226 articles
Saraca
Saraca L. (ashoka, Jonesia) is a genus of about 12 Asian legume trees and shrubs in Fabaceae subfamily Detarioideae, petal-less flowers with petaloid yellow-to-red calyx, ranging from India to Sulawesi; S. asoca is a vulnerable Ayurvedic medicinal tree.
Saraca asoca (सरका अशोक)
Saraca asoca (सरका अशोक), the ashoka tree, Fabaceae, is a vulnerable evergreen medicinal tree of South Asia whose bark is used in Ayurveda for gynecological disorders; wild Western Ghats populations are fragmented and overexploited.
Schizolobium parahyba
Schizolobium parahyba (guapuruvu, paricá, Brazilian firetree) is a fast-growing Fabaceae pioneer tree from S. Mexico to S. Tropical America, with very light wood, golden flowers, and invasive behavior outside its native forest.
Seedless fruit
Seedless fruit develops without mature seeds via parthenocarpy (fruit set without fertilization) or stenospermocarpy (seed abortion after fertilization), as in seedless grapes, bananas, citrus, and watermelon, controlled by auxin, gibberellin, and cytokinin.
Self-pollination
Self-pollination (autogamy, geitonogamy, cleistogamy) is pollen transfer within a flower or between flowers of the same plant, enabling self-fertilization; the most common evolutionary transition in flowering plants, favored by reproductive assurance and transmission advantage but limited by inbreeding depression.
Senegalia senegal
Senegalia senegal (gum arabic tree, formerly Acacia senegal) is a nitrogen-fixing Sahelian acacia supplying about 90% of traded gum arabic, formed schizogenously in inner secondary phloem and harvested after dry-season tapping.
Senna (plant)
Senna (plant genus, formerly in Cassia; senna, Senna alexandrina): a Fabaceae, Caesalpinioideae genus of about 300–350 pantropical species with yellow flowers, apical-pore anthers, and laxative drug uses.
Senna alexandrina
Senna alexandrina (Cassia senna, Cassia angustifolia; Alexandrian, Indian, or Tinnevelly senna) is a Fabaceae shrub whose sennoside-rich leaves and pods are stimulant laxatives for constipation, with grade A evidence and EU herbal monographs.
Sesbania grandiflora
Sesbania grandiflora, known as agati or vegetable hummingbird, is a fast-growing legume tree native to Malesia and New Guinea, cultivated across the tropics for food, forage, and medicine.
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.