Dictionary

manita en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /məˈniːtə/

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish manita (“little hand”), feminine-form diminutive of mano (“hand”), because the small red flowers of the tree resemble five-fingered human hands.

Meanings

1. (rare) The tree Chiranthodendron pentadactylon, or the red, hand-like flower this tree produces.
   • Tradition states, that though the Indians did not actually worship the manita tree, yet they regarded the flower with a sort of religious veneration. 1829 October 3, in the Mechanics' Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette, number 321, page 112
   • The curious manita, or ‘hand tree,’ near the city of Mexico, is another of these curiosities. 1838, John Murray, The economy of vegetation, or phœnomena of plants, page 159:
   • Here one finds among remedies for every organ and ailment, manita, whose red flower, shaped like thumb and four fingers gives its name “the little hand.” 1928, Ernest Gruening, Mexico and its heritage, page 74:
   • A sign nailed to a manita tree read “Jardín Botánica.” Edmund surveyed this pathetic place in disbelief. The botanic garden of the Palace of Mexico was cramped, airless, light-starved, and populated with meager, untended specimens — […] 2000, Stephen Harrigan, The Gates of the Alamo: A Novel:
   • Close by was a plant of the manita, a flower which the Aztecs used to worship ; it is in the form of a hand, with four fingers and a thumb : this they imagined to be the hand of one of their most powerful deities, and adored it ; its colour is a brilliant scarlet. 1852, Victoria Alexandrina M.L. Gregory, A young traveller's journal of a tour in North and South America during the year 1850:
   • […] The manita tree,* so named from the singular formation of its flower, a drawing of which is placed as the frontispiece of this book, is a species of plant almost unknown in the catalogues of botanists. Manita means a little hand. 1828, Mark Beaufoy, Mexican illustrations, founded upon facts, page 230:
   • […] with high walls on every side but open at the top and certainly not exceeding 80 feet square, and this is the botanic garden of the palace of Mexico; a few shrubs and plants and the celebrated manita tree, are all that it contains. circa 1846, Traveling Sketches, from a work by Waddy Thompson, republished in the Rural Repository (1846 July 18), volume 22, number 23, page 181

Forms

Synonyms

Mexican hand tree · devil's hand tree · macpalxochitl · Devil's hand tree · handflower tree · handflower