fittonia

\\fə̇tōnēə\ noun

Usage: capitalized

Etymology: New Latin, from Elizabeth and Sarah Margaret Fitton, 19th century Irish writers on botany + New Latin -ia

: a small genus of Peruvian trailing herbs (family Acanthaceae) that are cultivated as foliage plants and that have leaves with showy red or white venation and inconspicuous flowers in bracted terminal spikes

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/fi toh"nee euh/, n.

either of two plants, Fittonia gigantea or F. verschaffeltii, of the acanthus family, native to South America, having conspicuously veined leaves and often cultivated as a houseplant.

[ < NL (1865), after Sarah Mary and Elizabeth Fitton, 19th-century Irish botanical writers; see -IA]