agapanthus

plural agapanthuses · plural agapanthi

1. Any member of the genus Agapanthus of flowering plants.

   Seferis, who was just back from Africa after years abroad, seemed to gaze at us between the agapanthi and jacarandas.

   1995, Odysseas Elytis, translated by Olga Broumas and T. Begley, “Chronicle of a Decade”, in Open Papers: Selected Essays, Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon Press, →ISBN, page 117

   4 more examples

   Agapanthi and hydrangeas bloom on brown-stone front steps, and an occasional elm wears majestically its century of age, and extends its kindly and dignified protection to the emerald-turfed croquet ground nestling at its feet.

   1881, Christabel Goldsmith [pseudonym; Fannie N. Smith], “The Transcendentalist”, in Peace Pelican, Spinster. A Love Story., New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] W[ashington] Carleton & Co.; London: S[ampson] Low, Son & Co., →OCLC, page 25

   Even the succulent blue lilies—a variety of the agapanthus which is so familiar to us in English greenhouses—hung their long trumpet-shaped flowers and looked oppressed and miserable, beneath the burning breath of the hot wind which had been blowing for hours like the draught from a volcano.

   1887, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “John has an Adventure”, in Jess, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 1

   Here in their season grow the blue agapanthus, the wild watsonia, and the red-hot poker, and now and then it happens that one may glimpse an arum in a dell.

   1948, Alan Paton, chapter 3, in Cry, the Beloved Country, New York: Scribner, page 11

   Peregrina chatted with animation about the flowers she would sow around it, azaleas, lilies, agapanthi, and the vegetables she could plant in the open spaces, and enough garlic to make the earth smell like broth.

   1997, Katherine Vaz, part IV, in Mariana, London: Flamingo, HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, page 272