Treccani says that fiorume derives form fiore, but I am intrigued by the semantic relationship between the two words, namely what sense of fiore may have originated fiorume. I’ve looked up fiorume in two dictionaries:
fiorume s. m. [der. di fiore]. – Tritume che residua dal fieno, composto di semi, fiori, parti di foglie, ecc.
(Treccani)AGR Tritume di fieno che resta nei fienili
(Dizionario Hoepli Italiano di Aldo Gabrielli)
So I thought maybe it is called fiorume because it is to a large extent made up of flowers; but I wouldn’t expect flowers to be a significant part of what’s left of hay in a barn. Or maybe it comes from fiore in the sense of ‘best of something’; if fiorume contains lots of seeds maybe it could be very nutritious for animals. But I’m uncertain about this too. In my native Portuguese the suffix -ume often has a negative connotation, but I don’t known whether that is also the case in Italian.
So that’s what I’d like to know. Why is that stuff called fiorume? Because it’s made of flowers? Is the best part of the hay? Some other reason?