🌱 Australian plant 🌿 Tasmanian shrub 🌳 New Zealand tree

grass tree

8.6

A New Zealand tall plant with a trunk and top clusters of long leaves and scented flowers

noun

New Zealand

: árbol de pasto

We admired the grass tree with its striking foliage during our walk in the New Zealand forest.

Examples

Botanists study the grass tree to understand its unique adaptation to the New Zealand environment.
Many grass trees can be found in New Zealand.
The grass tree produces beautiful clusters of fragrant flowers in the summer season.
The grass tree blooms beautifully in spring.
The grass tree in the garden attracted many visitors with its long, narrow leaves and fragrant white flowers.
During our trip to New Zealand, we saw a majestic grass tree with clusters of bright red flowers.
In the park, the towering grass tree stood out due to its unique shape and beautiful blooms.

Synonyms

Cordyline australis

vsgrass tree

Specialized

9.9

A tall New Zealand tree with long narrow leaves and fragrant flower clusters

is the everyday common name rather than the scientific Latin form

cabbage tree

vsgrass tree

New Zealand

7.5

A New Zealand tree with long narrow leaves and tall clusters of fragrant flowers

is the scientific Latin name used in formal contexts

Surface Forms

grass tree singular

grass trees plural

Morphology

grass + tree

The compound follows a transparent modifier+head pattern: 'grass' describes a quality of the 'tree', so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a type of tree with grass-like leaves or appearance. This compositional naming of a subtype is cross-linguistically common, so the overall meaning is immediately derivable without special cultural knowledge.

Etymology

Grass tree describes a New Zealand tree with a trunk and a crown of long, narrow leaves that look like grass, often with large, showy flowers on top. So the name simply tells you this elegant 'tree' with a grass-like top.