[ad. OF. florete, F. fleurette, dim. of fleur flower.]
1. Bot. One of the little flowers that go to make up a composite flower or the spikelet in grasses. Florets of the disk, of the ray (see quot. 1866).
1671. Grew, The Anatomy of Plants, I. v. § 18 (1682), 38. The outer Part of every Suit, is its Floret.… A Floret, is the Epitome of a Flower.
1785. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., vi. 65. The choke which we take out of the middle, is an assemblage of florets which are beginning to be formed, and are separated from each other by long hairs fixed in the receptacle.
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., xxiv. 456. Polygamia necessaria. Florets of the disk furnished with stamens only, those of the margin, or radius, only with pistils; so that both are necessary to each other.
1866. Treas. Bot., The florets of the disk are those which occupy the centre of the head of a composite; while florets of the ray occupy the circumference.
1877. F. E. Hulme, Wild Fl., p. viii. Dandelion.—All the florets ligulate.
2. A small flower, a floweret.
1791. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., Loves of Plants, II. 215.
| Prone to the earch he bends his brow superb, | |
| Crops the young floret and the bladed herb. |
1865. Ruskin, Sesame (ed. 2), 192. These feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves torn, and their stems broken.
fig. 1786. A. Seward, Lett., xxx. (1811), I. 150. I may one day present you with my poetic florets, collected in one garland; but faint will be their bloom and odour, compared with the magnolias, roses, and amaranths of the Hayleyan wreath.
1822. Blackw. Mag., XI. April, 424/2. He continues to prattle on in a current of small neatly pointed questions, mingled with scintillations of petty remark and diminutive criticism, and variegated by the florets of a superficial but ornate adulation.
