881 articles
Urtica urens
Urtica urens, the small or burning nettle, is an annual stinging herb up to 60 cm tall, native to the Old World and now almost cosmopolitan.
Urticaceae
Urticaceae, the nettle family (order Rosales), is a family of about 59 genera and roughly 2,100 to 2,600 species of herbs, shrubs, and trees, often with stinging hairs and cystoliths; includes Urtica, Boehmeria, Pilea, Elatostema, and the former Cecropiaceae.
Vaccinium myrtillus
Vaccinium myrtillus, bilberry or European blueberry, is a wild Ericaceae subshrub of Eurasia and North America with anthocyanin-rich berries; rigorous trials do not support its night-vision and most supplement health claims.
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.
Vatica
Vatica (resak) is a genus of about 65 to 80 Dipterocarpaceae trees from Sri Lanka and India to New Guinea, with 79 accepted Kew species, fragrant 5-merous flowers, and timber traded as resak.
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.
Verticordia
Verticordia (feather-flower) is a conserved Australian genus of about 102 species of showy shrubs in Myrtaceae, tribe Chamelaucieae, centered in southwest Western Australia, with plumose stigmas and many rare, range-restricted species.
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.
Viola (plant)
Viola (violets, violas, pansies), genus of Violaceae published by Linnaeus in 1753; 525-664 species worldwide, South American origin, mixed chasmogamous and cleistogamous reproduction, revised in 2022 into 2 subgenera and 31 sections.
Viola odorata
Viola odorata, sweet violet (banafša), a stoloniferous Violaceae perennial native from Europe to W. & N. Iran and NW. Africa; fragrant early-spring flowers, medicinal and perfumery uses, 2n=20, 34,902 annotated genes.
Viola tricolor
Viola tricolor (heartsease, wild pansy, Johnny-jump-up) is a European to SW Siberian and NW Iranian violet, Violaceae, 2n=26, ancestor of the garden pansy, used medicinally and as an edible flower.
Violaceae
Violaceae (violet family), Batsch 1802, a Malpighiales family of herbs, shrubs, and trees, mostly pantropical; largest genus Viola (violets, pansies) with about 700 accepted species; fruit a 3-valved capsule.
Vitaceae
Vitaceae, the grape family, is a family of about 16 genera and 950 species of tropical lianas with leaf-opposed tendrils, in the order Vitales; it includes Vitis vinifera, the wine grape.
Vitales
Vitales, the grape order, is an order of eudicot flowering plants in the rosids containing Vitaceae (and sometimes Leeaceae), with about 950 species, leaf-opposed tendrils, and the economically central grape Vitis vinifera.
Vitellaria paradoxa
Vitellaria paradoxa, the shea tree (karité), sole species of Vitellaria in Sapotaceae, is a Vulnerable African savanna tree from Senegal to Uganda whose kernels yield shea butter used in chocolate, cosmetics, and local cooking.
Vitis vinifera
Vitis vinifera, the Eurasian grapevine (subsp. vinifera/sativa and wild sylvestris), is the species behind over 90% of world grapes; domesticated in the South Caucasus around 6000 BC, with ~10,000 varieties.
Vochysiaceae
Vochysiaceae A.St.-Hil., a family of Myrtales trees and shrubs, sister to Myrtaceae, with zygomorphic one-stamen flowers and spurred sepal; Neotropical with a few West African species, about 200 species in 7-9 genera.
Walnut
Walnut (Juglans regia, Persian or English walnut): a long-lived wind-pollinated tree native from Xinjiang to the Caucasus, spread by humans since the Bronze Age; major nut crop (2.67 M MT in-shell 2023/24, China 51%) rich in polyunsaturated fats.
Wasabi (山葵)
Wasabi (山葵, Eutrema japonicum) is a Japanese Brassicaceae herb grown for its grated rhizome's isothiocyanate pungency; cultivation began in Keicho-era Shizuoka, whose terraced spring-water fields are a FAO heritage site.
Water caltrop
Water caltrop (Trapa natans), also called water chestnut or singhara, is an annual floating-leaved aquatic plant with horned edible fruits, native to Eurasia and Africa, a protected crop in Asia and Europe but a noxious invasive weed in North America and Australia.
Watercress
Watercress (Nasturtium officinale) is a perennial aquatic plant in the cabbage family grown for its peppery leaves, native to Eurasia and spread worldwide by European settlement.