lawyer

lawyers (plural)
lawer (alternative obsolete)

Tok Pisin: loya

→ Malay: loyar

→ Maori: rōia

→ Unami: (from the plural) lòyès

→ Yiddish: לויער (loyer)

→ Yoruba: lọ́yà

From Middle English lawiere, lawier, lawer, equivalent to law + -yer.

Besides the bags and nets common throughout the continent, these tribes have water-bags, which they make of closely-plaited “lawyer” (Calamus Australis), and also of palm-leaf sewn with the sinews of animals.

1886, Edward Micklethwaite Curr, The Australian Race, page 427:

The nest was a foot or two from the ground, and placed in a bunch of lawyer (Calamus ) canes.

1901, Archibald James Campbell, Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, page 267:

This lawyer (Calamus australis) is a climbing palm, throwing up shoots from its roots as thick as a man's finger and tough as wire, covered with sharp spines, and bearing much divided leaves, alternating with tendrils twenty feel long.

1905, W. J. Gordon, “Jackey Jackey”, in The Boy's Own Annual, volume 28, page 318:

They were usually very neatly laid out under arching masses of the exasperating lawyer-palm vines ( Calamus moti and C. australis ), and consequently not too easy to examine.

1910 October, Sidney Wm. Jackson, “Additional Notes on Tooth-billed Bower-Bird (Scenopaeetes dentirostris) of North Queensland”, in The Emu: Official Organ of the Australasian Ornithologists' Union, volume 10, page 84:

Lawyer Vine (Calamus muelleri), also known as Hairy Mary and Wait-a-while, is actually a palm, that grows in long canes that loop and snake through the undergrowth.

2014, Germaine Greer, White Beech: The Rainforest Years, page 171:

The trail of the lawyer vine (CALAMUS OBSTRUENS), with its leaf sheath and long tentacles bristling with incurved hooks, is over it all.

2022, E. J. Banfield, The Confessions of a Beachcomber:

Any of various plants that have hooked thorns.

Various species of Calamus, including Calamus australis, Calamus muelleri, Calamus obstruens, Calamus vitiensis, Calamus warburgii, and Calamus moti.


spiderwort

One morning she had me traipsing out at the crack of dawn for prickly poppy, toadflax, spiderwort, and skeleton weed. If that doesn't sound like the makings of a witch's brew, then I'm the queen of England.

2010, Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest:

A perennial plant of the Tradescantia genus, found in clumps in woodland and meadow.


cat's-paw

en-noun

cat's-paw (plural cat's-paws or cats'-paws)

cat's-paws (plural)
cats'-paws (plural)
cat's paw (alternative)
catspaw (alternative)

From cat + paw. In most senses, due to a resemblance of shape. In its senses as a pawn to another's interests or analysis, variant of earlier cat's-foot, derived from European tales of a monkey (attested as early as 1456 but sometimes misattributed to the 16th-century monkey of Pope Julius II) who used a sleeping puppy or cat's foot to rake hot chestnuts out of a fire, taken as a metaphor for rulers' ill use of their subjects. Now usually understood in light of Jean de La Fontaine's 1679 fable of the "The Monkey and the Cat" (sometimes misattributed to Aesop), in which the monkey fools the cat into removing the chestnuts through flattery and promises of shared reward. The cat removes the chestnuts one by one, burning his paw while the monkey eats each in turn. A maid then enters and chases them both away. La Fontaine's moral concludes that princes should not endure real losses for mere flattery from their king.

an unrelated metaphor from a separate story

pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire

Any of several species of Australian bloodworts of the genus Anigozanthos, especially A. humilis.


bulrush

bulrushes (plural)
bullrush (alternative)

From Middle English bulrish, perhaps from bule (“bull”) (in the sense of "large") + rish (“rush”).

Cyperus papyrus
Cyperus papyrus#Translingual

(biblical) A plant referred to in the story of Moses as growing along the banks of the Nile, which is believed to be the papyrus (Cyperus papyrus).

