lily-of-the-valley tree
- noun
:
pieris
- The lily-of-the-valley tree produces beautiful white blooms each spring.
Examples
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Gardeners often plant the lily-of-the-valley tree for its year-round glossy foliage.
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The lily-of-the-valley tree thrives in partial shade and acidic soil.
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The lily-of-the-valley tree blooms beautifully in spring.
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Have you seen a lily-of-the-valley tree before?
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Gardeners often plant the lily-of-the-valley tree for its year-round glossy foliage.
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The lily-of-the-valley tree produces beautiful white blooms each spring.
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The lily-of-the-valley tree thrives in partial shade and acidic soil.
Synonyms
A small evergreen bush with shiny leaves and drooping clusters of white flowers often grown in gardens
A shrub with wide evergreen leaves and hanging groups of white flowers grown in gardens
A small evergreen bush with glossy leaves and clusters of small white flowers
Surface Forms
Morphology
lily-of-the-valley + tree
The headword contains the lexicalized plant name "lily-of-the-valley", whose specific referent (a small bell‑flowering plant) is not predictable from the literal words 'lily' and 'valley'; a B1 learner who only knows the surface constituents would not infer the botanical shrub/tree sense. The full phrase names a particular type of shrub/tree (an idiosyncratic botanical label) rather than a transparently composed meaning, so the overall expression is not reliably derivable from its parts.
Etymology
Lily-of-the-valley tree: The name lily-of-the-valley tree comes from the way its small, hanging white flowers look like the little plant lily-of-the-valley, and the word tree was added because it is a larger, woody plant. So, the name helps you remember it is an evergreen 'shrub' with glossy leaves and fragrant white flower clusters.
