ceanothus

noun

ce·​a·​no·​thus ˌsē-ə-ˈnō-thəs 

: any of a genus (Ceanothus) of American vines, shrubs, and small trees of the buckthorn family having the calyx disk adherent to the ovary

Examples of ceanothus in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Now, six years later, large amounts of ceanothus, an evergreen shrub that tortoiseshell butterfly caterpillars love to eat, have grown back. — Paul Rogers, Mercury News, 26 May 2026

Hanson, who spends much of his life crawling through underbrush to count trees, plunged ahead into stands of chest-high ceanothus, pointing out sequoias camouflaged in the pervasive post-fire brush. — Los Angeles Times, 13 Mar. 2026

Her recommendations include multiple buckwheats, including California buckwheat and Yankee Point ceanothus, an evergreen groundcover that has beautiful spring flowers. — Jeanette Marantos, Los Angeles Times, 10 Aug. 2024

There’s a California lilac — not the true syringa lilac of rhapsodic song and poetry but a ceanothus. — Los Angeles Times, 29 Mar. 2022

Aside from poppies, bush sunflowers, wooly blue curls, lupine, black sage, ceanothus and other plants are popping along trails in the Santa Monica Mountains. — Los Angeles Times, 17 Mar. 2022

Late summer brought a squadron of swallowtail butterflies that seemed to prefer feeding on the leathery leaves of ceanothus while nearby the busy skipper butterflies focused on clusters of wildflowers closer to the ground. — San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 Nov. 2020

This sale features drought-tolerant Southwestern, California native and Australian plants — including ceanothus, tecoma, manzanita and westringia — as well as cactuses, succulents, tomato and vegetable seedlings, fruit trees and herbs. — Jeanette Marantos, latimes.com, 22 Mar. 2018

Word History

Etymology

New Latin, from Greek keanōthos, a thistle

First Known Use

1785, in the meaning defined above