A genus of deciduous trees known as redbuds, native to North America, Europe, and Asia, with distinctive heart-shaped leaves and purple-pink flowers.
From Greek kerkis, which originally meant 'weaver's shuttle,' but the etymological connection to the plant is uncertain—possibly referring to the seed pod shape.
Redbud trees are named Cercis because ancient Greeks thought the seed pods looked like weaver's shuttles, but today we don't really use shuttles anymore, so the name is basically a 2,000-year-old metaphor that most people don't understand.
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