Café Discovery: Flowers and Weeds

(noon. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

I have not many of my own words today.

Perhaps I am tired.  Perhaps I am simply lazy.

Perhaps it is simply that it is Spring.

So I have few words of my own.  But I do have a few graphics.  Clicking them will open larger versions.

I added just enough words, from Etymology Online and Wikipedia, to allow arrangement of the graphics…and perhaps allow a little bit of learning.

flower

c.1200, from Old French flor, from Latin florem (nominative. flos) “flower” (see flora), from Proto-Inso-European base *bhlo- “to blossom, flourish” (cf. Mddle Irish blath, Welsh blawd “blossom, flower,” Old English blowan “to flower, bloom”).  Modern spelling is 14th century.  Ousted Old English cognate blostm (see blossom).  Also used from 13th century in sense of “finest part or product of anything.”  The verb is first recorded around 1225.  Flower children “gentle hippies” is from 1967.

The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds. The process begins with pollination, is followed by fertilization, leading to the formation and dispersal of the seeds. For the higher plants, seeds are the next generation, and serve as the primary means by which individuals of a species are dispersed across the landscape. The grouping of flowers on a plant are called the inflorescence.

In addition to serving as the reproductive organs of flowering plants, flowers have long been admired and used by humans, mainly to beautify their environment but also as a source of food.

—Wikipedia

weed

“plant not valued for use or beauty,” Old English weod, uueod “grass, herb, weed,” from Proto-Germanic *weud- (cf. Old Scandinavian wiod, East Frisian wiud), of unknown origin.  Meaning “tobacco” is from 1606; that of “marijuana” is from 1920s.  The verb meaning “to clear the ground of weeds” is late Old English weodian.

A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and normally applied to unwanted plants in human-made settings such as gardens, lawns or agricultural areas, but also in parks, woods and other natural areas. More specifically, the term is often used to describe native or nonnative plants that grow and reproduce aggressively.[1] Generally, a weed is a plant in an undesired place.

—Wikipedia