flowering wintergreen
- noun
- US
:
polígala
- The rosy-purple blossoms of the flowering wintergreen made the trail especially beautiful in spring.
Examples
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The woods were dotted with patches of flowering wintergreen blooming among the fallen leaves.
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We spotted a rare flowering wintergreen while hiking in the eastern forest.
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The flowering wintergreen blooms beautifully in the spring.
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Have you seen the flowering wintergreen in the garden?
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The rosy-purple blossoms of the flowering wintergreen made the trail especially beautiful in spring.
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The woods were dotted with patches of flowering wintergreen blooming among the fallen leaves.
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We spotted a rare flowering wintergreen while hiking in the eastern forest.
Synonyms
A low eastern North American plant with leaves like wintergreen and rosy-purple flowers with wing-like parts
A small wild plant with rosy-purple flowers and shiny green leaves that grows in shady moist woods
A small flowering plant from eastern North America with pink-purple flowers and leaves like wintergreen
A small forest plant with leaves like wintergreen and pink-purple flowers
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is directly compositional: 'flowering' describes having blossoms and 'wintergreen' names a particular plant, so together they mean a wintergreen plant that bears flowers. This follows a common adjective+noun pattern in English and would be recoverable by a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
Flowering wintergreen combines flowering (having flowers) and wintergreen (a low plant with green leaves in cold months). So the name gives the simple picture of a low, wintergreen-like plant that makes rosy-purple flowers, which is why it refers to that small wild plant.
