bignonia

[ big-noh-nee-uh ]

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.

bignonia

/ 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

Word History and Origins

Origin of bignonia¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of bignonia¹

C19: from New Latin, named after the Abbé Jean-Paul Bignon (1662–1743)

Example Sentences

Tightly wound gardens—all straight lines and assiduous manicuring—can be a thing of beauty, but adding a note or two of uncontrolled madness gives perfection a dash of panache. Bignonia capreolata, a.k.a. crossvine, is a wild-mannered wonder that takes the edge off.

From Architectural Digest

Down the beds of the small ravines run burns, overgrown by dock-leaves of enormous size, and the banks are clothed with a rich vegetation of dark-leaved myrtle, bignonia, and winter-bark, tree-shrubs, with tall grass, ferns, and flowering plants.

From Project Gutenberg

He was making almost in a straight line for a large bignonia bush that stood alone at the end of the narrow clearing just below where the two men were watching.

From Project Gutenberg

Trumpet Flower, bignonia unguis, is a genus of the angiospermia order, class didynamia; the calyx is quinquefid, the corolla of an elegant bell-shape, and is also quinquefoliated.

From Project Gutenberg

Some remarkable peculiarities strike the observer when he looks at the forests on the Wabash; one of these is the want of evergreens, if we except the Viscum flavescens, Pursh, Bignonia cruciata, Equisetum hyemale, and Miegia macrosperma.

From Project Gutenberg