leopard lily
- noun
- /ˈlɛpərd ˈlɪli/
:
lirios leopardo
- After flowering, the leopard lily produces seed clusters that look surprisingly like blackberries.
Examples
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The gardener admired the leopard lily for its striking orange blooms and unique seed pods.
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Many people grow the leopard lily in their gardens for its showy flowers and interesting fruit.
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The leopard lily blooms beautifully in the summer.
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I planted several leopard lilies in my garden last spring.
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The leopard lily produces attractive seed capsules that open to reveal clusters resembling blackberries.
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In spring, the leopard lily flowers beautifully and later develops interesting fruit that attracts attention.
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Gardeners appreciate the leopard lily for its unique seed pods that closely resemble a cluster of blackberries.
Synonyms
A garden plant with orange flowers and seed pods that open to show seeds like blackberries
A garden plant with bright orange flowers and seed pods like blackberries
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a lily with spotted, colorful flowers' is directly inferable from combining 'leopard' (an animal with spots) and 'lily' (a flowering plant); the compound transparently describes a lily that looks like a leopard. This noun–noun compounding pattern (animal/adjective + plant) is cross-linguistically common and follows standard English composition, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand it.
Etymology
Leopard lily may come from the plant's unusual fruit: when the seed pod opens it shows a tight cluster of shiny seeds that look like a small 'blackberry', and that strong image helped people remember and name the plant leopard lily.
