arbutus

noun

Etymology: From taxonomic name Arbutus, from Latin arbutus.

1. Any flowering plant in the genus Arbutus: the strawberry tree.

   “Many nights, though autumnal mists were spread around, I passed under an ilex - many times I have supped on arbutus berries and chestnuts, making a fire, gypsy-like, on the ground […]”

2. Epigaea repens, the mayflower, the trailing arbutus.

   “Ah, who is he,—on whom young men and maidens look with pitying eye? to whom the old man lifts his hat, and little children cease from their sports as he passes, and quietly slip the innocent daisy, or the sweet-scented arbutus into his hand, which they have culled from the wide commons, where, they have been told, the good Sea-flower loved to stray.”

3. Arbute; the wood of the strawberry tree.