▪ I. polyandria
(pɒlɪˈændrɪə)
[mod.L., a. Gr. πολυανδρία, n. of state from πολύανδρος having many men or husbands (f. πολυ-, poly- + ἀνδρ- man, male), employed by Linnæus (1735) in the sense ‘having many stamens or male organs’.]
1. Bot. The thirteenth class in the Linnæan Sexual System, comprising plants having twenty or more stamens inserted on the receptacle (cf. icosandria). Also the name of one of the orders in certain classes, as Monadelphia, Gynandria, Monœcia, in which the number of stamens is used to subdivide them into orders.
| 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., Polyandria,..a class of plants with hermaphrodite flowers, and a large number of stamina, or male parts, in each. 1835 Henslow Princ. Bot. §138. 148 In Icosandria they [the stamens] adhere to the calyx..whilst in Polyandria they are free from the calyx, or are hypogynous. |
2. Zool. and Anthrop. = polyandry.
| 1876 Beneden's Anim. Parasites 56 It is a case of polyandria which we see realized in the Scalpellum. 1879 Keane Lefèvre's Philos. i. 28 A long period of polyandria in which the mother was the centre and only bond of the family. |
▪ II. polyandria
pl. of polyandrium.