deutzia / asphodel
Nov. 16th, 2012 07:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodworddeutzia (DOOT-see-uh, DYOOT-see-uh, DOIT-see-uh) - n., any of several flowering east-Asian shrubs (genus Deutzia) cultivated for their showy white, pink, or lavender flowers.
Relative of the hydrangea, only instead of ball-shaped clusters, these are less organized (through some have spikes of flowers). The name is a very western one: bestowed in 1837 after Jean Deutz, a Dutch patron of botanists who died in 1784.
Bonus word by request:
asphodel (AS-fuh-del) - n., any of several Mediterranean perennial lilies (family Asphodelaceae) with white, pink, or yellow flowers in elongated clusters; (Greek myth.) an unidentified flower, probably a narcissus, said to grow the Elysian fields and to be a favorite food of the dead.
Name borrowed in the 1590s from Latin asphodelus (which was also reborrowed as daffodil) from Greek asphódelos, of uncertain origin.
Administrivia: I'm off all next week for the Stateside holidays, so posting will resume the week after.
---L.
Relative of the hydrangea, only instead of ball-shaped clusters, these are less organized (through some have spikes of flowers). The name is a very western one: bestowed in 1837 after Jean Deutz, a Dutch patron of botanists who died in 1784.
Bonus word by request:
asphodel (AS-fuh-del) - n., any of several Mediterranean perennial lilies (family Asphodelaceae) with white, pink, or yellow flowers in elongated clusters; (Greek myth.) an unidentified flower, probably a narcissus, said to grow the Elysian fields and to be a favorite food of the dead.
Name borrowed in the 1590s from Latin asphodelus (which was also reborrowed as daffodil) from Greek asphódelos, of uncertain origin.
Administrivia: I'm off all next week for the Stateside holidays, so posting will resume the week after.
---L.
