a. [f. as prec. + -LESS.] Without flower or bloom; spec. in Bot., flowerless plant = CRYPTOGAM.
a. 1500. Chaucer’s Dreme, 1859.
| And in his beke of colours nine, | |
| An herbe he brought, flourelesse, all greene. |
1806. J. Grahame, Birds Scotl., 99.
| The prophet looks around, | |
| And trusts in GOD, and lays his silvered head | |
| Upon the flowerless bank. |
1835. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (1848), II. 88. Those who have supposed the antherids of Flowerless plants to be gemmæ, that is, buds.
b. Unadorned with flowers.
1892. M. Field, Sight & Song, 86.
| Three virgins, flowerless, slow of step unite | |
| In dance, as they were guided by the spell | |
| Of some Choragus imperceptible. |
1895. Beatrice Kipling, A Woman of Seasons, in Pall Mall Mag., V. March, 403. The room had a bleak, flowerless look.
Hence Flowerlessness, the condition or quality of being flowerless.
1855. in Ogilvie, Supp.
1877. Nottinghamshire Guard., Supp. 2/3. When a general flowerlessness is the distinguishing characteristic of the outdoor gardens and pleasure grounds
1895. A. Austin, Ireland Revisited, in Blackw. Mag., CLVIII. Nov., 641/2. Another apologist for the flowerlessness of Irish peasant dwellings explained to me, triumphantly as he thought, that it would be worse than useless to attempt to grow creepers against the walls, for the cow, the pig, the donkey, and even the ducks, would make short work of them.
