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Virescence, the state or condition of becoming green, is one of many words in this novel that sent me to the dictionary.

Or this manifesto of aesthetic self-identification: “I’m a son of the north: my hues are the hammered gold of autumn, the silver-grey of the undersides of leaves in rainy springtime, the khaki shine of chilly summer beaches and the winter sea’s rough purples, its acid virescence.”

Some of the above are probably cases of mere virescence rather than of phyllody.

Many of the cases recorded as reversions of the parts of the flower to leaves are simply instances of virescence; indeed, it is not in all cases easy to distinguish between the two states.

Some flowers are more liable to virescence than others.