panicle

American  

[pan-i-kuhl] / ˈpæn ɪ kəl /

noun

Botany.

1. a compound raceme.

2. any loose, diversely branching flower cluster.

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panicle British  

/ ˈpænɪkəl /

noun

1. a compound raceme, occurring esp in grasses

2. any branched inflorescence

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panicle Scientific  

/ păn′ĭ-kəl /

1. A branched indeterminate inflorescence in which the branches are racemes, so that each flower has its own stalk (called a pedicel) attached to the branch. Oats and sorghum have panicles.

2. See illustration at inflorescence

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Other Word Forms

• panicled adjective

Etymology

Origin of panicle

1590–1600; < Latin pānicula tuft (on plants), diminutive of pānus thread wound on a bobbin, a swelling, ear of millet < Doric Greek pânos ( Attic pênos ) a web; -i-, -cle ¹

Example Sentences

The vine produces a panicle of lovely half-inch flowers in midsummer, each pointing downward and similar in shape to a tomato’s, but far more dramatically colored.

From New York Times • Jul. 27, 2017

Perennial; panicle diffuse, ample, the staminate and pistillate flowers intermixed; awns short; styles united; grain ovate.—Penn.

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

Spikelets 1-flowered, with a conspicuous filiform pedicel of an abortive second flower about half its length, nearly terete, few, in a simple appressed racemed panicle.

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

Capsule many-seeded.—Rank herbs, with mostly opposite leaves, and small greenish-purple or lurid flowers in loose cymes, forming a terminal narrow panicle.

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

Seashore 13 Panicle virgate or thyrsoid; leaves nearly entire 14–17 Heads very small in a short broad panicle; leaves nearly entire 18–20 Heads racemosely paniculate; leaves ample, the lower serrate 21–28 § 1.

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