Schefflera

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A genus of tropical plants known for their palmately compound leaves and often grown as ornamental houseplants or shrubs
2. A group of woody, evergreen plants native to Asia and the Pacific, characterized by large, glossy leaves divided into leaflets and commonly used for indoor decoration
3. Tropical or subtropical shrubs and trees with umbrella-like leaf clusters, frequently cultivated indoors for their distinctive foliage and aesthetic appeal

Etymology: Schefflera is named after Johann Peter Scheffler, an 18th-century German physician and botanist, and the genus was established in his honour by the Austrian-born botanist Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg Forster. The name is a genus name, so it passed into common English as the label for a whole group of plants, most familiar today as the umbrella plant and the umbrella tree, whose leaves radiate from a single point like the ribs of an open umbrella. The rest of the story is one of scientific naming rather than ordinary word-making. Genus names, the capitalised first part of a plant's scientific name, were coined by botanists to honour colleagues or to describe a plant's features, and Scheffler's name was chosen for that purpose. Because the plants were valued as houseplants, the Latinate label slipped from the herbarium into the living room, and gardeners and shop owners began using it as a common noun.

Synonyms: umbrella tree