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puya love

puya

Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See pooa.
  • noun A textile fiber yielded by the pooa.
  • noun A genus of monocotyledonous plants of the order Bromeliaceæ, unlike the rest of its tribe Pitcairnieæ in its loculicidal, not septicidal, dehiscence, and otherwise characterized by a filiform style, three-valved capsule, and numerous seeds surrounded by a wing.

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

  • noun botany Any member of the genus Puya of bromeliad plants.
  • noun A Hindu scripture.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the genus name.

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Examples

  • Skipped the guajillos to try some puya chiles ... they seem to be quite hot.

    A more precise Texas chili recipe | Homesick Texan Homesick Texan 2009

  • The picadores are dully clad in brown, their legs protected by steel armor, their stolid, fleshy heads crowned by the steel, Saturn-like helms, and they carry the cruel picas, the lance with the puya, the steel head.

    There is no such thing as a bullfight 2004

  • The picadores are dully clad in brown, their legs protected by steel armor, their stolid, fleshy heads crowned by the steel, Saturn-like helms, and they carry the cruel picas, the lance with the puya, the steel head.

    There is no such thing as a bullfight 2004

  • Some scholars believe that the term Chachapoya is a corruption of sacha puya.

    Tombs with a View 1998

  • The mountain slope had the aspect of a desert garden, with great cascades of Spanish moss, flowering stalks of puya and aloe, and cacti of many species growing alongside bunch grass, lycopodiums, and hardy orchids.

    One River Wade Davis 1996

  • The mountain slope had the aspect of a desert garden, with great cascades of Spanish moss, flowering stalks of puya and aloe, and cacti of many species growing alongside bunch grass, lycopodiums, and hardy orchids.

    One River Wade Davis 1996

  • It is said - by Alasdair Moore, of Tresco Abbey Garden, on the Isles of Scilly - that, plucked on a dewy morning - one puya flower contains a delicious nip of syrupy nectar, providing a honey espresso for the jaded gardener, as well as the busy pollinator.

    WalesOnline - Home 2011

  • We're obviously doing something right because two other species of puya are showing signs that they will also soon be in flower.

    WalesOnline - Home 2011

  • When the puya blossoms, the individual flowers can measure a couple of inches and provide a deep receptacle for the nectar that the birds, bees and even some gardeners - with due diligence to the vicious thorns - to enjoy.

    WalesOnline - Home 2011

  • The puya had never blossomed before so staff weren't sure about when the flowers would come.

    WalesOnline - Home 2011

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Comments

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  • chained_bear commented on the word puya

    "...he saw a scattered grove of what for a moment he took to be thick-stemmed palm-trees about fifteen feet high: but some of them had a great solid spike rising as much again above the palm-like crown.... The leaves were like those of an agave, fierce-pointed and with hooked thorns all along their sides: the great spike was an ordered mass of close-packed flowers, pale yellow, thousands and thousands of them. 'Mother of God,' he said. And after a while, 'It is a bromeliad.'

    'Yes, sir,' said Eduardo, delighted, proprietorial. 'We call it a puya.'"

    --P. O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, 201

    March 16, 2008