881 articles
Salix purpurea
Salix purpurea (purple willow, purple osier) is a Eurasian and North African willow shrub, 1–6 m, with opposite narrow leaves and fused stamens, cultivated for basketry osiers and salicin-rich bark (4–8%), IUCN Least Concern, diploid 2n=38.
Salix viminalis
Salix viminalis (common osier, basket willow, 吐兰柳), a Linnaean 1753 willow of Salicaceae native from Central Europe to Siberia and Xinjiang, grown for basketry, bioenergy coppice hybrids, and phytoremediation of metals and organic pollutants.
Salsola tragus
Salsola tragus (Russian thistle, tumbleweed, Kali tragus) is an annual Eurasian amaranth introduced to South Dakota in the 1870s that now infests about 41 million hectares of the western United States as a widespread invasive tumbleweed.
Salvadora persica
Salvadora persica, known as Arak or Peelu, is an evergreen shrub or small tree whose twigs are the traditional miswak chewing stick used as a natural toothbrush.
Samanea
Samanea (Benth.) Merr., a Fabaceae genus of Central and South American trees with 3 accepted species; its rain tree (S. saman, syn. Albizia saman) is a nitrogen-fixing shade tree up to 60 m tall with an 80 m crown.
Samanea saman
Samanea saman (rain tree, cow-tamarind; synonym Albizia saman), a Fabaceae tree native from Central America to Venezuela and Ecuador, widely planted in the tropics for shade, timber, and fodder, invasive in Fiji and Hawaii, and a model plant for nyctinastic leaf movement.
Sanguisorba minor
Sanguisorba minor, salad burnet or small burnet, a Rosaceae perennial herb native from Europe to the W. Himalaya; cucumber-flavored salad herb, rangeland forage with high protein, tannins, and drought tolerance.
Sanguisorba officinalis
Sanguisorba officinalis (great burnet, di yu, 地榆) is a perennial Rosaceae herb of the temperate Northern Hemisphere, 30–150 cm tall with dark red petalless flower spikes; its dried root (Sanguisorbae Radix) is a Traditional Chinese Medicine hemostatic, and it is IUCN Least Concern.
Sapindaceae
Sapindaceae, the soapberry family (Juss., 1789), is a Sapindales family of about 1,900 species in roughly 140-147 genera, now including maples (Aceraceae) and horse chestnuts (Hippocastanaceae); it yields lychee, longan, rambutan, guarana, and maple syrup.
Sapindales
Sapindales (Juss. ex Bercht. & J.Presl) is an APG IV order of flowering plants including Sapindaceae (soapberries, maples) and Meliaceae (mahogany); example species Sapindus saponaria, NCBI taxid 41937.
Sapindus
Sapindus (soapberry, soapnut, reetha) is a genus of about 20 accepted Sapindaceae trees native from Chad and Asia to the Pacific and the Americas, whose saponin-rich fruit pericarp is used as a natural detergent and whose seed oil suits biodiesel.
Sapindus mukorossi
Sapindus mukorossi (soapnut, Chinese soapberry, reetha, wu huan zi) is a Sapindaceae tree native to southern China whose saponin-rich pericarp is used as a natural detergent and in traditional medicine; IUCN Least Concern.
Sapium
Sapium is a genus of flowering plants in the spurge family Euphorbiaceae, with about 27 accepted species of monoecious trees and shrubs native to tropical and subtropical America.
Saponaria officinalis
Saponaria officinalis, soapwort or bouncing bet, is a Caryophyllaceae perennial native to Europe and the Caucasus whose saponin-rich roots foam as natural soap, and whose seed protein saporin is studied as an anticancer agent.
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.
Sarcobatus vermiculatus
Sarcobatus vermiculatus, black greasewood (greasewood, saltbush, seepwood), a spiny halophytic shrub of western North American saline-alkaline soils, family Sarcobataceae, with oxalate toxicity to livestock and forage value.
Saxifraga
Saxifraga (saxifrages), largest genus of Saxifragaceae, about 375 arctic-alpine herbs of the Northern Hemisphere, Andes, and Ethiopian mountains; North American origin around 74 Ma, lime-secreting hydathodes, and confirmed carnivory in S. candelabrum.
Saxifragaceae
Saxifragaceae, the saxifrage family (Juss., 1789), is a family of perennial herbs in the eudicot order Saxifragales, with about 640 species in roughly 33-40 genera, highest diversity in western North America, and type genus Saxifraga.
Saxifragales
Saxifragales is an order of eudicot flowering plants, sister to rosids in the superrosids, with about 2,400 species in 15 families including Saxifragaceae, Crassulaceae, Paeoniaceae, and Hamamelidaceae; origin dated to ~107 Ma.
Schinus
Schinus is a genus of about 40 species of evergreen trees and shrubs in the cashew family, native to South America and best known as the source of pink peppercorns.
Schinus molle
Schinus molle (Peruvian peppertree, pirul, peppercorn tree), Anacardiaceae tree native to Peru to N. Chile and S. Brazil to NE. Argentina; drooping evergreen to 15 m, pink drupes sold as pink pepper, invasive in Australia, Hawaii, South Africa.
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.
Sclerocarya birrea
Sclerocarya birrea, or marula, a dioecious Anacardiaceae savanna tree of sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar, up to 18 m, with vitamin C-rich yellow fruit used for food, beer, Amarula liqueur, medicine, and seed oil.
Sedum acre
Sedum acre (biting stonecrop, goldmoss stonecrop) is a mat-forming succulent Crassulaceae herb native from Greenland and Europe to the Caucasus, type species of Sedum, used on green roofs and naturalized widely.
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.