226 articles
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.
Vigna
Vigna, genus of Fabaceae legumes including cowpea, mung bean, adzuki bean, and urd bean; fast-growing tropical diploid crops with 416–1,394 Mbp genomes; only about 10 of over 100 species domesticated.
Vigna mungo
Vigna mungo (black gram, urad, urd bean, mash), a Fabaceae pulse cultigen domesticated in India about 4,500 years ago from V. mungo var. silvestris; India produces over 70% of the global crop, mainly for dal.
Vigna subterranea
Vigna subterranea, Bambara groundnut, is an African annual legume (Fabaceae) with underground pods, drought tolerance, and nitrogen fixation; third most important African legume after groundnut and cowpea, origin debated between Mali and Nigeria-Cameroon.
Vine
Vine: a plant with a weak stem that climbs by twining, tendrils, adhesive pads, or adventitious roots; woody vines are lianas. Climbing occurs in over 40% of angiosperm families and was an early land plant innovation.
Wisteria
Wisteria, also called wistaria, is a genus of about five to seven deciduous twining vine species in Fabaceae, including Chinese Wisteria sinensis, Japanese W. floribunda, and native American W. frutescens, known for long fragrant flower racemes and the invasiveness of the Asian species in the US.
Wood
Wood (secondary xylem) is the structural tissue trees form via the vascular cambium; used as fuel, timber, and paper feedstock. Key facts: Kalambo Falls 476,000-year-old structure, 3,905 million m³ roundwood in 2024, orthotropic mechanics.
Zapoteca
Zapoteca (white stickpea) is a genus of about 22 species of mimosoid legume shrubs in Fabaceae, native from the southwestern USA to northern Argentina, segregated from Calliandra by 16-grained pollen polyads and chromosome number 13.