1. (botany) The markedly reduced sepals of an Asteraceae floret that take the form of trichomes or scale attached to the ovary or seed.2. The first hair on the chin.
Via Latin pappus from Ancient Greek πάππος (páppos), an affectionate term for elderly men (referencing beards).
In Asteraceae, the pappus is the modified calyx,[citation needed] the part of an individual floret, that surrounds the base of the corolla tube in flower. It functions as a wind-dispersal mechanism for the seeds... The pappus of the dandelion has been studied and reproduced for a variety of applications. It has the ability to retain about 100 times its weight in water and pappus-inspired mechanisms have been proposed and fabricated which would allow highly efficient and specialized liquid transport. Another application of the pappus is in the use of minute airflow detection around walls which is important for measuring small fluctuations in airflow in neonatal incubators or to measure low velocity airflow in heating and ventilation systems.
Which leads to an even-more-obscure "two-dollar-word": anemochory :
From anemo- (“wind”) + -chory (“seed dispersal”). [cf anemometer]Continuing down the rabbit hole, Wiktionary has fifteen different words ending in -chory. (anthropochory, chiropterochory, gastropodochory, hydrochory, ornithochory, myrmecochory, thalassochory...). You learn something every day.
From the headline I thought you were referring to "papoose", and this would be discussion of that term. My grandmother called me that when I was a kid, even though she was predominantly Cajun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papoose
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