Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of numerous carnivorous plants of the genus Pinguicula, having a rosette of basal leaves that are coated with a sticky secretion that traps small insects for digestion.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A name common to the species of Pinguicula. The butterworts grow on wet ground, are apparently stemless, and have showy spurred flowers. The name is due to the greasy-looking viscid surface of the leaves, which are covered with soft, pellucid glandular hairs, secreting a glutinous liquor that catches small insects. The edges of the leaf roll over on the insect and retain it, and the insects thus caught are supposed to serve as food for the plant. In the north of Sweden the leaves are employed to curdle milk.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) A genus of low herbs (Pinguicula) having simple leaves which secrete from their glandular upper surface a viscid fluid, to which insects adhere, after which the margin infolds and the insects are digested by the plant. The species are found mostly in the North Temperate zone.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of numerous carnivorous bog plants of the genus Pinguicula having showy purple or yellow or white flowers and a rosette of basal leaves coated with a sticky secretion to trap small insects
Examples
“It's called a butterwort, and it always grows in boggy places; I wouldn't advise you to go after one again without asking father first. ”
“The machinery is long gone and water mint, butterwort, dragonflies and frogs flourish in the fenny pools where grey crystals of galena were separated from the spoil, but the shells of the buildings remain.”
“White and gold rocks, rimmed round with purple butterwort, Indian paintbrush and feathery yellow stonecrop, created magnificent tumbles of color in the desolate landscape.”
“Osmunda, the Pinguicola (butterwort), appears to be now extinct, owing either to drainage or to the ever-offending collector.”
“Its flowers much resemble the small wild violet of the hedgerows, in size and colour more especially; the flower-stalks are, however, sometimes branched, carrying four or five flowers; and if I may be allowed to make another comparison in order to convey an idea of its form, I would mention _Pinguicula vulgaris_, the common butterwort.”
“Then had come brilliant spots and splashes of color on the summer slopes -- purple butterwort, golden ragweed, aconite, buttercup, deep crimson mossy patches of saxifrage, rosy heather, catchfly, wild geranium, cinnamon rose.”
“The order to which the butterwort and the bladderworts belong also afforded valuable results.”
“The leaf of the butterwort bears glandular hairs, and its margins curve inwards when excited by contact of various bodies, especially living insects, and, at the same time, these are caught in the viscid secretion of the glands, and their juices absorbed by the plant.”
“For he had often spent an hour in the place with the doctor, collecting buckthorn and coral-moss, curious lichens, sphagnum, and the round, and long-leaved sundews, or butterwort: for all these plants abounded here, with the bramble and bracken.”
“There is a little pink butterwort here in the bogs, which grows, too, in dear old Devonshire and Cornwall; and also in the south-west of”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘butterwort’.
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Worts and all
I have in mind the worts associated with a green thumb rather than a green beer - but as you can see by the name, I'll accept anything you have to offer.
butterwort, spiderwort, quillwort, woundwort, nipplewort, bellwort, liverwort, milkwort, water pennywort, navelwort, toothwort, wort and 128 more...
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This list is like butter
peanut butter, almond butter, butter of antimony, mineral butter, butter of arsenic, soy nut butter, apple butter, cocoa butter, butter bean, butter clam, butterfly, cacao butter and 72 more...
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Carnivorous plants
Venus flytrap, Nepenthes, pitcher plant, cobra lily, butterwort, sundew, Audrey II, waterwheel plant, bladderwort, roridula, triffid, monkey cup and 10 more...
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Hedgepiglet
Words for things both tangible and nonanthropic
rorqual, vellus, wrasse, rainbow bee-eater, tinkershire, lemonquat, boomslang, tufted vetch, cubeb, nipplefruit, madapple, wad and 447 more...
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another yet
anneal, copepod, cuckoo, fathead, intone, patter, cabriole, knickknack, boodle, kit, estrange, forebode and 209 more...
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Yet! More! Fauna
Southern Interior Pacific Coast, to be precise - common names.
sticky false asph..., sand dropseed, mat muhly, bluejoint, nodding wood-reed, cheatgrass, poor sedge, running clubmoss, knight's plume, sickle moss, electrified cat's..., flapper moss and 75 more...
Tweets
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