caducous
ca·du·cous
adjective
1.
shed at an early stage of development
- “most amphibians have caducous gills”
- “the caducous calyx of a poppy”
Origin
Latin cadūcus (“falling; transitory”).
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.