purau

English

Alternative forms

• purao, purow

Etymology

From Tahitian pūrau.

Noun

purau (plural puraus)

1. A Polynesian shrub or small tree, Hibiscus tiliaceus, having yellow flowers and a fibrous bark. [from 18th c.]
   • 1790, William Bligh, A Narrative of the Mutiny:

     The trees that came within our knowledge were the manchineal and a species of purow […] .

   • 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lloyd Osborne, The Wrecker, Prologue 2:

     In the whole length of the single shoreside street, with […] its grateful shade of palms and green jungle of puraos, no moving figure could be seen.

Tahitian

Noun

purau

1. cottonwood hibiscus (Talipariti tiliaceum, syn. Hibiscus tiliaceus)