Caudex

in botany, the stem of a tree, more especially the scaly trunk of palms and tree-ferns, | Caudine Forks, a pa of Southern Italy, in the form of two lofty fork-shaped defiles, in the A pennines (now called the valley of Arpaia), into which a Roman army was enticed ‘by the Samnites, 321 3B. c., and being hemmed in was forced to surrender, Caul, a popular name for a membrane investing the viscera, such as the peritoneum or part of it, or the pericardium; also a portion of the amnion or membrane enveloping the fetus, sometimes encompa ing the head of a child when born.