hairy darling pea
- noun
- Australian
:
guisante peludo
- The hairy darling pea brightens the garden with its vibrant pink blooms in the spring.
Examples
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Several hairy darling peas were planted along the walking trail to showcase native flora.
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Botanists studied the hairy darling pea for its adaptation to dry Australian climates.
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The hairy darling pea thrives in the Australian climate.
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Have you seen a hairy darling pea before?
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The hairy darling pea brightens the garden with its vibrant pink blooms in the spring.
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Several hairy darling peas were planted along the walking trail to showcase native flora.
-
Botanists studied the hairy darling pea for its adaptation to dry Australian climates.
Synonyms
A small shrub from southern Australia with soft stems and pink flowers
A shrub from southern Australia that lives for several years and has woolly stems and red or pink flowers
A plant from Australia that is poisonous to sheep
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituents 'hairy' and 'pea' give a clear, compositional cue that this is a kind of pea with hairy features, so learners can infer a plant-related meaning. However, 'darling' here is likely part of a conventional or place-based common name (not the affectionate sense), so the precise taxonomic or regional sense is not fully predictable from the parts, making the overall expression only partially transparent.
Etymology
Hairy darling pea likely gets its name from how it looks: the stems and the underside of its leaves are soft and fuzzy—so hairy—and it has small pea-type flowers gardeners thought were very pretty and called a 'darling'. That's why the name today means a bushy native plant with fuzzy parts and bright pink pea flowers.
