scorpioid

adjective

(Gr. skorpios: scorpion; eidô, to look like) Resembling a scorpion; said of a circinnately coiled determinate inflorescence in which the flowers are two-ranked and borne alternately at the right and left; said of a cymose inflorescence, branching alternately on one side and then the other; a determinate inflorescence with a zigzag rachis; an inflorescence) curled up at the end, and uncurling as the flowers develop. Cf. helicoid.