Other flowering plants

Casuarina

Casuarina is a genus of about 17 species of flowering trees and shrubs, native from tropical Asia to the western Pacific, known as she-oak or Australian pine.

Casuarina equisetifolia (she-oak, Australian pine, horsetail tree), a nitrogen-fixing Casuarinaceae tree native from India to the western Pacific; fast-growing coastal windbreak and fuelwood species, invasive and prohibited in Florida.

Casuarinaceae

Casuarinaceae R.Br. (she-oaks, beefwoods) is a Fagales family of four genera, Allocasuarina, Casuarina, Ceuthostoma, Gymnostoma, and about 90-97 species, native to Australia, Malesia, and the western Pacific, with jointed photosynthetic twigs, scale leaves, woody cones, and Frankia nitrogen-fixing root nodules.

Catalpa

Catalpa (catalpa, Indian bean tree) is a genus of about eight Bignoniaceae tree species native to China, eastern North America, and the Greater Antilles, grown for showy white flowers and long bean-like pods; southern catalpa C. bignonioides and hardier northern catalpa C. speciosa are the common ornamentals.

Catharanthus roseus

Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle, formerly Vinca rosea), Apocynaceae ornamental native to Madagascar and sole natural source of anticancer alkaloids vinblastine and vincristine, made via strictosidine from tryptamine and secologanin.

Catnip

Catnip (Nepeta cataria), a mint-family perennial herb, contains nepetalactone, which makes about 68% of domestic cats euphorically rub and roll and repels mosquitoes comparably to DEET.

Ceanothus

Ceanothus, known in gardens as California lilac or wild lilac, is a genus of about 55 to 60 North American shrubs with dense blue spring flowers.

Cedrela

Cedrela (Spanish cedar, Cedrela odorata) is a Neotropical Meliaceae tree genus, sister to Toona in tribe Cedreleae, native Mexico to Argentina, with aromatic timber, CITES Appendix II protection, and Hypsipyla grandella shoot-borer damage.

Cedrela odorata

Cedrela odorata (Spanish cedar, cigar-box cedar) is a Meliaceae timber tree native from Mexico to tropical America, valued for aromatic, insect-repelling wood; IUCN Vulnerable and CITES Appendix II.

Ceiba pentandra

Ceiba pentandra (kapok tree, silk cotton tree, 吉贝) is a Malvaceae tree up to 70 m, native from Mexico to tropical America, widely planted pantropically; source of kapok floss and light timber, IUCN Least Concern (2017).

Celastraceae

Celastraceae R.Br. (bittersweet family, spindle-tree family), order Celastrales: ca. 100 genera, 1,300 species of trees, shrubs, and lianas; includes Euonymus, Celastrus, Maytenus, Catha edulis; Hippocrateaceae and Parnassiaceae synonymized.

Celastrales

Celastrales, an order of rosid flowering plants with Celastraceae and Lepidobotryaceae, about 1,355 species in 94 genera, part of the unresolved COM clade with Oxalidales and Malpighiales.

Celosia

Celosia, cockscomb or Lagos spinach (Celosia argentea), a genus of about 50 Amaranthaceae herbs native to tropical America, Africa, and Arabia, grown as a leafy vegetable (soko) and as ornamental cristata, plumosa, and spicata cut flowers.

Celtis

Celtis (hackberries, nettle trees) is a genus of about 70-80 tree and shrub species in Cannabaceae, formerly Ulmaceae, with 3-veined leaves and 1 cm drupes; type species Celtis australis, cosmopolitan range.

Celtis australis

Celtis australis, the southern nettle tree or European hackberry, is a deciduous Cannabaceae tree native from the Mediterranean to northern Iran, grown ornamentally and for erosion control, drought-tolerant, a weed in Australia.

Centaurea

Centaurea (knapweeds, cornflowers, starthistles) is a large Asteraceae genus of about 700-777 Old World species, centered in the Mediterranean and Western Asia, taxonomically difficult, medicinally studied, with invasive North American members.

Centaurea cyanus

Centaurea cyanus (cornflower, bachelor's button, Cyanus segetum) is an annual Asteraceae of the eastern Mediterranean, a former cereal weed now declining in Europe, self-incompatible with pseudo-self-compatibility, Least Concern in the EU but invasive in US prairies.

Centaurium erythraea

Centaurium erythraea, common centaury, is a Gentianaceae biennial herb native from the Azores and Morocco to SW Siberia and Iran, used in traditional medicine for dyspepsia and loss of appetite, with an EU traditional-use herbal monograph and bitter secoiridoid constituents.

Centella

Centella is a genus of about 20-55 perennial Apiaceae herbs native to the tropics and subtropics, mostly African; its type species Centella asiatica (gotu kola, cica) yields asiaticoside and asiatic acid used in supplements and cosmetics.

Centella asiatica

Centella asiatica (gotu kola, cica, Indian pennywort) is a creeping Apiaceae herb of the Old World tropics used in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine; its triterpenoids asiaticoside and madecassoside underpin wound-healing and skincare uses.

Centrosema

Centrosema (DC.) Benth., a Fabaceae genus (subtribe Clitoriinae) of climbing tropical American legumes, about 30–45 species, type C. brasilianum; used as tropical forage, pasture, cover crop, and green manure.

Cephalocereus senilis

Cephalocereus senilis, the old man cactus or viejito, is an endangered Mexican columnar cactus from Hidalgo and Veracruz, covered in white hair-like spines, with a lateral cephalium and nocturnal flowers.

Cephalotus

Cephalotus, the Australian or Albany pitcher plant (Cephalotus follicularis), is the sole species of Cephalotaceae, a carnivorous pitfall-trap plant endemic to southwest Western Australia, IUCN Vulnerable, with a 2017 genome revealing convergent co-option of digestive enzymes.

Cerastium

Cerastium (mouse-ear chickweed, chickweed) is a cosmopolitan genus of Caryophyllaceae herbs published by Linnaeus in 1753, type C. arvense, with about 100-218 species, white notched petals, and capsules opening by apical teeth.

Ceratonia

Ceratonia is a small Fabaceae genus of two evergreen species, carob (Ceratonia siliqua) and C. oreothauma, native from the Mediterranean to Arabia and Somalia, grown for pods and locust bean gum.

Ceratophyllum

Ceratophyllum (hornwort, coontail), sole genus of Ceratophyllaceae, rootless submerged freshwater angiosperms with whorled forked leaves; about six species, sister group to eudicots, Early Cretaceous divergence.

Ceratophyllum demersum

Ceratophyllum demersum, coontail or common hornwort, is a cosmopolitan rootless submerged aquatic plant of Ceratophyllaceae, sold as an aquarium oxygenator, used in phytoremediation, and invasive in New Zealand.

Cerbera

Cerbera is a genus of six species of toxic evergreen trees and shrubs in Apocynaceae, native from Tanzania and the Indian Ocean to the Pacific; best known are the sea mango (Cerbera manghas) and the suicide tree (Cerbera odollam), whose cerberin-rich seeds cause digoxin-like cardiac poisoning.

Cerbera manghas

Cerbera manghas, the sea mango or pink-eyed cerbera (海杧果), is a poisonous Apocynaceae coastal tree from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific; its seeds contain the cardiac glycoside cerberin, lethal at half a seed.