BIGNONIA • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Bignonia

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proper noun

Bignonia n.

(Bot.) A large genus of American, mostly tropical, climbing shrubs, having compound leaves and showy somewhat tubular flowers. Bignonia capreolata is the cross vine of the Southern United States. The trumpet creeper (also called the trumpet vine), with large red tubular flowers, was formerly considered to be of this genus, but is now classified as Campsis radicans.

Any member of the family Bignoniaceae, including the bignonia (1), catalpa, trumpet creeper, and princess tree. They typically have brightly colored tubular (trumpet-shaped) flowers.

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Etymology of 'Bignonia'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Bignonia" Quotes from Famous Books

... off, jarring the sweet bouquet babble; and still as the hours passed, and the winter day waned, the flower Fugue swelled on and on, through the cold and dreary chambers of her heart; now rising stormy and passionate, like a battle-blast, from the deep orange trumpet of a bignonia; and now whispering and sobbing and pleading, from the pearly white lips ...

— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... plants, that twined around the trees, or stretched in festoons from one to another—the cane-vine with its white clusters, and the raccoon grape, whose sweet odours perfumed the air; but by far the most showy were the large blossoms of the bignonia, that covered the festoons with their trumpet-shaped corollas, exhibiting broad ...

— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... sheltering the superior ones. Among the lower trees were many Leguminosae,—one of the most striking, called Fava, having a colossal pod. The whole mass of vegetation was woven together by innumerable lianas and creeping vines, in the midst of which the flowers of the Bignonia, with its open, trumpet-shaped corolla, were conspicuous. The capim was bright with the blossoms of the mallow growing in its midst, and was often edged with the broad-leaved ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... 63. BIGNONIA ECHINATA.—A native of Mexico, where it is sometimes called Mariposa butterfly. The branches are said to be used in the adulteration of sarsaparilla. B. chica, a native of Venezuela, furnishes a red pigment, obtained by macerating the leaves ...

— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders

Words linked to "Bignonia" : family Bignoniaceae, quartervine, Bignoniaceae, quarter-vine, genus Bignonia, Bignonia capreolata, asterid dicot genus, trumpet flower, cross vine