flora

noun flo·ra \ ˈflȯr-ə \

|Updated on: 5 Jun 2018

Examples: flora in a Sentence

Editor's Note: flora Has Roots in Roman Mythology

Definition of flora

plural floras also florae play \ˈflȯr-ˌē, -ˌī\

1 : a treatise on or list of the plants of an area or period

2 : plant, bacterial, or fungal life; especially : such life characteristic of a region, period, or special environment

fossil flora

intestinal flora

— compare fauna

See flora defined for English-language learners

See flora defined for kids

Examples of flora in a Sentence

an amazing variety of coastal flora
the floras of different coastal regions

Recent Examples of flora from the Web

The gut flora of sloths produce methane from the animals' leafy diets—and lots of it.

— steve mirsky, Scientific American, "A Book That Bills Itself as “the Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence”," 1 June 2018
That somewhat creepy-sounding flora will flank the area's rivers and plains.

— candace braun davison, House Beautiful, "Disney Just Spilled Major Details On Its Upcoming Star Wars Land," 29 May 2018
To continue your explorations on foot, proceed to the Living Desert Zoo & Gardens (admission $9.95 -$19.95), where there are giraffes to feed and various desert flora, fauna and a massive model train setup.

— christopher reynolds, latimes.com, "From baseball to date shakes, these four California road trips are made for families," 20 May 2018
Rowan Blanchard also embraced the budding flora and posed in front of some colorful shrubbery in a fringed look in Hollywood.

— liana satenstein, Vogue, "The Best Fashion Instagrams of the Week: FKA Twigs Kisses a Flower, Kaia Gerber Still Looks Like Cindy," 19 May 2018
Firefighters had to fight through rocky terrain and dense manzanita and scrub oak that sprang up after the catastrophic Dude Fire of 1990, which had destroyed the native ponderosa pines and changed the area’s flora forever.

— azcentral, "Into the water," 15 May 2018
The suit was designed to collect plant samples, study flora and survive Pandora’s wild terrain.

— marjie lambert, miamiherald, "It looks like a war machine from 'Avatar,' but this Disney beast is no villain | Miami Herald," 18 Apr. 2018
Gravity-defying lightness struts its wondrous stuff in her abstract yet suggestively biomorphic pictures of suns (or sunflowers), planets (or soap bubbles), flora (or fauna), figures (or doodles), butterflies (or X-marks-the-spot gestures).

— david pagel, latimes.com, "Laurie Nye paints her way to Venus. You can join the ride," 16 May 2018
The gut microbiome, also known as gut flora, is the collective bacteria and microorganisms that live in the digestive system, Sarah Sloat writes for Inverse.

— julissa treviño, Smithsonian, "A Surprising Way Dogs Are Similar to Humans," 23 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'flora.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

flora Has Roots in Roman Mythology

Flora means "flower" in Latin, and Flora was the Roman goddess of spring and flowering plants, especially wildflowers and plants not raised for food. She was shown as a beautiful young woman in a long, flowing dress with flowers in her hair, strewing flowers over the earth. English preserves her name in such words as floral, floret, and flourish. A region's flora may range from tiny violets to towering trees. The common phrase "flora and fauna" covers just about every visible living thing.