toyon
Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- noun An evergreen Californian shrub (Heteromeles arbutifolia), having leathery leaves, small white flowers in large panicles, and red, fleshy, berrylike fruit. Also called Christmas berry.
Examples
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Mexicans were born here, among the smoky bouquets of the toyon shrub, made love on hills of elderberry, honeysuckle, and fistfuls of lilac fiesta flowers, married each other by a ring of deodar cedars, grew old walking the long, open fields of sage scrub and giant wild rye, and died in ancient forests of pine and eucalyptus.
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A ginko, and a California buckeye, to begin with, and in the back a bigleaf maple, a fig, and a toyon.
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Of course, we first thought of toyon Heteromeles arbutifolia, a large shrub or small tree that's also called Christmasberry or California holly - the "holly" in Hollywood.
Note
The word 'toyon' comes from Spanish.
