Definition of "discursive"

This period had long since passed; the discursive reading, the enlightened discourse of her grandfather, had cast her mind in a different mould to the usual superstition of her country; but faith and love were only more pure and perfect in a soul too innocent not to be religious.

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 185

This means, at times, long and perhaps overly discursive discussions of other taxa.

1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, page viii