oleracea
/oh-ler-AY-see-a/🏷️ Taxonomy●● Intermediate
Also known as: oleraceus, oleraceum
A use epithet marking a plant eaten as a vegetable or otherwise grown for the kitchen garden rather than for ornament. It attaches to some of the most heavily bred species in cultivation, where centuries of selection have pulled a single wild plant into several quite different crops. Appears as oleraceus (masculine), oleracea (feminine), or oleraceum (neuter).
Etymology
From Latin oleraceus, meaning "eaten as a vegetable."
Example
“Brassica oleracea 'Calabrese' (calabrese broccoli) and Portulaca oleracea (purslane) both carry the epithet, one bred into many crops and the other gathered as a weed.”