Yes, plain English is almost always better than something most people
won't understand.
Let me make oporanthous a little easier to understand. I've been using it
since 2007.
It's derived from the Classical Greek word ὀπώρα. If your screen does not
print Greek characters, the conventional transliteration of that word would
be opōra. In modern Greek it means fruit.Here's the translation given in
Liddell & Scott, the standard Classical Greek-English lexicon:

“ὀπώρα…the part of the year between the rising of Sirius and of Arcturus
(i.e. the last days of July, all Aug., and part of Sept.), the latter part
of summer;…”

Sirius is sometimes called the dog star, thus our expression "the dog days
of summer". And to me, although that's plainer and more poetic English than
"late summer",  I suspect that most people don't really know why the dog
days are so called. It's apparently still Greek to most people!
In my climate, this word oporanthous exactly describes the season of
Lycoris, Sternbergia, many Colchicum - all bulbs often mistakenly described
as autumnal.  There are certainly Colchicum which are not oporanthous -
members of that genus bloom from late summer until late winter. And there
are Sternbergia which bloom in late winter, and the occasional Lycoris
blooms in true autumn. But the word oporanthous is useful for calling
attention to bulb activity in late summer, to call attention to the fact
that it is something which happens predictably at about the same time each
year and well before the onset of autumn in late September.
There is another important bulb season which does not have a familiar name
in English: the late winter days when snowdrops, crocuses, winter aconites,
reticulate irises and so many other important bulbs bloom. Karl Foerster,
in one of his early works ( Vom Blütengartender Zukunft, 1922) uses the
German word Vorfrühling for this period. That translates literally as
"pre-spring". I'm sure Vorfrühling falls more gently on the ears of German
speakers than "pre-spring" does on the ears of English speakers. When I'm
talking to myself, so-to-speak, I use Vorfrühling.  Someone needs to come
up with a more felicitous translation for those of us who speak English.
JimMcKenneyMontgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where the dogs
are panting hard!

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