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.”

Indeed, virescence or chloranthy is very intimately connected with this aberration, as might have been anticipated, for if the parts of the flower assume more or less of the condition of stem-leaves or bracts, it is quite natural to expect that they will partake likewise of the attributes of leaves, even at the expense of their own peculiar functions.

Frondescence of the petals has been observed most frequently in the following cases; some, perhaps, were cases merely of virescence, q. v.; see also under Chloranthy, Prolification.

See also succeeding paragraphs and sections in Chloranthy, Virescence, &c.