agrostis

See also Agrostis

English

Agrostis blasdalei

Wikipedia

Wikispecies

Etymology

From New Latin, via the genus name Agrostis.

Noun

agrostis (usually uncountable; plural agrostises)

1. Any grass of the genus Agrostis, bentgrass.
   • 1891, Katharine Prescott Wormeley, The Lily of the Valley^[1], translation of original by Honore de Balzac:

     Above, see those delicate threads of the purple amoret, with its flood of anthers that are nearly yellow; the snowy pyramids of the meadow-sweet, the green tresses of the wild oats, the slender plumes of the agrostis, which we call wind-ear; roseate hopes, decking love's earliest dream and standing forth against the gray surroundings.

   • 1894, John Muir, The Mountains of California^[2]:

     The ground is littered with fallen trunks that lie crossed and recrossed like storm-lodged wheat; and besides this close forest of pines, the rich moraine soil supports a luxuriant growth of ribbon-leaved grasses--bromus, triticum, calamagrostis, agrostis, etc., which rear their handsome spikes and panicles above your waist.

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Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἄγρωστις

Noun

agrostis

1. Couchgrass; quitch-grass.
2. (New Latin) Used as a species epithet.