avens

American  

[av-inz] / ˈæv ɪnz /

noun

plural

avens

1. any of various plants of the genus Geum, of the rose family, having yellow, white, or red flowers.

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avens British  

/ ˈævɪnz /

noun

1. any of several temperate or arctic rosaceous plants of the genus Geum, such as G. rivale ( water avens ), which has a purple calyx and orange-pink flowers See also herb bennet

2. either of two trailing evergreen white-flowered rosaceous shrubs of the genus Dryas that grow on mountains in N temperate regions and in the Arctic

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Etymology

Origin of avens

1200–50; Middle English avence < Old French < Medieval Latin avencia kind of clover

Example Sentences

Across the parking lot were bluebells, cottony willow plants, white-flowered Labrador tea, mountain avens and blue forget-me-nots.

From Washington Post • Apr. 7, 2016

Marsh sedge grew there, pink, sweet-scented valerian and the drooping water avens.

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams

The brambles are the bowers of the birds; in these still leafy bowers they do the courting of the spring, and under the brambles the earliest arum, and cleaver, or avens, push up.

From The Open Air by Jefferies, Richard

And did not both men pluck him handfuls of cowslips, of tawny-pink avens, and of mottled, snake-headed fritillaries, and stow them away in the fishing-baskets above the load of silver-and-red spotted trout?

From The History of Sir Richard Calmady A Romance by Malet, Lucas

Also meadow-sweet, meadow-rue, and comfrey of every shade of purple, the water avens and forget-me-not, also that loveliest plant the bog-bean, with trefoil leaves and feathery blossoms. 

From John Keble's Parishes by Yonge, Charlotte Mary