299 articles
Galium aparine
Galium aparine, cleavers or catchweed bedstraw (stickywilly), is a hooked-hair annual climbing herb of Rubiaceae, a widespread temperate weed of crops and gardens with bur-like fruits, edible and folk-medicinal uses, and invasive status in Argentina.
Galium mollugo
Galium mollugo (smooth bedstraw, hedge bedstraw, false baby's breath), a perennial Rubiaceae herb native to Europe to Siberia and North Africa, invasive in North American hayfields and pastures, regulated as a Canadian Secondary Noxious weed seed.
Galium odoratum
Galium odoratum (sweet woodruff, Waldmeister), a Rubiaceae perennial of temperate Eurasia, is a shade ground cover with whorled leaves and coumarin-scented dried foliage used to flavor German May wine.
Galium verum
Galium verum (lady's bedstraw), perennial Rubiaceae herb of temperate Eurasia and NW Africa; type species of Galium, golden-yellow flowers, whorled leaves, traditional dye, milk-coagulation, and diuretic uses.
Gardenia
Gardenia, a genus of about 120 accepted species of fragrant shrubs in Rubiaceae named for Alexander Garden; best known species Gardenia jasminoides, source of gardenia yellow colorant.
Gardenia jasminoides
Gardenia jasminoides (Cape jasmine), a Rubiaceae shrub native from the East Himalaya to China, Indo-China, and Japan, grown for fragrant flowers; its dried fruit Zhizi yields crocins and iridoid glycosides used in traditional Chinese medicine and as a yellow colorant.
Gentiana
Gentiana (gentians) is the largest genus of Gentianaceae, 347-400+ species of blue-flowered herbs of temperate and alpine regions; source of gentian root bitters and iridoid, xanthone, and flavonoid phytochemicals.
Gentiana lutea
Gentiana lutea, yellow gentian or bitterwort, a perennial European mountain herb whose bitter root (Gentianae radix) is used for appetite and digestive complaints, in bitters, and protected under EU Habitats Directive Annex V.
Gentianaceae
Gentianaceae (gentian family), cosmopolitan Gentianales family of about 100 genera and 1,700 species, mostly herbs with tubular contorted corollas, superior ovaries, seco-iridoids, and xanthones; includes Gentiana and Gentianella.
Gentianales
Gentianales (synonym Rubiales), an angiosperm order of lamiid eudicots named by Jussieu ex Berchtold & Presl in 1820, contains five families, Apocynaceae, Gelsemiaceae, Gentianaceae, Loganiaceae, and Rubiaceae, with about 1,200 genera and 20,000 species including coffee and gentians.
Gesneriaceae
Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a largely tropical Lamiales family of about 150 genera and over 3500 species, defined by pair-flowered cymes; includes African violet, gloxinia, and Streptocarpus.
Ghost pepper
Ghost pepper, also called Bhut Jolokia or Naga Jolokia, is a northeast Indian chili hybrid of C. chinense and C. frutescens measuring 855,000–1,041,427 SHU; Guinness hottest-pepper record holder in 2007 for four years.
Glechoma
Glechoma (Lamiaceae) is a genus of stoloniferous perennial herbs native to temperate Eurasia, with four to eight species including ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), a tetraploid (2n=36) lawn weed introduced to North America.
Glechoma hederacea
Glechoma hederacea, ground ivy or creeping Charlie, is a creeping perennial mint native to Europe and Siberia, introduced to North America by 1672, toxic to horses, and a hard-to-control lawn weed.
Gmelina arborea
Gmelina arborea (gamhar, yemane, white teak), Lamiaceae tree native Pakistan to southern China and Indo-China; fast-growing tropical plantation timber comparable to spruce, also pulp, fuel, and Ayurvedic medicine; IUCN Least Concern.
Gymnema sylvestre
Gymnema sylvestre (gurmar), an Apocynaceae liana native to the Old World tropics; its gymnemic acids block the human sweet receptor T1R2+T1R3 for 30-60 minutes and it is studied, so far in low-quality trials, for blood glucose lowering.
Heliotropium arborescens
Heliotropium arborescens, garden heliotrope or cherry pie plant (syn. H. peruvianum), is a Boraginaceae subshrub native to Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru, grown for vanilla-scented purple flowers; toxic via pyrrolizidine alkaloids.
History of the potato
History of the potato (Solanum tuberosum): Andean domestication ~10,000 years ago, sixteenth-century Spanish introduction to Europe, Chilean subspecies adoption, the Great Irish Famine, demographic effects, and modern genome-based breeding.
Houstonia caerulea
Houstonia caerulea, the azure bluet or Quaker ladies, is a small wildflower of the madder family native to eastern North America, with pale blue, four-lobed spring flowers.
Hydrophyllaceae
Hydrophyllaceae R.Br., the waterleaf family, is a Boraginales family of about 12 genera and 250 species centered in western North America; APG IV merges it into Boraginaceae, while Luebert et al. 2016 recognize it.
Hyoscyamus niger
Hyoscyamus niger (black henbane, stinking nightshade, tian xian zi) is a poisonous Solanaceae herb native from the Mediterranean to Iran, containing the tropane alkaloids hyoscyamine and scopolamine, used since antiquity as a sedative and analgesic.
Hyssopus officinalis
Hyssopus officinalis (hyssop), Mediterranean mint-family herb with blue-violet flowers; culinary flavoring and Chartreuse ingredient; pinocamphone-containing essential oil is convulsant; one asthma trial.
Icacinaceae
Icacinaceae Miers (1851), a pantropical family of woody flowering plants in Icacinales; trees, shrubs, and lianas with unilocular ovaries and two pendulous ovules, split from a polyphyletic circumscription into Icacinaceae s.s., Stemonuraceae, Cardiopteridaceae, and Pennantiaceae.
Ipomoea
Ipomoea (morning glories) is the largest genus of Convolvulaceae, about 800 pantropical species published by Linnaeus in 1753, including sweet potato (I. batatas), water spinach, and ornamental morning glories.
Ipomoea alba
Ipomoea alba, the moonflower (also moonvine, tropical white morning glory), is a night-blooming Convolvulaceae vine native to tropical and subtropical America, with fragrant white flowers 11–16 cm wide that open at dusk; IUCN Least Concern.
Ipomoea aquatica
Ipomoea aquatica (water spinach, kangkong, Ong Tsoi) is a tropical Convolvulaceae herb with floating, node-rooting stems, grown as a leafy vegetable yielding 40-60 t/ha, yet a prohibited noxious weed in Florida.
Ipomoea purga
Ipomoea purga (jalap, raíz de jalapa), a Mexican tuberous morning glory of Veracruz mountains, source of the purgative drug jalap; resin glycosides, purgic acids A and B.
Ipomoea tricolor
Ipomoea tricolor, or grannyvine, is a climbing Mexican morning-glory in the Convolvulaceae, cultivated for its large funnel-shaped blue to violet flowers with a yellowish throat.
Ipomoea triloba
Ipomoea triloba (little bell, trilobed morning glory), a Convolvulaceae vine native from Mexico to Brazil and the Caribbean, naturalized as a tropical weed, prohibited in Florida, with lilac 1–2 cm flowers and three-lobed leaves.
Isodon
Isodon (Benth.) Schrad. ex Spach, formerly Rabdosia, is a Lamiaceae genus of about 116-150 perennial herb species native to the tropical and subtropical Old World, rich in ent-kaurane diterpenoids such as oridonin used in Chinese and Japanese medicine.