Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several evergreen cycads of the genus Zamia native to southern Florida, Mexico, and the West Indies, having compound leaves, unisexual cones, and conspicuously thickened underground stems that yield an edible starch.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The Zamia integrifolia, or arrowroot-plant of Florida, the only species of the Cycadaceæ native in the United States; also, the arrowroot produced from it.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A cycadaceous plant of Florida and the West Indies, the Zamia integrifolia, from the stems of which a kind of sago is prepared.

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

  • noun Either of two arrowroots, Zamia integrifolia or Zamia floridana, cycadaceous plants of Florida and the West Indies, or the starch (sago) produced from these plants.

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

  • noun small tough woody zamia of Florida and West Indies and Cuba; roots and half-buried stems yield an arrowroot

Etymologies

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

[Florida Creek kuntí·, from earlier Creek, a species of catbrier (Smilax auriculata) whose roots were ground for use as a thickener.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Creek.

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Examples

  • Plants such as coontie, plumbago, penta, flax lily, bush daisy and the ground cover, Asian jasmine, all do well with a minimum amount of care, Liakos explained.

    StAugustine.com 2009

  • Plants such as coontie, plumbago, penta, flax lily, bush daisy and the ground cover, Asian jasmine, all do well with a minimum amount of care, Liakos explained.

    StAugustine.com 2009

  • In the front, homeowner Tammy Kovar built a hill between existing palm trees and planted an understory, layering such native plants as silvery-blue saw palmettos, paurotis palms, coontie palms and Simpson's stopper shrubs.

    Giving Up On Grass 2010

  • He had brought back a new species of orchid, several undescribed beetles, and a pocketful of coontie seed.

    In Search of the Unknown 1899

  • Zamia (coontie), a native plant, and dune sunflowers and palms give Advanced Medical Center its native splendor.

    marconews.com Stories 2010

  • Please pass my e-mail address to the woman who is concerned about her coontie plants, and I will pick up the caterpillars and put them on my coontie plants.

    South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com - South Florida Recipes 2009

  • They only lay their eggs on the coontie plant, which was almost wiped out by urban spread itself.

    Some Cranky Guy 2008

Comments

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  • (n): common name (of probable Seminole Indian origin) of the cycad Zamia floridana. The plant is also called "coontie palm'. However, since palms are angiosperms and cycads are gymnosperms, calling a coontie a palm is a misnomer. What's in a name?

    January 1, 2009

  • This name rolls trippingly off my tongue.

    September 17, 2009