Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TERN'ATE, a. [L. ternus, terni.]

In botany, a ternate leaf, is one that has three leaflets on a petiole, as in trefoil, strawberry, bramble, &c. There are leaves also biternate and triternate, having three ternate or three biternate leaflets. Martyn. These leaves must not be confounded with folia terna, which are leaves that grow three together in a whorl, on a stem or branch. These are however more correctly called verticillate-ternate. Ternate bat, a species of bat of a large kind, found in the isle Ternate, and other East India isles. [See Vampyre.] Terra Japonica, catechu, so called. Terra Lemnia, a species of red bolar earth. Terra ponderosa, baryte; heavy spar. Terra Sienna, a brown bole or ocher from Sienna in Italy.