flor

The root flor comes from Latin flōs, with the stem flōris — meaning "flower," the blossom of a plant — and the related verb flōrēre, "to bloom, to flourish." To a Roman, a flōs was the bright, short-lived peak of a plant's life: the part that opens, dazzles, and fades. That single image of "the blooming, glorious part" runs through the whole family.

The most literal members stay close to botany. flora is the entire plant life of a place — the Romans even had a goddess named Flōra, who presided over flowers and spring; today "flora and fauna" means the plants and animals of a region. floral simply means "of flowers" — floral patterns, a floral scent. florescence is the act or period of flowering, the season when a plant is in full bloom (and, by extension, anyone's peak years).

From there the root drifts into metaphor. florid literally means "flowery," and English took it two ways: a florid complexion is a face flushed pink like a blossom, while a florid style is writing so over-decorated it's like a garden choked with flowers — ornate to the point of excess. Notice how "covered in flowers" can be a compliment (rosy, healthy) or a criticism (overwrought) depending on what you're describing.

The verb flōrēre gave us flourish — to bloom and, figuratively, to thrive: a business flourishes, a culture flourishes. The Italian city of Florence (Firenze) was named Florentia, "the flourishing one." And the specialized craft of growing blossoms is floriculture — flori- (flower) + cult (to tend, cultivate) — the branch of horticulture devoted to flowers.

The most surprising member, though, is flour — yes, the powder you bake with. It is the same word as flower. In the Middle Ages, the finest, most refined part of ground grain was called the "flower of the meal" (the flos farīnae, "flower of the flour") — the best part, the essence, just as a flower is the choice part of a plant. "Flower" and "flour" were spelled identically for centuries; only later did English split the spellings to separate the bakery sense from the garden sense. So every time you bake bread, you are handling the "flower" of the wheat. (The word flower itself reached English through Old French flour/flor, from the same Latin flōs — which is why it looks so different from its Germanic cousin bloom.)