881 articles
Ficus sycomorus
Ficus sycomorus (sycamore fig, Egyptian sycamore), Moraceae, a large African riverine fig tree pollinated by Ceratosolen arabicus; seedless and human-propagated in Egypt and the Middle East; sacred in ancient Egypt; IUCN Least Concern.
Fig
Fig (Ficus carica), the common fig of the mulberry family, an edible syconium fruit. Four types (Caprifig, Smyrna, San Pedro, Common); common types are parthenocarpic, needing no fig wasp pollination; Turkey leads production.
Filipendula
Filipendula (meadowsweet, dropwort), a Rosaceae genus of about 10–15 perennial herbs of the temperate Northern Hemisphere; basal genus of Rosoideae, diverging about 82.88 Ma; includes medicinal F. ulmaria.
Flax
Flax (Linum usitatissimum, from wild L. bienne) is a founder crop grown for linen fibre and linseed. Fibre types are tall and unbranched, oil types short and branched; seeds hold 40-45% oil, over 50% linolenic acid, and flax is the richest known lignan source.
Four-leaf clover
Four-leaf clover: a rare four-leaflet variant of normally trifoliate clover, mostly white clover (Trifolium repens); recessive trait plus environment, found about 1 in 5,000, a luck symbol.
Fragaria vesca
Fragaria vesca, woodland or wild strawberry, alpine strawberry, is a diploid Rosaceae perennial herb with 240 Mb genome, reference genome for Fragaria, and diploid progenitor of cultivated Fragaria × ananassa.
Frangula alnus
Frangula alnus (alder buckthorn, glossy buckthorn; syn. Rhamnus frangula), a Rhamnaceae shrub native from Europe to Central Siberia and NW Africa, used for laxative bark and gunpowder charcoal, and a highly invasive North American weed.
Frankincense
Frankincense, also called olibanum, is the aromatic gum resin tapped from Boswellia trees in Arabia, Africa, and India, burned as incense since antiquity and traded across the ancient Mediterranean world.
Fred the Tree
Fred the Tree is an Australian pine (Casuarina) growing out of the roadbed of the abandoned Old Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys, a celebrated local landmark.
Fuchsia
Fuchsia, genus of about 108 flowering plant species in Onagraceae, native from Mexico to tropical South America, New Zealand, and Tahiti; named by Plumier after Leonhart Fuchs; known for pendulous two-tone flowers, edible berries, and thousands of garden hybrids.
Gametophyte
Gametophyte: the haploid, gamete-producing multicellular generation of plants, alternating with the diploid sporophyte. Dominant in bryophytes, independent in ferns and lycophytes, reduced to a few cells in seed plants such as pollen.
Ganja
Ganja: Hindi/Sanskrit term for cannabis, specifically dried female flower tops; brought to Jamaica by Indian indentured laborers in 1845, sacred to Rastafari, decriminalized there in 2015.
Garcia
Garcia (Vahl ex Rohr, 1792) is a two-species genus of Euphorbiaceae shrubs and trees native from Mexico to Brazil, including Garcia nutans (false tungoiltree), whose oil-rich seeds are used medicinally and studied as a drying oil.
Garcinia
Garcinia (Clusiaceae, Malpighiales) is a pantropical genus of latex-bearing dioecious trees and shrubs, first published by Linnaeus in 1753, with hundreds of species including the mangosteen, kokum, and gamboge-yielding plants.
Garcinia indica
Garcinia indica (kokum), Western Ghats endemic tree of Clusiaceae; dried rind used as souring agent, seeds yield kokum butter; contains hydroxycitric acid and garcinol; IUCN vulnerable.
Garcinia kola
Garcinia kola (bitter kola, false kola) is a Clusiaceae tree of West and Central Africa whose resin-rich seeds are chewed and used in folk medicine; its compounds show animal-model pharmacology but no confirmed human clinical efficacy.
Genista
Genista (woadwaxen) is a Fabaceae genus of yellow-flowered brooms, tribe Genisteae, native from Macaronesia and Europe to the Caucasus, with about 145 accepted species, toxic quinolizidine alkaloids, and the historic dye plant G. tinctoria.
Genisteae
Genisteae (染料木族) is a legume tribe (Faboideae) of brooms, gorses, and lupins, about 25-26 genera and 550-570 species, defined by quinolizidine alkaloids and four major clades including Lupinus and the Cytisus-Genista complex.
Geraniaceae
Geraniaceae, the geranium family (Geraniales, rosids), includes Geranium, Pelargonium, Erodium, Monsonia, Sarcocaulon, California, and Hypseocharis; herbs and shrubs with five-parted flowers and beaked schizocarp fruits, about 830 species, mainly temperate.
Geraniales
Geraniales is a small order of flowering plants in the rosid clade Malvids, sister to Myrtales, with about 742 species including the geranium family Geraniaceae and its ornamental genera.
Geranium
Geranium (cranesbills) is a genus of about 337 herb species in Geraniaceae, native to temperate and tropical-mountain regions worldwide, with beaked explosive fruits; distinct from Pelargonium, the garden "geranium."
Geranium robertianum
Geranium robertianum, herb Robert or red robin, is a pink-flowered annual or biennial geranium native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, self-seeding explosively up to 6.5 m, rich in phenolics, and a noxious weed in Washington State.
Geum
Geum (avens) is a genus of perennial herbs in Rosaceae, published by Linnaeus in 1753, with about 46-60 temperate Northern Hemisphere species, hooked two-part styles, and achene heads dispersed by plumose styles.
Geum urbanum
Geum urbanum L. (wood avens, herb bennet) is a perennial Rosaceae herb native from Europe to Central Asia and NW Africa, with small yellow flowers and hooked achenes; its clove-scented eugenol root has traditional medicinal and flavoring uses, and it hybridizes with G. rivale as G. × intermedium.
Gleditsia
Gleditsia (locusts, honeylocusts) is a genus of 13 accepted spiny deciduous legume trees in Fabaceae, native to Asia, North and South America; honey locust G. triacanthos is widely cultivated.
Gliricidia
Gliricidia (quickstick, madre de cacao) is a Fabaceae genus of five species native from Mexico to Peru; G. sepium is a nitrogen-fixing agroforestry tree used as green manure, fodder, and living fence across the tropics.
Gliricidia sepium
Gliricidia sepium (quickstick, madre de cacao) is a Fabaceae tree native from Mexico to Colombia, planted pantropically for fodder, green manure, shade, living fences, and fuelwood; toxic to rodents, IUCN least concern.
Glycine tabacina
Glycine tabacina (Variable Glycine), a perennial Fabaceae herb and wild soybean relative native from southern China and East Asia to Australia and the western Pacific; diploid B2B2 genome, 2n=40, with an allotetraploid complex and multiple polyploid origins.
Glycyrrhiza glabra
Glycyrrhiza glabra (liquorice, licorice, sweet root, gan cao) is a Fabaceae perennial herb native from the central Mediterranean to Mongolia and Pakistan, cultivated for rhizomes containing glycyrrhizin, 50 times sweeter than sugar, used in confectionery, medicine, and tobacco, with hypertension risk from excess intake.
Glycyrrhiza uralensis
Glycyrrhiza uralensis (gan cao, Chinese licorice) is a perennial Fabaceae herb native from eastern European Russia to Siberia and Pakistan, whose dried root and rhizome are a core traditional Chinese medicine containing glycyrrhizin.