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); see -ia

Example Sentences

MULLER, FRITZ, reproduction of orchids. -development of crustacea. -direct action of pollen. -self-sterile bignonia.

From The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication — Volume 2 by Darwin, Charles

The whole mass of vegetation is interwoven with innumerable creepers, amid which the flowers of the bignonia, with their open trumpet-shaped corollas, are conspicuous.

From The Western World Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North and South America by Kingston, William Henry Giles

The jasmine and bignonia spill Their balm around your windowsill; The sill where, when magnolia-white, In foliage mists, the moon hangs far, You lean with bright deep eyes of night And hearken my guitar.

From Weeds by the Wall Verses by Cawein, Madison Julius

We have found shrubs of eight or ten feet high entwined with bignonia and other ligneous creepers.

From Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 1 by Ross, Thomasina

The hedge was intermingled with the tea-rose, white jasmine, fuchsia, pink cactus, and bignonia; all of which, from the hardihood of their growth, appeared indigenous.

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 by Chambers, Robert