What does digamous mean?
Digamous is a botanical adjective describing flowers that carry both male and female reproductive organs within the same bloom — that is, each flower has both stamens, which produce pollen, and carpels, which contain the ovules. Such blooms are more commonly called 'perfect' or 'hermaphroditic' flowers, and they are found in many familiar plants, including lilies and cherries. The term derives from Greek roots meaning 'twice-married', a vivid metaphor for the double sexual role a single flower performs. Digamous stands in contrast to diclinous or unisexual arrangements, in which stamens and carpels occupy separate flowers, sometimes on separate plants. Today the word appears mainly in technical descriptions and historical botanical texts rather than everyday language, but it remains useful for precisely characterising floral structure.
adjectiveOf a plant or flower: having both stamens and carpels in the same flower; bearing bisexual (perfect) flowers.
- (Botany) Of a flower or plant: having both stamens and carpels in the same flower, i.e. bearing perfect (bisexual) flowers.
"The lily is a digamous plant, each blossom containing both pollen-bearing stamens and seed-bearing carpels."
"Because the cherry tree's blossoms are digamous, a single flower can produce fruit without needing a separate female bloom."
"Early botanists classified species as digamous or diclinous depending on whether the sexes shared one flower."
In botany, a 'marriage of two' happens inside every lily bloom: digamous flowers house both the pollen and the seeds in one perfect floral union.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of digamous
Digamous comes from Greek elements: 'di-' meaning 'two' or 'double', and 'gamos' meaning 'marriage'. It entered scientific Latin as a botanical term and passed into English usage in botanical writing, describing a flower 'married twice' because it unites both sexes within one structure. It shares its root with words such as monogamy, polygamy, bigamy, and gamete, all ultimately tracing back to the Greek 'gamos'.
Related word forms
How digamous is actually used
A technical term confined almost entirely to botany and older botanical literature; in modern usage 'perfect', 'bisexual', or 'hermaphroditic' are more common for such flowers.
Easily confused with digamous
Bigamous means being married to two spouses at once, while digamous is a botanical term describing flowers that contain both male and female reproductive organs.