Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Unusual regularity in the form of a flower that is normally irregular.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In botany, the appearance of regularity of structure in the flowers of plants which normally bear irregular flowers.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) Abnormal regularity; the state of certain flowers, which, being naturally irregular, have become regular through a symmetrical repetition of the special irregularity.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun botany
abnormal regularity ; the state of certainflowers , which, being naturallyirregular , have becomeregular through asymmetrical repetition of the special irregularity
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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On the other hand, were the ligulate florets to be all replaced by tubular ones, the term peloria would be more strictly applicable.
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
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The term peloria was originally given by Linné to a malformation of
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
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This was considered so marvellous a circumstance that the term peloria, from the Greek [Greek: pelôr], a prodigy, was applied to it. [
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
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Possibly these several differences may be connected with the different flow of nutriment towards the central and external flowers: we know, at least, that with irregular flowers, those nearest to the axis are most subject to peloria, that is to become abnormally symmetrical.
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These flowers are ordinarily described as belonging to the anomaly [164] known as "peloria," or regular form of a normally symmetric type; they are large and irregular on the stems and the vigorous branches but slender and quinate on the weaker twigs.
Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation Hugo de Vries 1891
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This kind of peloria may for distinction sake be called regular or congenital peloria (see chapter on that subject); but where a flower becomes regular by the increase in number of its irregular portions, as in the _Linaria_ already alluded to, where not only one petal is spurred, but all five of them are furnished with such appendages, and which are the result of an irregular development of those organs, the peloria is evidently not congenital, but occurs at a more or less advanced stage of development.
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
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To this latter form of peloria it is proposed to give the distinctive epithet of irregular.
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
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Amongst orchids, where the pedicel of the flower or the ovary is normally twisted, so that the labellum occupies the anterior or inferior part of the flower, it frequently happens, in cases of peloria and other changes, that the primitive position is retained, the twist does not take place, and so with other resupinate flowers.
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
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The occurrence both of regular and irregular peloria on the same plant has frequently been observed in _Linaria_.
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
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= -- Various deviations from the ordinary type of orchid structure have been already alluded to under the head of displacement, fusion, peloria, substitution, &c., but the alterations presented by the androecium in this family are so important in reference to what is considered its natural conformation, that it seems desirable, in this place, to enter upon the teratological appearances presented by the androecium in this order, in somewhat greater detail than usual.
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants Maxwell T. Masters
qroqqa commented on the word peloria
We know, at least, that with irregular flowers those nearest to the axis are most subject to peloria, that is to become abnormally symmetrical.
—Origin of Species, ch. 5
In the glossary Darwin gives:
PELORIA or PELORISM.—The appearance of regularity of structure in the flowers of plants which normally bear irregular flowers.
February 17, 2009