Dictionary

paper flower en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A plant, Bougainvillea glabra, and its flower head, so called for the papery bracts.
   • Families within the order Centrospermae, including taxa like prickly pear (Opuntia sp.) and paper flower (Bougainvillea sp.), display transient red coloration 2002, WJ Steyn with SJE Wand, DM Holcroft, and G Jacobs, “Anthocyanins in vegetative tissues: a proposed unified function in photoprotection”, in New Phytologist:
   • Introduction / Common Name: Bougainvillea, Paper Flower / Scientific Name: Bougainvillea glabra / Family: Nyctaginaceae 2002, R Schoellhorn with E Alvarez, Warm climate production guidelines for bougainvillea:
   • prosopis (Syrian mesquite), sugarbeet, camelthorn, pigweed, potato, hemp, physalis, pepper, chrysanthemum, sesame, marigold, paper-flower, Mirabilis, carrot ... 2000, Ika Salehi Mohammad with M Taghizadeh, “Herbaceous Host Range of Ume Witches' Broom Phytoplasma in Iran”, in Iranian Journal of Plant Pathology:
2. A plant, the peach-leaved bellflower, Campanula persicifolia, and its flower.
   • There is my Quaker Aunt, A Paper-Flower, — with a formal border / No breeze could e'er disorder, — Pouting at that old beau—the Winter Cherry, / A pucker'd berry; / And Box, like a tough-liv'd annuitant 1826, Thomas Hood, “The Winter Nosegay”, in Whims and oddities: in prose and verse, with forty original designs, page 67:
3. A plant, Psilostrophe cooperi, and its flower.
   • Between sites, small shrubs (zinnia, Zinnia pumila; paper flower, Psilostrophe cooperi) predominate. 1990, TMC Robert with CP Szpak and RJ Deslippe, “Experimental assessment of factors affecting the distribution of adult female tree lizards”, in Oikos:
4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see paper, flower.
   • He was wearing a red paper flower in his lapel.

Forms

Translations (5)

tr begonvil (Bougainvillea glabra) · fi kaljuihmeköynnös (Bougainvillea glabra) · ru колоко́льчик персиколи́стный (Campanula persicifolia) · fi kurjenkello (Campanula persicifolia) · fi ihmeköynnös (Bougainvillea glabra)