Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In botany, a genus of orchids, consisting of a single species, A. bulbosa, a small swamp-plant of North America, with a handsome rosy-purple sweet-scented flower terminating a sheathed scape.
  • noun In zoology: A genus of acalephs. A genus of mollusks. Montfort, 1808. A genus of reptiles. Duméril and Bibron, 1840. A genus of crustaceans.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several bog orchids, of the genus Arethusa, having a magenta flower; the swamp pink

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of several bog orchids of the genus Arethusa having 1 or 2 showy flowers

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Arethusa.]

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Examples

  • Rare species encountered at the Reserve have included bald eagles, least terns, peregrine falcons, piping plovers, slender blue flag iris, and arethusa orchid.

    Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, Maine 2007

  • Below this was a swamp surrounded by a luxuriant growth of asters of every hue, and white and pink spirea and golden rod, and blue iris, and the delicate, rose-colored arethusa, and the blue fringed gentian abounded on every hand; also shrubs of the bayberry, wild rose and sweet brier, with many beautiful ferns.

    Peak's Island A Romance of Buccaneer Days Anna W. Ford Piper

  • When June comes, -- when the clethra is heaped with its bee-beloved blossoms, and the grass is green and bright as never again in the year, then the arethusa is to be sought.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 27, January, 1860 Various

  • But with June comes the most exquisite of our New England wild-flowers, the arethusa, or swamp-pink, as it is often styled, to the great confusion of its delicate, high-born nature with the great, vulgar, flaunting azalea.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 27, January, 1860 Various

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