capitate

American  

[kap-i-teyt] / ˈkæp ɪˌteɪt /

adjective

1. Botany. forming or shaped like a head or dense cluster.

2. Biology. having an enlarged or swollen, headlike termination.

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capitate British  

/ ˈkæpɪˌteɪt /

adjective

1. botany shaped like a head, as certain flowers or inflorescences

2. zoology having an enlarged headlike end

   a capitate bone

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capitate Scientific  

/ kăp′ĭ-tāt′ /

1. The largest of the carpal bones.

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1. Forming a headlike mass or dense cluster, as the flowers of plants in the composite family.

Other Word Forms

• multicapitate
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of capitate

1655–65; < Latin capitātus headed, equivalent to capit- (stem of caput ) head + -ātus -ate ¹

Example Sentences

This has been observed in pelargoniums and in the Chinese primrose, in both of which the effect was to replace the umbellate form of inflorescence by a capitate one.

From Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants by Masters, Maxwell T.

The style is simple or branched, and the stigma is linear, capitate or globose in form; these variations afford means for distinguishing the different genera.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 3 "Convention" to "Copyright" by Various

Usually floating; leaves thicker, round-reniform, 3–7-cleft, the lobes crenate; peduncles 1–3´ long, reflexed in fruit; capitate umbel 5–10-flowered; fruit 1–1½´´ broad; ribs rather obscure; seed-section oblong.—E. Penn. to Fla., thence westward.

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

Achenes terete; pappus of the central flowers capillary, of the outer ones mostly none.—Annual, low, branching woolly herbs, with entire leaves, and small heads in capitate clusters.

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

Stamens 4, ascending under the upper lip, the lower pair shorter; anthers approximate by pairs, the cells divergent.—Whorls many-flowered, mostly spiked or capitate, and with awn-toothed or fringed leafy bracts.

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