881 articles
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.
Shorea
Shorea (娑罗属), a Dipterocarpaceae tree genus from the Indian Subcontinent to Malesia, source of meranti and balau timber; masting, thrips pollination, 47 accepted species per Kew.
Shorea robusta
Shorea robusta (sal, साल, 娑罗双) is a large Dipterocarpaceae timber tree dominating sal forests of the Indian subcontinent; IUCN least concern, ~105,790 km2 of sal forest in India, threatened by heartwood borer epidemics, fire, and poor regeneration.
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.
Simaroubaceae
Simaroubaceae, the tree-of-heaven or quassia family, is a pantropical Sapindales family of about 20 genera and 110 species of bitter-barked trees and shrubs, sister to Rutaceae and Meliaceae in the SRM clade.
Sinapis
Sinapis (mustard) is a genus of three accepted Brassicaceae species native from temperate Eurasia to North Africa; its species Sinapis alba, white or yellow mustard, is a major condiment and cover crop.
Sinapis alba
Sinapis alba (white mustard, yellow mustard, syn. Brassica hirta), an annual Brassicaceae herb with 2n=24 (SS genome), grown for condiment seed rich in sinalbin, green manure, forage, and oil.
Sinapis arvensis
Sinapis arvensis, charlock or wild mustard (synonym Brassica kaber, NCBI name Mutarda arvensis), is an annual Brassicaceae weed of Eurasian and North African origin, naturalized worldwide, with light-requiring coat-imposed seed dormancy and ALS-inhibitor-resistant Turkish biotypes.
Siraitia grosvenorii
Siraitia grosvenorii (monk fruit, luo han guo, 罗汉果), a Cucurbitaceae vine native to southern China, produces mogroside V, a cucurbitane triterpene glycoside about 300 times sweeter than sucrose, used as a zero-calorie sweetener and Chinese food-medicine.
Sisymbrium
Sisymbrium (hedge mustards, rockets) is a genus of Brassicaceae herbs published by Linnaeus in 1753, lectotype S. altissimum; about 41-90 species, Miocene origin in the Irano-Turanian region, yellow flowers and 3-nerved linear siliques.
Sium sisarum
Sium sisarum, skirret (crummock, Zuckerwurzel), a tuberous Apiaceae perennial native from Central and Southeast Europe to SW Siberia and N Afghanistan, grown on a small scale for its sweet clustered roots, 2n=12, IUCN Least Concern.
Soleirolia soleirolii
Soleirolia soleirolii, baby's tears or mind-your-own-business (Helxine soleirolii), a creeping evergreen Urticaceae perennial from the west-central Mediterranean, grown as a moss-like ground cover and houseplant, spreading from tiny stem fragments.
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.
Sorbus
Sorbus L. (rowans, whitebeams, service trees) is a Rosaceae genus of temperate Northern Hemisphere trees and shrubs; type species S. aucuparia, polyphyletic in the broad sense, split into several genera, with apomixis and polyploidy driving its many microspecies.
Sorbus aucuparia
Sorbus aucuparia, rowan or European mountain ash, is a Rosaceae tree native from Europe to Iran and East Asia, with white corymbs and orange-red berries, widely planted, least concern, fireblight-susceptible.
Sorrel
Sorrel, chiefly common sorrel (Rumex acetosa, garden sorrel), a sour-leaved perennial dock of Polygonaceae native to temperate Eurasia and NW Africa, used in sauces, salads, and herbal medicine; high in oxalic acid; distinct from wood sorrel (Oxalis) and roselle.
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.
Spiraea
Spiraea (spirea, bridal-wreaths), a Rosaceae shrub genus published by Linnaeus in 1753, native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere with about 100 accepted species, most diverse in eastern Asia; Japanese spiraea is invasive in the US.
Spondias
Spondias (mombins, hog plums, umbu, ambarella) is a genus of 18 Anacardiaceae fruit-tree species native to tropical America, Madagascar, and Asia, type genus of Spondioideae, cultivated for fruit and long used in traditional medicine.
Spondias dulcis
Spondias dulcis, also called ambarella, golden apple, or Polynesian plum (synonym Spondias cytherea), is an Anacardiaceae fruit tree native to E. Malesia to the Santa Cruz Islands, widely introduced across the tropics for its edible drupe.
Spondias mombin
Spondias mombin, yellow mombin, hog plum, jobo, or Brazilian cajá, is a tropical Anacardiaceae fruit tree native from Mexico to South America, with yellow edible drupes used fresh, processed, and in traditional medicine; IUCN Least Concern.
Star gooseberry
Star gooseberry (Sauropus androgynus, katuk, sweet leaf; accepted name Breynia androgyna) is a Southeast Asian leafy shrub eaten as a nutritious vegetable but linked to bronchiolitis obliterans when raw juice is consumed excessively.
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.
Sumac
Sumac: ground spice from Rhus coriaria (Arabic summāq, dark red), a purple sour Mediterranean seasoning; also the Rhus genus (~150 species), distinct from poisonous Toxicodendron vernix (poison sumac), which causes urushiol dermatitis.