burnweed
burnweed noun: any of the flowering plants of the genus Erechtites.
Noun
burnweed (usually uncountable, plural burnweeds)
- Any of the flowering plants of the genus Erechtites.
- The herb cover is very open to semiclosed, and is dominated by rough cinquefoil (Potentilla norvegica*), reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea), marsh skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora), American burnweed (Erechtites hieraciifolia), annual fleabane (Erigeron annuus subsp. annuus) and others.1989, I. D. Macdonald, A Biological inventory and evaluation of the Oriskany Sandstone and Woodlands area of natural and scientific interest, Toronto Ministry of Natural Resources, page 62
- There are also warnings of alkaloids, which burnweed contains. Eaten in sufficient quantity (but no one can tell us what that is), the plant could potentially cause harm – a warning never to ignore.2018 July 31, Marie Viljoen, “American Burnweed”, in Forage, Harvest, Feast: A Wild Inspired Cuisine, page 17
- Synonyms:
- fireweed
Synonyms of burnweed
Forms of burnweed
| plural | burnweeds |
|---|
Origin of burnweed
From burn + weed, describing its rapid proliferation in areas which have recently been cleared by fire.
Questions about burnweed
- What does burnweed mean?
- Burnweed means any of the flowering plants of the genus Erechtites.
- What part of speech is burnweed?
- Burnweed is a noun.
- What is the plural of burnweed?
- The plural of burnweed is burnweeds.
Words near burnweed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: burnweed (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:
Cite this entry: “burnweed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/burnweed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.