arbutus
noun
Forms arbutuses arbuti
- noun A strawberry tree, any of the flowering plants in the genus Arbutus.
- noun A mayflower or trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens).
- noun (uncountable) Arbute; wood of strawberry trees.
Etymology
From taxonomic name Arbutus, from Latin arbutus.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The strawberry tree, a genus of evergreen shrubs, of the Heath family. It has a berry externally resembling the strawberry; the arbute tree. Trailing arbutus (Bot.), a creeping or trailing plant of the Heath family (Epigæa repens), having white or usually rose-colored flowers with a delicate fragrance, growing in small axillary clusters, and appearing early in the spring; in New England known as mayflower; --called also ground laurel. Gray.
Etymology [L. arbutus, akin to arbor tree.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “arbutus”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details