ageratum
noun
Example Sentences
Jeff Lowenfels, Anchorage Daily News, 24 Mar. 2022 The 100-acre farm boasts 6 acres of annuals and perennials, from popular standbys (dahlias, zinnias and sunflowers) to dozens of others like dianthus, hellebores, ageratum and dill. Mike Klingaman, baltimoresun.com, 16 Aug. 2021 The flowers look very similar, thus the common name hardy or wild ageratum. Janet Carson, Arkansas Online, 21 Sep. 2020 Hardy ageratum is a native perennial that can be overly aggressive and grow up to three feet in height. Janet Carson, Arkansas Online, 21 Sep. 2020 Flowers to start from seed: Cannabis, cosmos, snaps, ageratum, seed dahlias, godetia, aster, celosia, malva, salvia, lupine, Achimenes (tubers), brachyscome (15C), dianthus (5), stock(10L), lockspar (20C). Jeff Lowenfels, Anchorage Daily News, 29 Mar. 2018 Word History
borrowed from New Latin (Linnaeus), going back to Latin ageraton (Pliny), a plant, perhaps Achillea ageratum, borrowed from Greek agḗraton (Dioscorides), from neuter of agḗratos "ageless, undecaying," from a- a- entry 2 + -gēratos, derivative from the base of gêras "old age" — more at geronto-
Note: Introduced by Linnaeus in Hortus Cliffortianus (Amsterdam, 1737), p. 396. The name may have been suggested to Linnaeus by the resemblance of his Ageratum conyzoides to some species of Eupatorium, which, in pre-Linnaean nomenclature, were also called Ageratum; specifically, the plant now known as Achillea ageratum, which may have been the ancients' ageraton, was called by herbalists both Ageratum and Eupatorium mesues (e.g., in Joseph Miller's Botanicum officinale, or a Compendious Herbal, London, 1722, p. 18). In Genera Plantarum, 2. ed. (p. 392), Linnaeus notes that he departs from previous application of the name ("Aliud est Ageratum Boerhaavii, quod partim ad Achillæas, partim ad Tanaceta spectat"). In Dioscorides' account of the plant in Greek, agḗraton is so called because the flowers keep their form for a long time.
circa 1737, in the meaning defined above