4,295 articles
Acmella
Acmella (Rich. ex Pers., 1807) is an Asteraceae genus of about 30–36 herb species in the tropics and subtropics, separated from Spilanthes by Jansen; its best-known species, A. oleracea, is the toothache plant containing spilanthol.
Acmella oleracea
Acmella oleracea (jambu, toothache plant, electric daisy; basionym Spilanthes oleracea) is an Asteraceae cultigen from southeastern Brazil whose pungent N-alkylamide spilanthol underpins culinary, medicinal, cosmetic, and insecticidal uses.
Aconitum
Aconitum (monkshood, wolfsbane, aconite), Ranunculaceae genus of 345 accepted species native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere; roots contain toxic diterpenoid alkaloids such as aconitine used medicinally after processing.
Aconitum napellus
Aconitum napellus (monkshood, wolfsbane) is a toxic Ranunculaceae perennial native to western and central Europe, containing aconitine and other diterpenoid alkaloids that cause potentially lethal cardiotoxicity and neurotoxicity.
Acorn
Acorn: the nut fruit of oaks (Quercus), one seed in a cupule; white oaks ripen in one year, red oaks in two; tannin-rich but leachable, ~4,994 kcal/kg, staple food and wildlife mast.
Acorus
Acorus (菖蒲属, Chang Pu, sweetflag) is the sole genus of Acoraceae and order Acorales, aromatic wetland monocot herbs with five accepted species including A. calamus; once placed in Araceae, used in traditional medicine and wetland water treatment.
Acorus calamus
Acorus calamus (sweet flag, calamus, flagroot) is an aromatic Acoraceae wetland plant native to Central Asia; sterile triploid cytotypes spread via rhizomes, and β-asarone in Asian forms led to food bans in North America.
Acrocomia
Acrocomia is a genus of spiny, oil-bearing palms native from Mexico to tropical and subtropical America, best known for the macaw palm, an emerging oil crop.
Acrocomia aculeata
Acrocomia aculeata (corojo, coyol, macaúba, macaw palm) is a Neotropical oil palm from southern Mexico to Brazil and the Caribbean, IUCN Least Concern, valued for oleic-rich pulp oil and lauric-rich kernel oil and studied as a bioenergy crop.
Acrostichum
Acrostichum (mangrove fern, leather fern) is a pantropical genus of four large halophytic ferns in Pteridaceae growing in brackish mangrove swamps, with A. aureum, A. danaeifolium, A. speciosum, and A. urvillei as accepted species.
Actaea (plant)
Actaea (baneberry, bugbane, cohosh) is a Ranunculaceae genus of 32 accepted species native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere; it absorbed Cimicifuga and Souliea in the 1998 Compton reclassification and includes black cohosh, used in herbal medicine.
Actaea racemosa
Actaea racemosa (black cohosh, Cimicifuga racemosa), a North American buttercup-family perennial whose rhizome is a popular menopause supplement; evidence for hot flashes is mixed, with rare liver injury reports and wild-harvesting concerns.
Actinidia
Actinidia (kiwifruit genus) is a genus of Asian climbing plants in Actinidiaceae, established by Lindley in 1836, with about 56 accepted species native from the Himalaya to the Russian Far East and Malesia, including the kiwifruit species A. chinensis and A. deliciosa.
Actinidia arguta
Actinidia arguta, hardy kiwi or kiwiberry (tara vine, sarunashi), is a cold-hardy Asian Actinidiaceae vine with smooth, grape-sized, edible-skin kiwi fruit, dioecious mostly, grown as an emerging crop and invasive in the northeastern US.
Actinidia deliciosa
Actinidia deliciosa, also called Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa or Chinese gooseberry, is the green-fleshed fuzzy kiwifruit vine native to China, commercialized in New Zealand from 1904 seeds and renamed kiwifruit in 1959.
Actinidiaceae
Actinidiaceae, the Chinese gooseberry family, is an Ericales family of three genera, Actinidia, Saurauia, and Clematoclethra, with about 350-400 species of Asian and American trees, shrubs, and lianas, including the kiwifruit.
Adansonia
Adansonia (baobab) is a genus of eight massive Malvaceae trees: A. digitata in Africa, A. gregorii in Australia, six endemic to Madagascar; genomic studies trace the origin to Madagascar about 41 million years ago.
Adansonia digitata
Adansonia digitata, the African baobab or upside-down tree, is a massive long-lived Malvaceae tree of dry Africa and Arabia; fruit pulp rich in vitamin C, over 300 traditional uses, IUCN Least Concern, Madagascar-origin genus.
Adelgidae
Adelgidae (pine aphids, spruce aphids; synonym Chermidae) is a small Aphidoidea family of about 65-70 conifer-feeding, gall-forming, cyclically parthenogenetic Hemiptera, including the hemlock and balsam woolly adelgid forest pests.
Adenium obesum
Adenium obesum, the desert rose (basionym Nerium obesum), is a semisucculent Apocynaceae shrub from West Tropical Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and Tanzania, with a swollen caudex, poisonous sap, IUCN Least Concern status, and widespread ornamental cultivation.
Adenophora
Adenophora Fisch. (ladybells) is a Campanulaceae genus of perennial herbs native from temperate Eurasia to Indo-China, defined by a nectar disk between stamens and pistils; about 68 species, revised phylogenomically in 2025. Distinct from Ageratina adenophora.
Adiantum
Adiantum, the maidenhair ferns, is a cosmopolitan fern genus in Pteridaceae with 242 accepted species, shiny black stalks, fan-shaped frond segments, and spores under reflexed false indusia.
Adiantum capillus-veneris
Adiantum capillus-veneris, the southern maidenhair or Venus-hair fern, is a cosmopolitan Pteridaceae fern with black stipes and fan-shaped leaflets, grown ornamentally and used in traditional medicine.
Adina
Adina Salisb. (水團花屬) is a genus of 12 accepted species of shrubs and small trees in Rubiaceae, tribe Naucleeae, native to tropical and subtropical Asia, with dense spherical flower heads; includes haldu (A. cordifolia) and Chinese buttonbush (A. pilulifera).
Adonis vernalis
Adonis vernalis (spring pheasant's eye, false hellebore) is a poisonous Eurasian Ranunculaceae perennial containing cardenolide cardiac glycosides, used as a cardiotonic since 1879 and now CITES-listed and endangered in parts of Europe.
Adzuki bean
Adzuki bean (azuki, 小豆, Vigna angularis var. angularis) is an East Asian grain legume grown for small red seeds used in sweet anko paste; genomic evidence dates its domestication to Jomon-period Japan 3,000–5,000 years ago.
Aechmea
Aechmea (livingvase) is a large, polyphyletic bromeliad genus (Bromeliaceae, Bromelioideae) of tank-forming rosette plants native from Mexico to tropical America, with about 255 species including the popular urn plant Aechmea fasciata.
Aechmea fasciata
Aechmea fasciata, the urn plant or silver vase, is an evergreen bromeliad from Brazil grown worldwide as a houseplant for its banded leaves and pink flower head.
Aegilops
Aegilops (goatgrass) is a genus of about 22-23 annual grasses in Poaceae, tribe Triticeae, native from Macaronesia and the Mediterranean to western Himalaya and central China, and the wild relative that donated wheat's B, G, and D genomes.
Aegilops tauschii
Aegilops tauschii (goat grass, Tausch's goatgrass) is an annual Eurasian grass, diploid DD, that hybridized with tetraploid wheat about 8,000-11,000 years ago to create bread wheat's D genome and now serves as a breeding resource.