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INFLORESCENCE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The flowering part of a plant or arrangement of flowers on a stalk
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("inflorescence" is a kind of...):
bloom; blossom; flower (reproductive organ of angiosperm plants especially one having showy or colorful parts)
Meronyms (parts of "inflorescence"):
bract (a modified leaf or leaflike part just below and protecting an inflorescence)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inflorescence"):
flower head (a shortened compact cluster of flowers so arranged that the whole gives the effect of a single flower as in clover or members of the family Compositae)
ament; catkin (a cylindrical spikelike inflorescence)
umbel (flat-topped or rounded inflorescence characteristic of the family Umbelliferae in which the individual flower stalks arise from about the same point; youngest flowers are at the center)
corymb (flat-topped or convex inflorescence in which the individual flower stalks grow upward from various points on the main stem to approximately the same height; outer flowers open first)
flower cluster (an inflorescence consisting of a cluster of flowers)
cyme (more or less flat-topped cluster of flowers in which the central or terminal flower opens first)
spike ((botany) an indeterminate inflorescence bearing sessile flowers on an unbranched axis)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The time and process of budding and unfolding of blossoms
Synonyms:
anthesis; blossoming; efflorescence; florescence; flowering; inflorescence
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural processes
Hypernyms ("inflorescence" is a kind of...):
development; growing; growth; maturation; ontogenesis; ontogeny ((biology) the process of an individual organism growing organically; a purely biological unfolding of events involved in an organism changing gradually from a simple to a more complex level)
