white camas
- noun
- US
:
camas blanca
- We identified several clumps of white camas along the hiking trail.
Examples
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The white camas blooms beautifully in the spring.
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The fields were dotted with white camas blooming in early summer.
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Farmers must be careful as white camas can be toxic to livestock.
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Did you see the white camas in the garden?
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The meadow was filled with beautiful white camas blooming in the spring.
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Farmers are cautious because white camas can be poisonous to their livestock.
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White camas has creamy white flowers that attract many pollinators to the garden.
Synonyms
A poisonous plant from eastern and central North America with creamy white flowers that can harm grazing animals
A plant with leaves like grass and small white flowers that is poisonous
A wild plant whose bulbs look like wild onions and can make animals or people sick
A highly poisonous plant called death camas that grows in parts of the central United States
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward adjective + noun combination: 'white' simply specifies the color of the 'camas' plant, so the meaning is directly derivable as 'a camas that is white'. This follows a basic, cross-linguistically common compositional pattern with no idiomatic shift, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand it.
Etymology
White camas may come from a Native American word for a bulb plant people dug and ate. The white type looks like the 'edible' camas but is 'poisonous', so the name links the flower to the old food bulb while warning that this one can be dangerous.
