Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Philodendron
/ˌfɪləˈdɛndrən/noun
A climbing tropical plant of the arum family, widely grown indoors.
The Greek roots
φίλος
phílos
loving, fond of
δένδρον
déndron
tree
Literally: “tree-loving”
The story of the word
Heinrich Schott named the genus in 1829 for its habit rather than its looks: in the forest these plants climb trunks, gripping the bark with aerial roots and heading for the light. Dendron survives in rhododendron, rose tree, and in dendrite, the branching arm of a nerve cell. Every part of the plant carries calcium oxalate crystals, which is why a cat that chews one starts drooling.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
rhododendrondendritedendrochronologyphilosophy
In a sentence
The philodendron had crossed the bookshelf and was working its way along the curtain rail.