Polyanthous

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Bearing many flowers or blossoms, especially a plant whose stems produce numerous flower clusters at once
2. Producing a large number of blooms in a single stem or cluster, as certain plants do when flowering abundantly
3. Describing a plant that carries many flowers together, typically in several clusters growing from one stalk

Etymology: "Polyanthous" is built from two Greek pieces. The first, "poly-", comes from Ancient Greek "polús", meaning "many" or "much", a root that also gives English words such as polygon and polymath. The second, "-anthous", comes from Greek "anthos", meaning "flower", and appears in botanical terms such as "monanthous" (one-flowered) and "dianthus". Put together, the word describes a plant that bears many flowers. The word is a plain technical coinage made from classical parts, so it has no older life as a common everyday term. It belongs to the vocabulary of botany, where describing flowering habits precisely was a routine need, and it was formed on the same pattern as other Greek-based plant descriptors.