fron-des-uhns | /frɒnˈdɛs əns/
Frondescence means coming into leaf or becoming green, stemming from the Latin frons, meaning leaf. More generally, it is also used to describe flourishing leafy vegetation of springtime, when the lengthening days and rising temperatures rouse the forests from their slumber and stir an army of pollinating insects to take to the air. For deciduous trees, the exact timing of their frondescence is linked to when they went dormant during the previous autumn, prompted by a combination of shortening days and dropping temperatures. Once dormant, the trees require a minimum number of cold days, called their cold requirement, before rising temperatures signal it’s time to sprout leaves and burst their buds. This mechanism is one of the reasons trees from warmer climes often fail. Their cold requirement is fulfilled too quickly, meaning all it takes is a few unseasonably warm winter days to prematurely burst bud – the next cold snap killing their nascent growth.
The bizarre mutation of plants’ floral parts developing as concolorous* leafy, green structures is also sometimes called frondescence, although phyllody is the more common scientific term. Assuming a plant is free from phyllody, floriage is the flowering equivalent of the leafy frondescence. A flowering plant can also be said to be efflorescing.
Frondescence is but one of the dulcet yet underused terms associated with the joys of spring. The celebratory sounding reverdie comes to us from the French reverdir, meaning to regreen. The rudely jubilant erumpent is a 17th century adjective for vigorous, penetrating growth. Vernalagnia refers to the increased arousal brought on by spring fever derived from the Greek lagneia, meaning lust.
* Concolourous: a biological term for an organism of uniform colour.
Introduction Aeolian Alpenglow Apricity Asperous
Benthos Crepuscular Crispate Crown shyness
Desire lines Dreich Endragoned Edgelands
Frondescence Fumarole Gluggaveður Gossamer
Karst Komorebi Lawrence Long acre
Machair Monkey’s wedding Moonglade
Psithurism Quartz Rakuyou Roaring forties
Snag Soft estate Specular, diffuse and pellucid
Spoondrift Steam fog Swash zone Sylvan