manita

/məˈniːtə/

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish manita (“little hand”), feminine-form diminutive of mano (“hand”), because the small red flowers of the tree resemble five-fingered human hands.

noun

  1. The tree Chiranthodendron pentadactylon, or the red, hand-like flower this tree produces.“[…] The manita tree,* so named from the singular formation of its flower, a drawing of which is placed as the frontispiece of this book, is a species of plant almost unknown in the catalogues of botanists. Manita means a little hand.”