microphyllousadj.

1846 B. H. Smart Walker's Pronouncing Dict. (ed. 2) Microphyllous, small-leaved, applied to a fossil palm.

1899 E. C. Jeffrey in Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 5 186 Both groups are palingenetically microphyllous and have invariably strobiloid fructifications.

1909 D. H. Scott in A. C. Seward Darwin & Mod. Sci. 203 A large proportion of the higher plants are microphyllous in comparison with the highly megaphyllous fern-like forms from which they appear to have been derived.

1917 Jrnl. Ecol. 5 45 Of microphyllous trees, Prosopis velutina, Acacia greggii, Acacia paucispina, and the green-barked ‘palo verde’ (Parkinsonia microphylla) are the most abundant.

1944 Ecol. Monogr. 14 155/1 In the lower story simple leaves predominate and about one-third of the species are microphyllous.

1957 Ann. Bot. 21 434 Investigators such as Lignier (1903) held that microphyllous leaves, as in lycopods, belong to an entirely different category of organs from macrophyllous leaves.

1987 Jrnl. Ecol. 75 603 Three sites were chosen to examine the relationships in time and space between Acacia nilotica, a microphyllous deciduous tree and Euclea divinorum, an evergreen shrub.

1995 Ecol. Applic. 5 367 Several rules are required to determine evergreen-deciduous or broadleaf-needleleaf (microphyllous) status.