: a very large family of highly specialized perennial herbaceous monocotyledonous plants (order Orchidales) that have entire sheathing or scalelike leaves, tuberous or bulbous or thickened roots, and extremely complex usually showy flowers with a calyx of three often petaloid sepals, a corolla of three petals of which one forms a distinctive and often spurred labellum, a column consisting of the variously fused style, stigma, and stamen, the pollen usually aggregated into pollinia which adhere to visiting insects, and an inferior ovary and that reproduce by minute seeds lacking endosperm and containing chlorophyll see orchid, orchis
Word History
Etymology
New Latin, from Orchid-, Orchis, type genus + -aceae
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