Gladious alatus
I was wrong when I thought we had wrapped up the ‘A’s last week — I came up with a few more. Alatus, Armata and Acantha.
Alatus – Alatus is the ancient Greek word for “to take flight”, or “to look beyond” and it generally refers to a winged quality. In the ubiquitous Euonymous alatus, (Burning bush) it refers to the identifiable winged shape of the stems. In the Gladiolus Alatus the winged quality surely refers to the flower.
click through to learn about Armata and Acantha.
Acacia armata
Armata and Acantha have very similar meanings. Armata literally means ‘armed’ and generally refers to have thorns of Prickles. The Acacia armata (Mimosa Tree) is a very pretty example of and aptly named ‘armata’ plant.
Acantha means ‘having thorns’. For example Pyracantha – pyr means ‘fire’ and acantha means ‘thorn’ — so now you might think of it as Fire-thorn Bush. The Acanthus species (above) is a very interesting collection of about 30 plants that all share a unique spiny leaf as well as the deeply cut stacked flower. The acanthus is one of the most common plant forms to make foliage ornament and decoration (like this Corinthian capital)
Make sure you check out more plants in each of these catagories at my Latin Plant Pin boards on Pinterest:
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