What is "capitulum"

Capitulum \Ca*pit"u*lum\ (k[.a]*p[i^]t"[-u]*l[u^]m), n.; pl. Capitula (k[.a]*p[i^]t"[-u]*l[.a]). [L., a small head.]

1. A thick head of flowers on a very short axis, as a clover top, or a dandelion; a composite flower. A capitulum may be either globular or flat.
   --Gray.

2. (Anat.) A knoblike protuberance of any part, esp. at the end of a bone or cartilage.

   Note: [See Illust. of Artiodactyla.]

used in various senses in English; Latin, literally "little head," diminutive of caput "head," also "leader, guide, chief person; summit; capital city; origin, source, spring," figuratively "life, physical life;" in writing "a division, paragraph;" of money, "the principal sum," from PIE *kaput- "head" (see head (n.)).

n. 1 (context botany English) A densely clustered inflorescence composed of a large number of individual florets arising from a platform-like base. 2 (context arachnology English) The head-like mouthpart apparatus of a tick, including the palpus, mandibles, and hypostome. 3 (context anatomy English) A small protuberance on a bone which articulates into another bone to form a ball-and-socket joint. 4 (context entomology obsolete English) The enlarged end of a proboscis.

1. n. a dense clusters of flowers or foliage; "a head of cauliflower"; "a head of lettuce" [syn: head]

2. fruiting spike of a cereal plant especially corn [syn: ear, spike]

3. the upper branches and leaves of a tree [syn: crown, treetop]

4. [also: capitula (pl)]

The term capitulum (plural capitula) can refer to several things:

• the Latin for chapter
  • an index or list of chapters at the head of a gospel manuscript
  • a short reading in the Liturgy of the Hours
  • A typographic symbol to mark chapters or paragraphs, now evolved into the pilcrow
• In botany:
  • a type of flower head where the bracts are located under the basis, such as a daisy's
  • the top of a Sphagnum moss plant with compact clusters of young branches
• In zoology:
  • the capitulum of the humerus in vertebrates
  • the gnathosoma of ticks and mites
  • in stalked barnacles, the armoured portion within which the appendages and most of the viscera are located
  • a genus of goose barnacles
  • a part of the female Lepidoptera genitalia
  • a structure similar to an elaiosome found on the eggs of some species of stick insects