poinciana
noun
Forms poincianas
- noun A tropical tree, of species Delonix regia, with bright red flowers, native to Madagascar and now widely cultivated as an ornamental; the royal poinciana or flamboyant.
- noun A tropical shrub, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, with bright orange-red flowers, originally native to the Americas and now widely cultivated as an ornamental.
Synonyms
subgenus Poinciana bird of paradise Caesalpinia gilliesii Poinciana gilliesii
Etymology
Modern Latin: after M. de Poinci, a 17th-century governor of the Antilles + -ana.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A prickly tropical shrub (Cæsalpinia, formerly Poinciana, pulcherrima), with bipinnate leaves, and racemes of showy orange-red flowers with long crimson filaments.
Etymology [NL. Named after M. de Poinci, a governor of the French West Indies.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “poinciana”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details