This word raises 2 questions: do we need to know it and does it have extensions in meaning? The answer to the last question might answer the first one. In looking it up, someone mentioned in the comments section that it is used in nursing as a verb and means to feather or petal the edge of a cast or some such to act as a protective barrier. I think I may have heard or seen it used in this way, invoking the vision of the shape of a petal.
I would say that poetry would more likely contain this word than prose. Any narrower range, like botany terms, would certainly require it. So I would put it under the category “almost useless words but fun to know”.