Cordyline australis
- noun
- Specialized
:
cordilina austral
- The Cordyline australis is often planted in gardens for its striking foliage and fragrant flowers.
Examples
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The shelter provided by a mature Cordyline australis helps many native birds to nest safely.
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In New Zealand, the Cordyline australis is commonly known as the cabbage tree.
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Look at the Cordyline australis!
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The Cordyline australis is often seen in gardens across New Zealand.
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In New Zealand, the Cordyline australis is commonly known as the cabbage tree.
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The Cordyline australis is often planted in gardens for its striking foliage and fragrant flowers.
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The shelter provided by a mature Cordyline australis helps many native birds to nest safely.
Synonyms
A New Zealand tree with long narrow leaves and tall clusters of fragrant flowers
A New Zealand tall plant with a trunk and top clusters of long leaves and scented flowers
How Tall
Surface Forms
Morphology
Cordyline + australis
This is a Latin binomial: knowing 'Cordyline' would tell a learner it is a type of tree/shrub, but the species epithet 'australis' is not an English word in the input and requires knowledge of Latin or taxonomy to infer additional meaning. Therefore a B1 learner who knows the constituent headword could guess it names a kind of Cordyline but would not reliably derive the full descriptive meaning, making the expression only partially transparent.
Etymology
Cordyline australis may come from old Greek and Latin words. One popular story says Cordyline comes from a Greek word meaning 'club' because some plants have thick, club-shaped roots or stems, and australis is Latin for 'southern', so the name points to a club-root plant from the south, like New Zealand.