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calabash |
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.28 sec. |
calabashTree (Crescentia cujete) of the trumpet-creeper family (Bignoniaceae) that grows in Central and South America, the West Indies, and extreme southern Florida. It is often grown as an ornamental. It produces large spherical fruits, the hard shells of which are useful as bowls, cups, and other water containers when hollowed out. The fruit's shell encloses a whitish pulp and thin, dark brown seeds. The tree bears funnel-shaped, light green and purple-streaked flowers and evergreen leaves. Fruits of the unrelated bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) are also known as calabashes. calabash 1. a tropical American evergreen tree, Crescentia cujete, that produces large round gourds: family Bignoniaceae 2. another name for the bottle gourd 3. the gourd of either of these plants 4. the dried hollow shell of a gourd used as the bowl of a tobacco pipe, a bottle, rattle, etc. 5. calabash nutmeg a tropical African shrub, Monodora myristica, whose oily aromatic seeds can be used as nutmegs: family Annonaceae How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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He caught up a coconut calabash attached to the end of a stick of bamboo, dipped into the greenery of ferns, and presented to Jerry the calabash brimming with the precious water. Immediately the attentive chief addressed a few words to one of the crowd, who disappeared, and returned in a few moments with a calabash of 'poee-poee', and two or three young cocoanuts stripped of their husks, and with their shells partly broken. The people of his island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held. |
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