Garden Tool Set

Word day Thursday: Heterophyllous

Term and pronunciation Heterophyllous

Etymology Made up of the Greek word 'Hetero', 'Phyll' meaning leaf, and the suffix 'ous'.

Meaning
Heterophyllous in the realm of botany means a plant that displays different shaped leafs on the same plant. The opposite being isophylly, whereby all leafs on a plant show the same morphology.

Usage and examples
A prime example of a plant displaying heterophylly is that of the English Ivy (Hedera helix). The photos below show the plant displaying the juvenile leafs on the left. The photo to the right shows the adult leafs, which are associated with the flowers of the ivy. In the ivy, these changes are controlled by plant growth regulators called gibberellins. To read more about this in another post on this blog, click here.


History
The earliest example that the OED have on this word is that used by Noah Webster in the first edition of his An American dictionary of the English language in 1828. Noah Webster's dictionary was the turning point in the Americans having their own language, a national language as Webster explained in 1789. The main changes were that of spelling, for instance centre became center, and this became the origin of Standard American English.

Bibliography
Allaby, M. (2012) Oxford Dictionary of Plant Sciences, Oxford, Oxford University Press
"heterophyllous, adj.". OED Online. March 2013. Oxford University Press. 3 April 2013 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/86499?redirectedFrom=heterophyllous&>.
Seargeant, P and Swann, J (Eds) Worlds of English, Abingdon, Routledge