In botany, xenia is the way pollen affects the seeds and fruits of a plant as they develop. For the ancient Greeks, xenia was a concept that was all about being a gracious and generous host.
Xenia is a Greek word meaning "rights of a guest," from xenos, "guest." Historians translate this word as "ritualized friendship," using it to describe a culture of treating foreigners and visitors alike with generous hospitality. The 19th-century botanist Wilhelm Olbers Focke borrowed the word xenia to describe a process of "foreign" pollen being received by a "host" plant.