Liatris punctata vs gay-feather

Liatris punctata and gay-feather both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
Liatris punctata	Yes	No	No	No
gay-feather	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, gay-feather is a hypernym of Liatris punctata; that is, gay-feather is a word with a broader meaning than Liatris punctata:

Liatris punctata: herb with many stems bearing narrow slender wands of crowded rose-lavender flowers; central United States and Canada to Texas and northern Mexico
gay-feather: any of various North American plants of the genus Liatris having racemes or panicles of small discoid flower heads

Other hypernyms of Liatris punctata include blazing star, button snakeroot, gayfeather, snakeroot.

Liatris punctata (noun)	gay-feather (noun)
herb with many stems bearing narrow slender wands of crowded rose-lavender flowers; central United States and Canada to Texas and northern Mexico	any of various North American plants of the genus Liatris having racemes or panicles of small discoid flower heads