Any of various tall, narrow-leaved plants growing near water, especially cattail or reedmace, in the genus Typha.

(Americas) Sedges in the genera Bolboschoenus or Schoenoplectus (formerly considered Scirpus), having clusters of spikelets.

Explorers Eyre, Kreft, and George Moore all refer to the importance of bulrush starch in different parts of the continent.

2018, Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu, Scribe, published 2020, page 56:

(Australia) Any of various reed-like plants growing near water, especially Typha domingensis and Typha orientalis; cumbungi, wonga.


xyrid

From Latin xyris (“iris”) (see Xyris) + -id.

Its family, Xyridaceae, is closely allied to the lilies: xyrids have three stamens, while lilies generally have six.

1987, Elizabeth Conebere, Wildflowers of south-eastern Australia, page 48:

These four subdivisions correspond to groups sometimes referred to as the cyperids, xyrids, restiids and graminids, respectively (Linder and Rudall, 2005), except that Hydatellaceae was originally included among the xyrids, and since has been removed from the monocots (Saarela et al., 2007).

2013, Paul Wilkin, Early Events in Monocot Evolution, page 318:

Any of several North American plants, of the genus Xyris, resembling sedges.


cattail

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-cattail.wav

From Middle English cattal, cattyle (also as cattestail), equivalent to cat + tail.

(US, historically, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire) Any of several perennial herbs, of the genus Typha, that have long flat leaves, and grow in marshy places.

بُرْدِيّ

any of several perennial herbs of the genus Typha


restio

Restios can be found in virtually all habitats of the fynbos, from sandy plains to mountain summits and from very dry places to seasonally wet or to permanent marshes.

2012, Els Dorrat-Haaksma, H. Peter Linder, Restios of the Fynbos, →ISBN, page 14:

(botany) Any member of the family Restionaceae of perennial, evergreen, rush-like flowering plants native to the Southern Hemisphere.

(botany) In particular, any member of the genus Restio of the family Restionaceae


kangaroo paw

Named for the shape of the unopened flower (lower left in picture), which resembles the paws of a kangaroo.

Spring flowers everywhere—freesias in throng, and startling growths of kangaroo paw with its dark red, vividly red stalks.

1984, Helen Garner, Yellow Notebook: Diaries 1978-1987, Text Publishing, published 2022, page 118:

Any of various perennial flowering plants of the family Haemodoraceae, endemic to the south-west of Western Australia.


pickerelweed

(US) Any of several freshwater plants, of the genus Pontederia, that have heart-shaped leaves


dayflower

Any of several plants, of the genus Commelina, whose flowers last only a day

Benghal dayflower Commelina benghalensis


pipewort

Any of several aquatic plants of the genus Eriocaulon.


yellow-eyed grass

yellow-eyed grass (plural yellow-eyed grasses)


oyster plant

Tradescantia spathacea (formerly Tradescantia discolor) (oyster herb, boatlily, Moses in a basket, cradle lily, Moses in his cradle, Moses on a raft, Moses in the bulrushes, men in a boat, Moses-in-cradle, salsify)


xyris

(botany) Any member of the plant genus Xyris.


bloodwort

bloodwort (usually uncountable, plural bloodworts)

From blood + wort. Compare German Blutwurz, Swedish blodrot, both “tormentil”.

Any of various plants with red roots or leaves.

Any of family Haemodoraceae, flowering plants some of whose roots contain a red dye.


redroot

Sanguinaria canadensis
Sanguinaria canadensis#Translingual

Any of several plants with red roots, such as the New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus), the gromwell (Lithospermum arvense), the bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), and Lachnanthes caroliniana .


reedmace

reedmaces (plural)
reed-mace (alternative)


commelinid

(botany) Any member of the subclass Commelinidae of grasses, rushes, sedges and similar plants, or of the clade commelinids.


zebrina

The plants are equally attractive when different-colored zebrinas are trained on a fan-shaped or rectangular trellis. The rose-colored flowers, of which new ones blossom each morning, add to the attractiveness of this viny, succulent herb.

