mertensia

[mer-ten-see-uh, -shee-uh, -shuh]

noun

1. any of various plants belonging to the genus Mertensia, of the borage family, including the lungworts and the Virginia cowslip.

Word History and Origins

Origin of mertensia¹

< New Latin (1797), after Franz Karl Mertens (died 1831), German botanist; -ia

Example Sentences

The native Eastern wildflower Mertensia virginica or Hyacinthoides non-scripta, a bulb from Western Europe and England?

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He dollops spoonfuls of lustrous purées — yellow and red pepper, black olive, sorrel — onto a white plate like paint to canvas, then adds scores of vegetables and a stunning array of handpicked local herbs and flowers — the leaves of red amaranth, valerian and mertensia, the petals of white roses, pansies and poppies.

Read more on Time

A cousin of the Lungwort, our native Mertensia virginica, has in the young plant an equally singular leafage; every ordinary process of leaf progress is reversed: the young shoots are not a tender green, but are almost black, and change gradually in leaf, stem, and flower calyx to an odd light green in which the dark color lingers in veins and spots until the plant is in its full flower of tender blue, lilac, and pink.

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The other, the Mertensia, is closely allied to Pleurobrachia; it is exceedingly flattened and pear-shaped.

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Flowers: abundance of bloom, 54. anemone, 61. cactus, 56, 62, 74. castilleia, 67. cleome, 67. columbine, 58, 67. cyclamen, 67. extermination by cattle, 208. extermination by tourists, 68. geranium, 58. gilia, 64. golden prince's feather, 65. gummy and clinging stems, 66. harebells, 67. in a niche, 73. in Kansas, 52. mariposa lily, 65. mentzelia, 60. mertensia, 67.

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