efflorescence

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Botany A state or time of flowering.
• noun A gradual process of unfolding or developing.
• noun The point or time of greatest vigor; the culmination. synonym: bloom.
• noun A deposit that results from the process of efflorescing.
• noun The process of efflorescing.
• noun Medicine Redness, a rash, or an eruption on the skin.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of effiorescing or blossoming out; also, an aggregation of blossoms, or an appearance resembling or suggesting a mass of flowers.
• noun In botany, the time or state of flowering; anthesis.
• noun In medicine, a redness of the skin; a rash; eruption, as in measles, smallpox, scarlatina, etc.
• noun In chem., the formation of small white threads or spiculæ, resembling the sublimated matter called flowers, on the surface of certain bodies, as salts, or on the surface of any permeable body or substance; the incrustation so formed.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Bot.) Flowering, or state of flowering; the blooming of flowers; blowth.
• noun (Med.) A redness of the skin; eruption, as in rash, measles, smallpox, scarlatina, etc.
• noun The formation of the whitish powder or crust on the surface of efflorescing bodies, as salts, etc.
• noun The powder or crust thus formed.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun chemistry The formation of a powdery surface on crystals, as a hydrate is converted to anhydrous form by losing loosely bound water of crystallization to the atmosphere.
• noun botany The production of flowers.
• noun construction An encrustation of soluble salts, commonly white, deposited on the surface of stone, brick, plaster, or mortar; usually caused by free alkalies leached from mortar or adjacent concrete as moisture moves through it.
• noun geology An encrustation of soluble salts, deposited on rock or soil by evaporation; often found in arid or geothermal environments.
• noun metaphorical Rapid flowering of a culture or civilisation etc.
• noun pathology A redness, rash, or eruption on the skin.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the time and process of budding and unfolding of blossoms
• noun any red eruption of the skin
• noun the period of greatest prosperity or productivity
• noun a powdery deposit on a surface