2012, A. J. Oakes, Ornamental Grasses and Grasslike Plants, page 462:

Tradescantia zebrina
Tradescantia zebrina#Translingual

The flowering plant Tradescantia zebrina (formerly Zebrina pendula), a species of spiderwort.


tradescantia

(botany) Any of the genus Tradescantia of spiderworts.


roseling

An herb of the spiderwort family, genus Callisia.


water hyacinth

মেটেকা

aquatic flowering plant of the genus Eichhornia

Any of the genus Pontederia (syn. Eichhornia) of aquatic flowering plants.

especially common water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes, syn. Eichhornia crassipes), a problematic invasive plant that clogs waterways in warm temperate and subtropical regions worldwide.


wandering Jew

The plant's name is derived from the figure of the Wandering Jew, presumably at least partly from the tendency of those plants to spread through a garden (i.e. wander).

GCN needs donations of plants to hang in its windows...Should be plants that like a bright but sunless northern exposure...plants that are happy hanging too; like ivies, wandering jews, spider plants, philodendrons, mother-of-thousands, what have you?? Cuttings O.K., need pots and a sprayer also.

1974 April 13, “Untitled”, in Gay Community News, page 3:

Any plant of three species of spiderworts, Tradescantia pallida, Tradescantia fluminensis, and Tradescantia zebrina.


pickerel weed

pickerel weeds (plural)
pickerelweed (alternative)

Any of the genus Pontederia of tristylous aquatic plants with large waxy leaves, succulent stems, and a thick pad of fibrous roots.


bur-reed

From bur (“prickly husk of a small seed”) + reed (“type of tall, thin grass”).

com

A group (genus Sparganium) of widespread flowering perennial marsh plants widespread in wet areas in temperate regions.


sparganium

(botany) Any of the plants of the genus Sparganium.


fox's foot

From Middle English foxesfot, from Old English foxes fōt, equivalent to fox's + foot.

A type of bur-reed (Sparganium simplex) native to North America and Eurasia.

Synonym of cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata)


palmiet

The climate is very salubrious; that of the village, from its situation, very changeable, the N. E. wind creating at times oppressive heat, whilst the condensation of moisture by the palmiet growing in the valley, which extends through the village, renders it desirable that it should be cleared. The palmiet would then make way for luxuriant crops, the soil being purely alluvial.

1845, The Cape of Good Hope Almanac and Annual Register, page 258:

At some distance by the river was a great brute, bigger than a Newfoundland dog, stalking along with the hideous baboon walk, and tail vehemently cocked up; a troop followed at a distance, hiding and dodging among the palmiets.

1864, [Lucie,] Lady Duff-Gordon, “Letters from the Cape”, in Francis Galton, editor, Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel in 1862-3, London, Cambridge: Macmillan and Co., page 194:

The reserve lies near the northern limit of the distribution of Prionium serratum – a palmiet that resembles a dwarf palm.

2017, Willie Olivier, Hiking Trails of South Africa, 4th edition, Struik Travel & Heritage, →ISBN:

A South African flowering plant, Prionium serratum.


cumbungi

Behind the dune, native bullrush or cumbungi is still growing and was a rich resource for local aborigines. Its big rhizome provides starch used to make bread while its young shoots could be eaten fresh.

2014 January 10, Gabrielle Chan, “Deserted beaches hide evidence of thousands of years of Aboriginal history”, in The Guardian:

Mitchell said that the cakes made from the cumbungi flour ‘were lighter and sweeter than those made from common flour’.

(Australia) Any of several Australian perennial herbs of the genus Typha, especially Typha domingensis and Typha orientalis.


turtle vine

A creeping succulent of the spiderwort family (Callisia repens).


basket plant

A leafy herb of species Callisia fragrans, of the spiderwort family, native to Mexico, and often cultivated as a houseplant.


blue ginger

en-noun

blue ginger (countable and uncountable, plural blue gingers)