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Glite Dictionary
coffee fern

coffee fern

9.7
An evergreen fern from California and Baja California with dark brown stems on its leaves
  • noun
  • US
translation icon : helecho café
  • The coffee fern thrives in well-drained soils along the California coast.

Examples

  • The glossy leaves of the coffee fern add year-round greenery to gardens.

  • Botanists noted that the coffee fern can survive drought conditions.

  • The coffee fern thrives in shady areas.

  • Many gardeners love the coffee fern for its unique color.

  • The coffee fern thrives in well-drained soils along the California coast.

  • The glossy leaves of the coffee fern add year-round greenery to gardens.

  • Many gardeners love the coffee fern for its unique color.

Synonyms

Pellaea andromedifolia
vscoffee fern
  • Specialized
9.9

An evergreen fern from California and Baja California that grows on rocky slopes and coasts

emphasizes brown leaf stems as the identifying trait rather than habitat

Surface Forms

coffee fern singular
coffee ferns plural

Morphology

coffee + fern

The noun is compositionally built from 'coffee' (used here as a color/descriptor) + 'fern' so the meaning — a fern with coffee-colored stems — is directly inferable from the constituents. This color-noun modification pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows transparent English noun-compound rules, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily understand it.

Etymology

Coffee fern comes from its dark leaf stems that look like coffee. Because of that image, coffee fern now means a fern with 'coffee-colored' leaf stems.