purple loosestrife

plural purple loosestrifes

1. countableuncountableA semi-aquatic herbaceous plant, Lythrum salicaria, having long spikes of purple flowers, native to Eurasia, considered invasive in North America and New Zealand.

   Purple loosestrife arrived early, shaking luxuriant tangled locks along the edge of the mirror whence its own face laughed back at it.

   1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, “The Wild Wood”, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 48

   2 more examples

   From the crest we could see the crest of the next, and upon it three bowers side by side, decked as my own had been with twined lupine, purple loosestrife, and white meadow rue.

   1987, Gene Wolfe, chapter LI, in The Urth of the New Sun, 1st US edition, New York: Tor Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 310

   They leave him upon the New Castle Road, standing among the late purple Loosestrife by the Ditch, glancing upward from time to time, waving his Arm,— then growing still, appearing to listen.

   1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 70, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 686

   Synonyms: purple lythrum, spiked loosestrife, long purples, rainbow weed