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Glite Dictionary
🌱 Growing in waste areas 🌱 A tough plant
ruderal

ruderal

9.8
A plant that grows in places where the ground is disturbed, like roadsides
  • noun
  • /ˈruːdərəl/
  • Specialized
: planta ruderal
  • Many cities have areas where ruderal plants thrive, creating a unique blend of nature amidst urban development.

Examples

  • The overgrown lot was filled with ruderal species that flourished in the absence of regular maintenance.

  • Blooming ruderals play a role in the move beyond landscape functionalism by contributing to the aesthetics of public spaces.

    Academic text (1991)

  • Grime (1977) characterized three primary strategies in plants relative to ecology and evolutionary theory: competitive, stress-tolerant, and ruderal.

    Academic text (2007)

  • You can often find ruderal vegetation along roadsides, where the soil has been disturbed by traffic.

Antonyms

cultivated plant
1 3.4

A plant people grow for food or decoration

Surface Forms

ruderal singular
ruderals plural

Morphology

ruderal = rud + al

The noun is formed from the same Latin-derived root plus '-al', but the root is not a familiar English word, making the composition opaque to most learners.

Etymology

A ruderal comes from the Latin root rudus, which means 'rubble' or 'broken ground'. So, a ruderal is a plant that grows in rubble or other waste places where the soil has been disturbed.