bignonia

American  

[big-noh-nee-uh] / bɪgˈnoʊ ni ə /

noun

1. any chiefly tropical American climbing shrub of the genus Bignonia, cultivated for its showy, trumpet-shaped flowers.

2. any member of the plant family Bignoniaceae, characterized by trees, shrubs, and woody vines having opposite leaves, showy, bisexual, tubular flowers, and often large, gourdlike or capsular fruit with flat, winged seeds, and including the bignonia, catalpa, princess tree, and trumpet creeper.

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bignonia British  

/ bɪɡˈnəʊnɪə /

noun

1. any tropical American bignoniaceous climbing shrub of the genus Bignonia (or Doxantha ), cultivated for their trumpet-shaped yellow or reddish flowers See also cross vine

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Etymology

Origin of bignonia

1690–1700; < New Latin, named after Abbé Bignon (librarian of Louis XIV of France); -ia

Example Sentences

Wherever it turns, flowers open their corollas to meet its delighted glance—tropical tree-flowers, blossoms of the scarlet vine, and trumpet-shaped tubes of the bignonia.

From The Rifle Rangers by Reid, Mayne

Dr. Sch�ch also exhibited a pigment, or dye-stuff, extracted from the wood of the Ip�-tree, a species of bignonia, extensively used in the manufacture of axles.

From Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara, Volume I (Commodore B. Von Wullerstorf-Urbair,) Undertaken by Order of the Imperial Government in the Years 1857, 1858, & 1859, Under the Immediate Auspices of His I. and R. Highness the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, Commander-In-Chief of the Austrian Navy. by Scherzer, Karl Ritter von

In creepers, bignonia and lantana will hold their own under difficulties perhaps as well as any that can be found.

From Three Elephant Power and Other Stories by Paterson, A. B. (Andrew Barton)

The lacquer is drawn from its milky sap and mixed with the oil of the bignonia.

From In the Eastern Seas by Kingston, William Henry Giles

Lovely gardens, full of purple bougainvillea, orange bignonia, and scarlet poinsettias.

From The Last Voyage to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' by Pritchett, R. T. (Robert Taylor)