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

See Examples For:

bignonia

Across the centre of Mr. Wright’s hot-house ran a light trellis of fine lattice-work cut into an arch and covered with the dense luxuriant foliage of the bignonia trained over it.

From Vashti or, Until Death Us Do Part by Augusta J. Evans Wilson

It thrives mightily on these gravelled shores, and so do the bignonia vine, the poison ivy, and the Virginia creeper.

From Afloat on the Ohio An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo by Reuben Gold Thwaites

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 Thomasina Ross

In her fingers, I noticed the flower of a bignonia.

From The Wild Huntress Love in the Wilderness by Mayne Reid

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 William Henry Giles Kingston