corymb

American  

[kawr-imb, -im, kor-] / ˈkɔr ɪmb, -ɪm, ˈkɒr- /

noun

Botany.

1. a form of inflorescence in which the flowers form a flat-topped or convex cluster, the outermost flowers being the first to open.

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corymb British  

/ ˈkɒrɪmb, -rɪm /

noun

1. an inflorescence in the form of a flat-topped flower cluster with the oldest flowers at the periphery. This type of raceme occurs in the candytuft

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corymb Scientific  

/ kôr′ĭmb,-ĭm /

1. An indeterminate inflorescence whose outer flowers have longer stalks than the inner flowers, so that together they form a round cluster that is rather flat on top. The outer flowers open before the inner ones. Yarrow and the hawthorn have corymbs.

2. See illustration at inflorescence

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Other Word Forms

• corymbed adjective
• corymblike adjective
• corymbose adjective
• corymbosely adverb

Etymology

Origin of corymb

1700–10; < Latin corymbus < Greek kórymbos head, top, cluster of fruit or flowers

Example Sentences

Heads in a compound terminal corymb, not at all racemose 37–40 Heads small, mostly clustered in the axils of feather-veined leaves 3–7 Heads mostly large, in a terminal thyrse; leaves feather-veined.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Otherwise as Tussilago.—Perennial woolly herbs, with the leaves all from the rootstock, white-woolly beneath, the scape with sheathing scaly bracts, bearing heads of purplish or whitish fragrant flowers, in a corymb.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Corymbose, in corymbs, or in the form of a corymb.

From The Wild Flowers of California: Their Names, Haunts, and Habits by Parsons, Mary Elizabeth

It is a perennial herb with short rootstocks and stout stems bearing numerous short-peduncled heads in large compact corymb; it multiplies itself abundantly by seeds and is very common on the sand dunes of Holland.

From Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation by Vries, Hugo de

A large number of the stigmas on several of the other corymbs were repeatedly smeared with pollen from their own corymb; but they yielded only five very poor seeds, which were incapable of germination.

From Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom by Darwin, Charles