cottonwood

plural cottonwoods

1. A tree from one of number of species of tree in the genus Populus (poplars), typically growing along watercourses, with fluffy catkins.

   The leaves of a small bush echoed the yellow cottonwoods that are so characteristic of the Rio Grande Valley in late fall.

   2021, Peter Cavanagh, “9. Cranes”, in 100 Flying Birds: Photographing the Mechanics of Flight, →ISBN, page 218

   2 more examples

   Between these canyons the river has a low but rather narrow flood plain, with cottonwood groves scattered here and there, and a chaparral of mesquite bearing beans and thorns.

   1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 20

   […] and through the middle of this forest, from wall to wall, ran a winding line of brilliant green which marked the course of cottonwoods and willows.

   1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 8, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC

2. Populus sect. Aigeiros, a taxonomic section of the poplar genus
3. A cottonwood hibiscus (Talipariti tiliaceum, syn. Hibiscus tiliaceus), a flowering shrub or tree in the mallow family.
4. A tree of species Ceiba pentandra, native to the American tropics and west Africa; silk-cotton tree.

   There is no break in the trees. That is the wonder and the mystery of it. There where you see light-green rushes instead of dark-green undergrowth, there between the great cotton woods, that is my private gate into the unknown.

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

5. Several species of trees endemic to New Zealand.

1. A surname.
2. A number of places in the United States:
   1. A town in Houston County, Alabama.
   2. A city in Yavapai County, Arizona.
   3. A census-designated place in Shasta County, California.
   4. A ghost town in Yolo County, California.
   5. A former census-designated place and unincorporated community in Douglas County, Colorado, mostly now incorporated into the town of Parker.
   6. An unincorporated community in Fayetteville, Fayette County, Georgia.
   7. A city in Idaho County, Idaho.
   8. A city in Lyon County, Minnesota.
   9. A small unincorporated community in Coal County, Oklahoma.
   10. An unincorporated community in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma.
   11. A tiny town in Jackson County, South Dakota.
   12. An unincorporated community in Callahan County, Texas.
   13. A city in Kaufman County, Texas.