(no subject)

[strange_aeons]

I'm in the market for a(n English) term for the petals of a flower, collectively. I'm aware of corolla, but there are obvious problems with that; I'm hoping there's a term I've missed that bears a clear resemblance to foliage, plumage and pelage. I could just make one up by analogy, but what I'm coming up with is mostly appalling -- petallage is technically fine, but, well, I have my self-respect. Bractage is possibly acceptable,¹ but most people don't know bract. (Interestingly, it and petal are both from Latin words referring to metal plates. See also foliage. Anyone know how that happened?)

¹ Bracts are not petals, but neither are the things I need the term for. They're more like tentacles than they are like anything else, but no one calls them that; they also resemble leaves, feathers and, very slightly, fur, but the terms for all of those things give the wrong impression. Foliage, for example, says very strongly to me that I am dealing with something plantlike, which is not the case here.

Comments

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

You could try "perianth", but if you want people to already know the word then I think you may be stuck with "petals". Or "tentacles", if they're more like tentacles.

(Hi, brooksmoses sent me.)

[oneironaut.livejournal.com]

Belatedly: thanks for dropping in. I was just going to use tentacles at first, but it has connotations I don't think are appropriate -- or anyway, connotations that the people who have these things on them wouldn't think were appropriate. The connotations of petal are much more positive.

Also, if you're just looking at one, it does look much more like it's covered with flower petals than it looks like it's covered with tentacles. Then it moves them. It's easier to convey 'these things look like flower petals but are prehensile' by calling them petals and mentioning in passing that they move than by calling them tentacles and then describing what they look and feel like.

There probably are people in the setting who call them tentacles, though, now that I think about it more. Wakefield just doesn't know any of them yet.