umbel

American  

[uhm-buhl] / ˈʌm bəl /

noun

Botany.

1. an inflorescence in which a number of flower stalks or pedicels, nearly equal in length, spread from a common center.

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umbel British  

/ ˈʌmbəl /

noun

1. an inflorescence, characteristic of umbelliferous plants, in which the flowers arise from the same point in the main stem and have stalks of the same length, to give a cluster with the youngest flowers at the centre

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umbel Scientific  

/ ŭm′bəl /

1. A flat or rounded indeterminate inflorescence in which the individual flower stalks (called pedicels) arise from about the same point on the stem at the tip of the peduncle. The geranium, milkweed, and onion have umbels. Umbels usually show centripetal inflorescence, with the lower or outer flowers blooming first.

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Other Word Forms

• umbellate
  adjective
• umbellately
  adverb

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Etymology

Origin of umbel

1590–1600; < Latin umbella a sunshade, parasol, derivative of umbra shadow, shade; for formation see castellum

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

umbel

Involucre, a whorl or set of bracts around a flower, umbel, or head, &c.,

From The Elements of Botany For Beginners and For Schools by Asa Gray

Scape 1° high or more; bulb-coats somewhat fibrous; umbel densely bulbiferous or few-flowered; sepals narrowly lanceolate, obtusish, equalling or exceeding the stamens; capsule not crested.—Moist meadows, N. Eng. to Minn., south to the Gulf.

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

Oxlip, oks′lip, n. a species of primrose, having its flowers in an umbel on a stalk like the cowslip.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various

Umbels usually compound, in which case the secondary ones are termed umbellets; the whorl of bracts which often subtends the general umbel is the involucre, and those of the umbellets the involucels.

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

The flowers are whitish; they are produced in a round terminal umbel, and appear in June.

From The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Vol. 1 Part 3 Atrebates to Bedlis by Various

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