Merous

Merous

Merosity is used to designate that a flower has whorls of floral parts in the perianth. It describes how many segments the whorl of petals or sepals or tepals have in a flower. Thus if a flower has five petals that look the same, then the flower is called 5-merous or has pentamery. Types of merosity, according to number of whorled segments in the perianth include:

*dimery (2)
*trimery (3)
*tetramery (4)
*pentamery (5)

These nouns for the different types of merosity are formed by a prefix derived from Ancient Greek (e.g. "tetra-" for four) and the suffixed root, "-mery", which is derived from Greek "meros" meaning "part" thus four parted.

Cyclic is a suffix that describes a flower with the same number of parts. Including petals, sepals and stamens, it refers to circles of different parts of the flower including the ovary that are compose of the same number of parts. Verbascum have penta-cyclic or 5-cyclic flowers with five sepals, a five lobed corolla and five stamens.


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • -merous — [mər əs] [< Gr meros, a part (see MERIT) + OUS] combining form forming adjectives having (a specified number or kind of) parts; partite [trimerous (often written 3 merous)] …   English World dictionary

  • -merous — combining form Biology having a specified number of parts: pentamerous. Origin on the pattern of words such as (di)merous (see also mer) …   English new terms dictionary

  • -merous —    an ending meaning parted, added to a number to create an adjective. Thus 8 merous means having 8 parts. The suffix, frequently used by botanists, is derived from the Greek meros, part …   Dictionary of units of measurement

  • -merous — comb. form esp. Bot. having so many parts (dimerous; 5 merous). Etymology: Gk (as MERO ) …   Useful english dictionary

  • -merous — adjective combining form Etymology: New Latin merus, from Greek merēs, from meros more at merit having (such or so many) parts < dimerous > …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • -merous — a combining form meaning having parts of the kind or number specified by the initial element: dimerous. Cf. mer, mere. [ < Gk meros, adj. deriv. of méros part, portion, share; see OUS] * * * …   Universalium

  • -merous — (G). Parted …   Dictionary of word roots and combining forms

  • -merous — mer·ous …   English syllables

  • -merous — aff. a combining form meaning “having parts” of the kind or number specified by the initial element: dimerous[/ex] • Etymology: < Gk merēs, adj. der. of méros part, share; see ous …   From formal English to slang

  • Mérou — Nom vernaculaire ou nom normalisé ambigu : Le terme «  Mérou  » s applique en français à plusieurs taxons distincts. Mérou …   Wikipédia en Français

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