- A hard outer covering or shell, especially the forewing of an insect such as a grasshopper or cricket.
- Under the microscope, the tegmen showed a pattern of veins.
- The grasshopper's tegmen protects its delicate hind wings.
- Crickets produce sound by rubbing their tegmina together.
- The inner layer of the seed coat in a plant seed.
- The seed's tegmen was thin and papery.
- Botanists study the tegmen to understand seed development.
- The tegmen surrounds the embryo inside the seed.