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

See Examples For:

capitate

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 Asa Gray

Pistils from five to ten, capitate at their summits, affixed laterally to the middle of the seeds, as in Alchemilla.

From Lachesis Lapponica A Tour in Lapland, Volume 1 by Carl von Linn?

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 Maxwell T. Masters

Its flowers are purple, lilac, or rose-colored—never yellow; the anthers are basifixed—i.e. fixed by their bases—not versatile; and the stigma, instead of being capitate, has four linear lobes.

From The Wild Flowers of California: Their Names, Haunts, and Habits by Mary Elizabeth Parsons

Globose; leaves broad 97 Perigynium nearly linear, beakless 96 Perigynium long, spindle-shaped 1 Spikes several or numerous, sessile, spicate or capitate; stigmas 2.

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 Asa Gray