virescence

Virescence, the state or condition of becoming green, is one of many words in this novel that sent me to the dictionary.

Or this manifesto of aesthetic self-identification: “I’m a son of the north: my hues are the hammered gold of autumn, the silver-grey of the undersides of leaves in rainy springtime, the khaki shine of chilly summer beaches and the winter sea’s rough purples, its acid virescence.”

It must be distinguished from virescence, or the mere green colour of the floral organs, and from chloranthy, in which all or the greater portion of the parts of the flower are replaced by leaves.

Sepalody of the petals.—This change, spoken of by most authors as retrograde metamorphosis of the petals into sepals, or as a substitution of sepals for petals, is obviously a condition that is in most cases hardly distinguishable from virescence of the corolla, or from multiplication of the sepals.

Many of the cases recorded as reversions of the parts of the flower to leaves are simply instances of virescence; indeed, it is not in all cases easy to distinguish between the two states.