96 articles
Shamrock
The shamrock, also known as the three-leaf clover, is a small three-leaved plant symbolizing Ireland, most often Trifolium dubium or Trifolium repens, and one of Ireland's official State emblems.
Shea butter
Shea butter (karité) is the fat from kernels of Vitellaria paradoxa, a wild tree of the African shea belt from Senegal to Uganda. About 90% of exports feed chocolate and bakery uses as cocoa butter equivalents; the rest serves cosmetics, supporting millions of West African women producers.
Shrub
Shrub: a perennial woody plant, also called a bush, shorter than a tree with multiple stems from near ground level; no strict scientific definition exists, defined by stem number and height conventions of 12-20 feet.
Sophora
Sophora (necklacepod) is a genus of 64 accepted legume species (Fabaceae) with pinnate leaves and moniliform pods, cosmopolitan from Asia to the Pacific, originating ca. 31 Mya in Central Asia, rich in quinolizidine alkaloids.
Spartium junceum
Spartium junceum, known as Spanish broom (Spanish: retama de olor), is a shrub in the legume family, native to the Mediterranean and grown for fragrant yellow flowers but invasive elsewhere.
Starch
Starch (amylum): plant storage polysaccharide of amylose and amylopectin; over 50 million tons produced yearly from maize, rice, potatoes; used in food, paper, textiles, glucose, and bioplastics.
Stryphnodendron
Stryphnodendron (barbatimão) is a Neotropical Fabaceae genus of tannin-rich trees and suffrutices from Nicaragua to southern Brazil, split in 2022 into Stryphnodendron s.str., Gwilymia, and Naiadendron, with bark used in Brazilian folk medicine.
Stylosanthes
Stylosanthes (stylo) is a genus of about 49 tropical legume species in Fabaceae, tribe Dalbergieae, including S. guianensis, S. hamata, S. humilis, and S. scabra, widely grown as pasture, hay, and green-manure forage.
Stylosanthes guianensis
Stylosanthes guianensis (stylo, Brazilian lucerne) is a perennial tropical forage legume native to Mexico to South America, grown for ruminant feed and soil improvement; the anthracnose-tolerant accession CIAT 184 underpins cultivars such as Reyan in China.
Succulent plant
Succulent plants, or succulents, are plants that store water in leaves, stems, or roots to survive drought; the trait occurs across many plant families, mostly with water-efficient CAM photosynthesis.
Sweet pea
Sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) is a scented annual climbing legume native to Sicily and southern Italy, introduced to Britain around 1691–1699, grown for fragrant cut flowers; Grandiflora and Spencer cultivar types; toxic seeds.
Tamarind
Tamarind (Tamarindus indica, Arabic tamr hindi, "Indian date") is a Fabaceae tree native to tropical Africa and Madagascar, grown tropically for acidic pod pulp used in curries, drinks, and confectionery; India is the largest producer.
Taproot
A taproot is a large, central, dominant root growing straight down into the soil, typical of dicots such as carrot, turnip, and mesquite, while monocots have fibrous roots.
Tephrosia
Tephrosia (hoarypea) is a conserved genus of about 350-400 pantropical legumes in Fabaceae, tribe Millettieae, richest in Africa-Madagascar; many species produce rotenone and are used as fish poisons, green manure, and medicine.
Terrarium
Terrarium: a sealed or partly sealed glass container growing plants as a miniature ecosystem, also called a Wardian case after inventor Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward (1829); recycles water, needs watering only every 3-6 months.
Trifolium alexandrinum
Trifolium alexandrinum, known as berseem or Egyptian clover, is an annual forage legume grown as a winter feed crop in the Nile Valley and northern India.
Trifolium hybridum
Trifolium hybridum, alsike clover, is a short-lived perennial forage legume in Fabaceae, native from the Mediterranean to Iran, adapted to wet acidic soils, causing bloat and photosensitization, and not a red-white clover hybrid.
Trifolium pratense
Trifolium pratense (red clover, purple clover, rotklee) is a short-lived perennial forage legume in Fabaceae, native to Europe and western Asia, grown for high-protein feed and nitrogen fixation, second only to lucerne among sown forage legumes.
Trifolium repens
Trifolium repens, white or Dutch clover, is a stoloniferous perennial Fabaceae legume of Europe and the Mediterranean, grown worldwide for forage, nitrogen fixation, honey, and pollinator lawns.
Trifolium subterraneum
Trifolium subterraneum, subterranean clover or subclover, an annual Mediterranean pasture legume (Fabaceae) with three subspecies (subterraneum, yanninicum, brachycalycinum) that buries its seed pods underground, enabling self-regeneration in grazed pastures, notably in southern Australia.
Ulex
Ulex (gorse, furze, whin) is a genus of spiny, yellow-flowered Fabaceae shrubs native to western Europe and the Mediterranean, with about 15-21 species, a diploid-tetraploid-hexaploid series, and the invasive hexaploid Ulex europaeus spread across more than 50 countries.
Ulex europaeus
Ulex europaeus, known as gorse, furze, or whin, is a spiny evergreen shrub of the legume family, native to western Europe and among the world's worst invasive plants.
Vachellia
Vachellia is a pantropical genus of about 164 species of spiny trees and shrubs in the legume family, holding most former Acacia species outside Australia.
Vachellia nilotica
Vachellia nilotica, also called babul, prickly acacia, or Egyptian acacia (formerly Acacia nilotica), is a leguminous African-Asian tree used for medicine, gum, fodder, and tanning; its subspecies indica is a Weed of National Significance in Australia.
Vegetable oil
Vegetable oil: triglyceride liquid from plant seeds, nuts, or fruits (palm, soybean, canola, sunflower, olive). Refined for food, biofuels, lubricants; oxidation limits shelf life.
Vicia
Vicia (vetches) is a genus of Fabaceae legumes, 1753, about 140-251 species, temperate to tropical mountains; includes faba bean (V. faba) and forage vetches like V. sativa and V. villosa; distinguished from Lathyrus by a hairy style tuft.
Vicia cracca
Vicia cracca (bird vetch, tufted vetch, cow vetch) is a temperate Eurasian perennial legume with tendrils and purple racemes, introduced to North America as forage and a nitrogen-fixing cover crop.
Vicia faba
Vicia faba (faba bean, broad bean) is a cool-season annual grain legume of Fabaceae, 2n=12, grown for protein-rich seeds; fixes nitrogen via Rhizobium; domesticated in the Levant ~10,200 cal BP; China leads production.
Vicia sativa
Vicia sativa, common vetch or garden vetch, is a scrambling annual Fabaceae legume native from Macaronesia and North Africa to temperate Eurasia, grown for forage, grain, cover cropping, and green manure, with nitrogen-fixing root nodules and seven subspecies.
Vicia villosa
Vicia villosa (hairy vetch, winter vetch) is a Fabaceae vining legume native from the Canary Islands and Europe to Central Asia, grown as a winter annual cover crop and forage for nitrogen fixation, weed suppression, and erosion control, limited by seed dormancy and toxicity to cattle.