bell heather
- noun
:
brezo campanilla
- The hillside was covered with blooming bell heather in early summer.
Examples
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She pressed a sprig of bell heather into her journal as a keepsake.
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Bell heather attracts many bees and butterflies to the garden.
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Look at the lovely bell heather in full bloom!
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Can you identify the bell heather among the other plants?
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The hillside was covered with blooming bell heather in early summer.
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Bell heather attracts many bees and butterflies to the garden.
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Look at the lovely bell heather in full bloom!
Synonyms
A low European shrub with purple-red bell-shaped flowers that grows on heaths
A low shrub with purple bell-shaped flowers that grows on open wild land
A low shrub with thin leaves and purple-red flowers that grows on open, poor soil
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound combines 'bell' (bell-shaped) with 'heather' (a shrub), so its meaning — a heather with bell-shaped flowers — is directly inferable from the constituents. This compositional shape+plant pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows regular English noun-compounding, so a B1 learner who knows both words would understand it.
Etymology
Bell heather comes from the plant's tiny, bell-shaped flowers and from its relation to other heather plants. The word bell points to the small bell-like blooms and heather names low, bushy shrubs, so the name now means 'a small shrub with bell-shaped purple flowers'.
