Flos rarus in horto crescit.

A rare flower grows in the garden.

Breakdown of Flos rarus in horto crescit.

• in: in
• hortus: the garden
• flos: the flower
• crescere: to grow

Questions & Answers about Flos rarus in horto crescit.

What is the subject of Flos rarus in horto crescit?

The subject is flos.

You can tell because:

• flos is in the nominative singular, the case normally used for the subject.
• crescit is third person singular, so it matches a singular subject.

So flos is the thing doing the action of growing.

Why is rarus in the form rarus?

Because rarus is an adjective describing flos, and Latin adjectives must agree with the nouns they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

Here, flos is:

• masculine
• singular
• nominative

So the adjective also has to be masculine singular nominative: rarus.

If flos is masculine nominative singular, why doesn’t it end in -us too?

Because flos and rarus belong to different declension patterns.

• rarus is a first/second-declension adjective, so its masculine nominative singular form ends in -us.
• flos is a third-declension noun, and third-declension nominative singular forms can have many different endings.

So both words are nominative singular masculine, but they do not have to look the same.