by Mary Free and Christa Watters, Extension Master Gardeners
This post introduces the new word(s) added to our Illustrated Glossary. You may recognize some words as common gardening or botanical terms—although commonly used words are not necessarily commonly understood or their usage commonly agreed to. Other words may be more obscure, found mostly in flora guides and research papers. In any case we hope you find them interesting and even helpful in your gardening endeavors.
Left to right: Geranium maculatum, Plantago lanceolata.
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Earlier this month, Geranium maculatum (wild or spotted geranium) was a featured Tried and True Native Plant Selection. Its fact sheet used two words—not commonly used in gardening conversation—to describe its flower characteristics: gynodioecious (having bisexual flowers on one plant and female flowers on another plant of the same species) and protandrous. To learn more about protandry, and the related words protogyny and dichogamy, and how they are important to cross-pollination, click here.