Rosids

Linum

Linum (flax genus), Linaceae, a genus of about 215 accepted species of herbs with showy blue, yellow, pink, red, or white flowers; includes cultivated flax Linum usitatissimum, source of linen and linseed oil.

Liquidambar styraciflua

Liquidambar styraciflua, the American sweetgum or alligatorwood, is a large deciduous tree of eastern North America with star-shaped five-lobed leaves and spiky ball-shaped fruit that persist through winter.

Liquorice

Liquorice (licorice), Glycyrrhiza glabra, also called gan cao or sweet root: a Fabaceae perennial herb whose glycyrrhizin-rich rhizomes flavor candy, tobacco, and root beer, and whose excess consumption raises blood pressure and lowers potassium.

Lithocarpus

Lithocarpus, the stone oaks, a genus of about 300-350 evergreen Fagaceae trees of tropical and subtropical Asia, insect-pollinated, with erect spikes and nuts in valveless cupules, distinct from Quercus.

Lithophyte

Lithophyte (stone plant; saxicolous, rupicolous, epipetric): a plant growing in or on rocks, drawing water and nutrients from rain, dew, debris, and rock-weathering microbes; distinct from chasmophytes, which root in rock crevices; common in orchids, bromeliads, cacti, ferns, and mosses.

Live oak

Live oak (Quercus virginiana), or southern/Virginia live oak, is a nearly evergreen southeastern US coastal oak with huge spreading crowns, salt-spray tolerance, dense shipbuilding wood, and Texas and sand live oak varieties.

Loganberry

Loganberry (Rubus × loganobaccus) is a raspberry-American blackberry hybrid created in 1881 by Judge James Harvey Logan in Santa Cruz, California; deep red, sharp fruit used for jams, juice, and processing, parent of tayberry and boysenberry.

Lonchocarpus

Lonchocarpus (lance fruit genus) is a genus of about 168 accepted Fabaceae trees and shrubs of tropical America and Africa, tribe Millettieae; roots of L. utilis, urucu, and nicou yield rotenone, used as insecticide and fish poison.

Longan

Longan (Dimocarpus longan, 龙眼, dragon eye) is a subtropical Sapindaceae fruit tree from southern China, grown commercially in China, Thailand, and Taiwan; its white aril fruit is eaten fresh or dried as the TCM medicine Longan Arillus.

Lophira

Lophira Banks ex C.F.Gaertn. is a genus of two African tree species in the Ochnaceae family, native from western tropical Africa to Uganda, first published in 1805.

Lotus

Lotus L. (trefoils, birdsfoot trefoil) is an Old World Fabaceae genus of herbs and shrublets in tribe Loteae, published 1753, with Lotus corniculatus as major forage and Lotus japonicus as a model legume; unrelated to Nelumbo, the sacred lotus.

Lotus corniculatus

Lotus corniculatus, known as bird's-foot trefoil, is a perennial flowering legume of the pea family, native to temperate Eurasia and grown as forage that does not cause bloat in livestock.

Ludwigia

Ludwigia is a genus of about 87 species of flowering plants in the evening-primrose family, mostly annual or perennial herbs of wet places with usually yellow flowers.

Luma

Luma A.Gray is a genus of two Myrtaceae tree species, L. apiculata (arrayán, Chilean myrtle) and L. chequen, native to Chile and western Argentina, grown ornamentally and for honey, fruit, and hard timber.

Lunaria

Lunaria (honesty, money plant, silver dollar) is a European Brassicaceae genus with three species, L. annua, L. rediviva, and L. telekiana, known for silvery disc-like seed pods and erucic and nervonic acid rich seed oil.

Lunaria annua

Lunaria annua, honesty or annual honesty (money plant, silver dollar plant), is a biennial Brassicaceae herb native to south-central and southern Europe, grown for pink spring flowers and papery coin-like silicles used in dried arrangements.

Lupinus

Lupinus, commonly known as lupins or lupines, is a genus of herbs and shrubs in the legume family, Fabaceae, first published by Linnaeus in 1753.

Lupinus albus

Lupinus albus (white lupin, white lupine; synonym Lupinus termis) is an annual Mediterranean Fabaceae legume domesticated 3,000–4,000 years ago, with 38–44% seed protein, cluster roots for phosphate uptake, and subspecies albus and graecus.

Lupinus angustifolius

Lupinus angustifolius, narrow-leafed or blue lupin, Australian Sweet Lupin: annual Mediterranean legume domesticated from 1929, first WA cultivar 1967, over 95% of WA lupin grain, protein-rich seed used for feed and food.

Lupinus luteus

Lupinus luteus (yellow lupin, European yellow lupine) is an annual Mediterranean legume grown on sandy acidic soils for forage, feed, and green manure; domesticated for low alkaloids in 20th-century Germany.

Lupinus mutabilis

Lupinus mutabilis (tarwi, chocho, Andean lupin) is an Andean domesticated lupin with the highest protein (44%) and oil (18%) content among cultivated lupins, comparable to soybean, requiring debittering to remove quinolizidine alkaloids.

Lychee

Lychee (Litchi chinensis, 荔枝, litchi) is the sole species of its genus in the soapberry family, a tropical tree native to southern China with over 2,000 years of cultivation; Asia grows over 95% of the roughly 2-million-tonne world crop, led by China and India.

Lysiloma

Lysiloma (false tamarind, tzalam, sabicu) is a genus of eight dry-forest legume trees native from Arizona and Florida to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, sister to Hesperalbizia.

Lythraceae

Lythraceae, the loosestrife family (Myrtales), is a family of 28 genera and ca. 625 species of herbs, shrubs, and trees, including pomegranate (Punica), henna (Lawsonia), crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia), and water chestnut (Trapa).

Macaranga

Macaranga (Thouars, 1806) is a genus of about 300 dioecious Euphorbiaceae trees and shrubs of the Old World tropics, sister to Mallotus, with 3-4-locellate anthers, hollow-twig ant-plant symbioses, and pioneer secondary-forest ecology.

Maclura

Maclura is a genus of about 13 spiny, dioecious trees, shrubs, and woody climbers in the mulberry family, Moraceae, native to Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas.

Maclura pomifera

Maclura pomifera, osage-orange or hedge-apple (bois-d'arc), a thorny dioecious Moraceae tree native to Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas, famous as pre-barbed-wire prairie hedgerows, with decay-resistant wood, and invasive in parts of Australia.

Macroptilium atropurpureum

Macroptilium atropurpureum (siratro, purple bean, atro; synonym Phaseolus atropurpureus) is a Fabaceae forage legume native from Mexico to western South America, with dark purple flowers, trifoliate leaves, cultivars Siratro and Aztec, and drought-avoidance physiology.

Mahogany

Mahogany: aromatic reddish hardwood of Swietenia (3 tropical American Meliaceae species) and African Khaya; prized for furniture since 1680, CITES-listed after depletion of S. mahagoni and S. macrophylla.