gum cistus

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English[edit]

Noun[edit]

gum cistus (plural gum cistuses)

  1. Any of those flowering plants in the genus Cistus that yield resin, especially Cistus ladanifer.
    • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Romance and Reality. [], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, [], →OCLC, page 339:
      The plain where he was riding was one immense thicket of the gum cistus, whose frail white leaves, just veined with the faintest pink, fell in showers at the least movement of the passer-by. What a prodigality of blossom!—for the gum cistus, born and withered in an hour, is the most ephemeral of flowers.