Word.ws English Dictionary

boneseed

boneseed noun: an upright shrub in the sunflower family (Osteospermum moniliferum, syn. Chrysanthemoides monilifera), native to South Africa but is an invasive pest in Australia and New Zealand.

boneseed: an upright shrub in the sunflower family (Osteospermum moniliferum, syn. Chrysanthemoides...
Image: Nick Pitsas, CSIRO, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

boneseed (countable and uncountable, plural boneseeds)

  1. (New Zealand) An upright shrub in the sunflower family (Osteospermum moniliferum, syn. Chrysanthemoides monilifera), native to South Africa but is an invasive pest in Australia and New Zealand.
  2. (Australia) Subspecies Osteospermum moniliferum subsp. monilifera (the subspecies Osteospermum moniliferum subsp. rotundata being known there as bitou bush)

Forms of boneseed

pluralboneseeds

Origin of boneseed

From bone + seed, either directly as a description of the hard surface of the seeds, or indirectly as a calque of the name of its genus, Osteospermum, from Ancient Greek ὀστέον (ostéon, “bone”) + Ancient Greek σπέρμα (spérma, “seed”).

Words formed from boneseed

  • Buchu boneseed
  • common boneseed
  • dassie boneseed
  • dassiepee boneseed
  • fringeleaf boneseed
  • grand boneseed
  • Grootwinterhoek boneseed
  • hairy boneseed
  • jolly boneseed
  • lamb boneseed
  • limestone boneseed
  • marigold boneseed
  • miniseed boneseed
  • proud boneseed
  • pyramid boneseed
  • roundleaf boneseed (Osteospermum rotundifolium
  • St. Helena boneseed
  • sheep boneseed
  • spiny boneseed
  • stinksheep boneseed
  • stinkweed boneseed
  • stinky boneseed
  • Swartberg boneseed
  • tile boneseed
  • window boneseed
  • woolly boneseed
  • woollystalk boneseed

Questions about boneseed

What does boneseed mean?
Boneseed means an upright shrub in the sunflower family (Osteospermum moniliferum, syn. Chrysanthemoides monilifera), native to South Africa but is an invasive pest in Australia and New Zealand.
What part of speech is boneseed?
Boneseed is a noun.
What is the plural of boneseed?
The plural of boneseed is boneseeds.

Words near boneseed in the dictionary

  1. bones in the throat
  2. bones of contention
  3. bones out
  4. bones to pick
  5. bones up
  6. boneseed
  7. boneseeds
  8. boneseeker
  9. boneseekers
  10. Boneses
  11. boneset

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boneseed (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 boneseed.ogg.

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