A cluster of sporangia on the underside of fern fronds, often appearing as brown or rust-colored spots or lines. Each sorus contains multiple sporangia that release spores for reproduction.
From Greek 'soros' meaning 'heap' or 'pile', referring to the clustered arrangement of sporangia. The term was adopted into botanical Latin and has been used since the early days of fern taxonomy to describe these distinctive reproductive structures.
Sori are like fern fingerprints - each species has its own unique pattern, shape, and arrangement that botanists use for identification! What looks like disease or damage to most people is actually the fern's reproductive organs in action, and the patterns are so distinctive that you can identify many fern species just by looking at their sori arrangement.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.