Androecium

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The collective set of stamens that make up the male reproductive organs of a flowering plant
2. The whole group of pollen-producing male structures found within a flower, made up of its stamens
3. The male part of a flower considered as a unit, consisting of all of its stamens together

Etymology: "Androecium" is a botanical coinage built from Greek pieces meaning "man's house." The "andro-" element comes from Greek "anēr" (genitive "andros"), meaning "man" or "male," and the second element comes from Greek "oikion," a diminutive of "oikos," meaning "house." Put together, the word literally means "little house of the male," a poetic label for the cluster of stamens that carries a flower's pollen. The image is a deliberate match for its counterpart. Botanists paired it with "gynoecium," the "female house" made of the pistils, so the two terms describe a flower's reproductive organs as dwellings occupied by the two sexes. Both were built in New Latin, the scholarly Latin of the early modern and modern sciences, rather than inherited from ancient Greek or Roman writers, who had no such terms for flowers.

Antonyms: gynoecium, gynaeceum