clistogamy

Noun

cleistogamy (uncountable)

1. The production of flowers which do not open and are self-fertilized in the bud.
   • In a species that produces fruits from self-pollination and from cross-pollination, self-pollinated fruits generally produce many more seeds than fruits produced from cross-pollination. This suggests the likelihood that cleistogamy arose in those species because cross-pollination was not always...2001, Richard Dwight Porcher, Douglas Alan Rayner, A Guide to the Wildflowers of South Carolina, University of South Carolina, page 47