Cleistogamy

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The production of flowers which do not open and are self-fertilized in the bud. uncountable

    "In a species that produces fruits from self-pollination and from cross-pollination, self-pollinated fruits generally produce many more seeds than fruits produced from cross-pollination. This suggests the likelihood that cleistogamy arose in those species because cross-pollination was not always effective."

  2. 2
    the production of small nonopening self-pollinating flowers wordnet

Example

More examples

"In a species that produces fruits from self-pollination and from cross-pollination, self-pollinated fruits generally produce many more seeds than fruits produced from cross-pollination. This suggests the likelihood that cleistogamy arose in those species because cross-pollination was not always effective."

Etymology

From Ancient Greek κλειστός (kleistós, “closed”) + -gamy.

Related phrases

self fertilize

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.