coltsfoot

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun tufted evergreen perennial herb having spikes of tiny white flowers and glossy green round to heart-shaped leaves that become coppery to maroon or purplish in fall
noun perennial herb with large rounded leaves resembling a colt's foot and yellow flowers appearing before the leaves do; native to Europe but now nearly cosmopolitan; used medicinally especially formerly

From Middle English coltisfote, coltys fot, equivalent to colt + -s- + foot.

There was a lawn for tennis and cricket, a pond planted with irises and bulrushes, and a wild corner where crocuses and coltsfoot and golden aconite came up as they liked in the spring time. — The Luckiest Girl in the School, Angela Brazil
Sir Madoc was discoursing on the cultivation of turnips and mangold wurzels, and on the mode of extirpating annual darnel-grass, coltsfoot, wild charlock, and other mysterious plants to me unknown; and I heard him as one in a dream, when we entered the long lime avenue. — Under the Red Dragon: A Novel, James Grant
Soon tiring of looking about her, staring at the minnows and the late orange coltsfoot and white wild ranunculus, and the straw-coloured willow-leaves drooping into the water, she took out of her pocket that little brown French classic, Pharamond, and started again to accompany the French storyteller, advancing on the very tallest of stilts that storyteller ever mounted. — Girlhood and Womanhood: The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes, Sarah Tytler

galax, galaxy, wandflower, beetleweed, Galax urceolata

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