noun
candlewood of Mexico and southwestern California having tall columnar stems and bearing honey-scented creamy yellow flowers
• Syn: ↑cirio, ↑Fouquieria columnaris, ↑Idria columnaris
• Hypernyms: ↑candlewood
• Member Holonyms: ↑Fouquieria, ↑genus Fouquieria
* * *
/booh"jeuhm/
a tree, Idria columnaris, native to Baja California, having spreading spiny branches, deciduous leaves, and yellow flowers. Also called cirio.
[1960-65; after the boojum, an imaginary creature invented by Lewis Carroll in the poem The Hunting of the Snark (1876)]
Useful english dictionary. 2012.