bottlebrush buckeye

9.9

A spreading shrub from the southeastern United States with spikes of bright pink or white flowers like a bottlebrush

noun
/ˈbɑtəlˌbrʌʃ ˈbʌkaɪ/

: castaño de flor de cepillo

In my garden, the bottlebrush buckeye attracts many butterflies with its vibrant pink blossoms.
bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora)

Examples

Many gardeners love the bottlebrush buckeye for its vibrant flowers.
A mature bottlebrush buckeye can spread over ten feet wide and provide excellent shade.
Gardeners appreciate the bottlebrush buckeye for attracting pollinators with its vibrant flowers.
The bottlebrush buckeye is prized for its dramatic summer blooms in southern gardens.
The bottlebrush buckeye blooms beautifully in the spring.
The bottlebrush buckeye is a beautiful shrub that produces spikes of white flowers in the spring.
We planted a bottlebrush buckeye in our yard, and now it brightens up the landscape with its stunning flowers.

Synonyms

dwarf buckeye

vsbottlebrush buckeye

9.5

A small spreading shrub from the southeastern United States with bright pink flower clusters

focuses on showy spike flowers with a long narrow form

Surface Forms

bottlebrush buckeye singular

bottlebrush buckeyes plural

Morphology

bottlebrush + buckeye

The noun is transparently compositional: it names a type/variety of buckeye characterized by bottlebrush-like flowers, so the meaning follows directly from 'bottlebrush' (spike-shaped inflorescence) + 'buckeye' (a tree/shrub). This kind of descriptive botanical compound is predictable and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Bottlebrush buckeye is named for its long, thin flower spikes that look like a bottlebrush, a brush used to clean bottles, and for being a kind of buckeye, so the name helps you picture a spreading shrub with showy, bottlebrush-like flowers.