painted lady, noun phrase

Origin:
EnglishShow more Transferred use of general English painted lady the name of a variety of carnation; see also quotation 1966.
Any of several species of gladiolus.
1906 B. Stoneman Plants & their Ways 198Gladiolus...‘Painted Ladies’ and ‘Kalkoentjies’ belong here. Eighty-one species of this large genus are found in South Africa.
1910 J. Runcie Idylls by Two Oceans 9Like the little Moederkapjes, That brushed against my knee; Like the friendly Painted Ladies, That nodded a bright ‘Good-day.’
c1911 S. Playne Cape Col. 49The well-known ‘Painted Lady’ is found chiefly on the coastal borders.
1913 D. Fairbridge Piet of Italy 77Baskets heaped with heaths and arums, ‘painted ladies,’ and white watsonias, purple iris and mountain anemones.
1917 R. Marloth Dict. of Common Names of Plants 64Painted lady, Applied to several species of Gladiolus with pink marks on the flowers, e.g., G. debilis, G. hastatus. Sometimes also G. blandus.
1933 J. Juta Look Out for Ostriches 21The large gladiolus family which boasts the pink patterned ‘painted ladies’.
1966 C.A. Smith Common Names 362Painted lady, Several species of Gladiolus of the so-called ‘blandus type’ with graceful slender stems and showy inflated flowers usually arranged in second spikes...The vernacular name is in allusion to the marking on the lower segments of the flowers.
1969 M.W. Spilhaus Doorstep-Baby 141In the Spring arum lilies and orchids and delicate gladioli, which South Africans called Painted Ladies, grow wild in the black soil.
1985 Veld & Flora Vol.71 No.4 104It (sc. the sandlelie) would ‘go native’ there just as your own bavianis [sic]..painted ladies, kalkoentjies etc. have along Australian sand dunes.
Any of several species of gladiolus.
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padrao, nounn.paint-stone, nounn.
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