didynamous

American  

[dahy-din-uh-muhs] / daɪˈdɪn ə məs /

adjective

1. (of a flower) having four stamens in two pairs of different length.

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didynamous British  

/ daɪˈdɪnəməs /

adjective

1. (of plants) having four stamens arranged in two pairs of unequal length, as in the foxglove

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Other Word Forms

• didynamy noun

Etymology

Origin of didynamous

1785–95; < New Latin Didynam ( ia ) name of the class (equivalent to di- di- ¹ + Greek dýnam ( is ) power ( see dynamic) + -ia -ia ) + -ous

Example Sentences

Stamens 4, slightly didynamous, incurved-ascending, scarcely exceeding the corolla.—A low, much branched annual, clammy-pubescent, with nearly entire lance-oblong 3-nerved leaves, and small pale blue flowers on axillary 1–3-flowered peduncles.

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 didynamous, their lower parts grown to the tube of the corolla.

From The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines by Thomas, Jerome Beers

Stamens 2 or 4, not approaching in pairs nor strongly didynamous; anthers 2-celled.

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

Among normally didynamous plants such numerical restitution, so to speak, is not unusual; thus, in Veronica four and five stamens occur.

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

Corolla tubular, obviously 2-lipped; the upper lip narrow, erect or arched, enclosing the 4 usually strongly didynamous stamens.

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