mayapple
noun
Forms mayapples May apple
- noun A fruit-bearing flowering plant with poisonous roots, native to eastern North America, taxonomic name Podophyllum peltatum.
- noun The fruit of the plant Podophyllum peltatum.
Synonyms
hog apple raccoon-berry May apple wild mandrake Podophyllum peltatum
Etymology
From May + apple. The fruit is notably neither related to apples (though "apple" itself has an archaic sense of generically referring to fruit), nor ripens during the month of May; only the flower blooms then around then in certain areas.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “mayapple”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details