American bog asphodel
- noun
- /əˈmɛrɪkən bɔg æsˈfɒdɛl/
- Specialized
:
asfódelo americano
- The rare American bog asphodel blooms in the marshes of New Jersey each spring.
Examples
-
Conservationists are working to protect the remaining habitats of the American bog asphodel.
-
I spotted a cluster of American bog asphodel while hiking in a South Carolina wetland.
-
The American bog asphodel blooms in wetlands.
-
Many American bog asphodels thrive in moist soil.
-
I spotted a cluster of American bog asphodel while hiking in a South Carolina wetland.
-
The rare American bog asphodel blooms in the marshes of New Jersey each spring.
-
Conservationists are working to protect the remaining habitats of the American bog asphodel.
Synonyms
A rare flowering plant that grows in wet places in the eastern United States
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'American' (from the United States) + 'bog' (wetland habitat) + 'asphodel' (a type of perennial plant) yields an asphodel species found in American bogs. A B1 learner who knows the constituents can infer it is a wetland plant native to America, so the meaning is predictable from the parts and cross-linguistically straightforward.
Etymology
American bog asphodel gets its name from its parts: American shows it comes from America, bog tells us it grows in wet places, and asphodel was the old name for a kind of 'flower'. So the name simply means a 'flower' that grows in American bogs, which fits the wetland plant found in eastern US marshes.
