INFLORESCENCE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does inflorescence mean? 

• INFLORESCENCE (noun)
  The noun INFLORESCENCE has 2 senses:

1. the time and process of budding and unfolding of blossoms

2. the flowering part of a plant or arrangement of flowers on a stalk

  Familiarity information: INFLORESCENCE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INFLORESCENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The time and process of budding and unfolding of blossoms

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Synonyms:

anthesis; blossoming; efflorescence; florescence; flowering; inflorescence

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)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The flowering part of a plant or arrangement of flowers on a stalk

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

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)

 Context examples 

A specialized leaf or leaf-like part usually situated at the base of a flower or inflorescence.

(Bract, Food and Drug Administration)

The stalk of an inflorescence or of a solitary flower.

(Peduncle, Food and Drug Administration)

Like all Asteraceae, the flowers are a composite inflorescence, with purple (rarely yellow or white) florets arranged in a prominent, somewhat cone-shaped head; cone-shaped because the petals of the outer ray florets, once the flower head opens, tend to point downward (are decumbent), thus forming a cone.

(Echinacea, NCI Thesaurus)