tacsonia

English

Etymology

From the now-obsolete genus name Tacsonia, based on tacso, the name of the plant in a native Peruvian language.

Noun

tacsonia (plural tacsonias)

1. Any of various passionfruit species, genus Passiflora, having elongated calyxes.
   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Outlying Pickets of the New World”, in The Lost World […], London, New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC, page 114:

     Vivid orchids and wonderful colored lichens smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and where a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda, the scarlet star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of ipomæa, the effect was as a dream of fairyland.

Anagrams

• acontias