flowerless, a.
(ˈflaʊəlɪs)
[f. as prec. + -less.]
Without flower or bloom; spec. in Bot., flowerless plant = cryptogam.
| a 1500 Chaucer's Dreme 1860 An herbe he brought, flourelesse, all greene. 1806 J. Grahame Birds Scot. 99 Lays his silvered head upon the flowerless bank. 1835 Lindley Introd. Bot. (1840) II. 88 The Antherids of Flowerless plants. |
b. Unadorned with flowers.
| 1892 M. Field Sight & Song 86 Three virgins, flowerless, slow of step. 1895 Pall Mall Mag. Mar. 403 The room had a bleak flowerless look. |
Hence ˈflowerlessness, the condition or quality of being flowerless.
| 1855 in Ogilvie Supp. 1895 A. Austin in Blackw. Mag. Nov., 641/2 Another apologist for the flowerlessness of Irish peasant dwellings. |