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

The whole front of it was covered by a large scarlet bignonia and a native multiflora rose, which, entwisting and interlacing, left scarce a vestige of the rough logs to be seen.

From Uncle Tom's Cabin by Stowe, Harriet Beecher

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 Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume II (of 2) A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present day by Anonymous

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

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

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)