2,112 articles
Asclepias syriaca
Asclepias syriaca, common milkweed (silkweed, Virginia silkweed), a rhizomatous perennial Apocynaceae herb native to central-eastern North America, monarch larval host, cardenolide-defended, a cropland weed and invasive in Europe.
Asclepias tuberosa
Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed, pleurisy root) is a tuberous-rooted North American milkweed with clear sap and orange flowers, a monarch larval host, and a former official medicinal root.
Asimina
Asimina (pawpaw) is the only temperate-climate genus of the tropical custard apple family Annonaceae, native to eastern North America; its species A. triloba bears the largest edible fruit native to North America.
Asimina triloba
Asimina triloba (pawpaw, custard apple), a temperate Annonaceae tree of eastern North America bearing the largest edible native U.S. fruit; protogynous, self-incompatible flowers, acetogenin-bearing pulp, seeds needing cold stratification.
Aspen
Aspen, chiefly quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), is North America's most widely distributed tree, a clonal species regenerating by root suckering and seed, valued for biodiversity and acting as a natural wildfire firebreak.
Aspidosperma
Aspidosperma is a genus of trees in the dogbane family, Apocynaceae, native from Mexico to Argentina, with 42 of its 80 accepted species occurring in Brazil.
Aster (genus)
Aster (genus), Aster L. (1753), a genus of daisy-family (Asteraceae) herbs now restricted mainly to temperate Eurasia; former American asters moved to Symphyotrichum, Eurybia, and others.
Asteraceae
Asteraceae (Compositae), the sunflower or aster family, is the largest flowering plant family with 24,000–30,000 species in 1,600–1,700 genera, defined by florets packed into a capitulum, united anthers, and pappus-bearing achenes; Late Cretaceous South American origin.
Asterales
Asterales (キク目) is an order of flowering plants, about 10% of angiosperms, in the campanulid clade, with 11-12 families dominated by Asteraceae and Campanulaceae; monophyletic, of Gondwanan Late Cretaceous origin.
Asterids
Asterids, a major eudicot clade of flowering plants with over 80,000 species in about 100 families and 17 APG IV orders, including Asteraceae and Rubiaceae; origin dated to the Aptian (~121 Ma), fossils from the Turonian (~89 Ma).
Astragalus gummifer
Astragalus gummifer (goat's thorn, geven) is a spiny Fabaceae subshrub native to Türkiye, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, the species usually cited as the source of gum tragacanth (E 413), used as an emulsifier and thickener.
Astronium
Astronium Jacq. (Anacardiaceae) is a neotropical genus of about 12-13 hardwood tree species, type species A. graveolens, ranging from Mexico to northern Argentina; sources of tigerwood and gonçalo-alves timber.
Astronium urundeuva
Astronium urundeuva (allemão) Engl., aroeira or urunday, a South American Anacardiaceae timber tree; a synonym of Myracrodruon urundeuva, native to Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina, IUCN Least Concern.
Astrophytum capricorne
Astrophytum capricorne, the goat's horn cactus, is a globose NE Mexican cactus with white-flecked 7-9-ribbed stems, twisted goat-horn-like spines, and large yellow red-throated summer flowers; IUCN least concern, CITES Appendix II, RHS AGM.
Atractylis
Atractylis L. (glue thistle group) is a Mediterranean-to-Pakistan genus of spiny Asteraceae herbs in tribe Cardueae, described by Linnaeus in 1753; A. gummifera is fatally toxic via atractyloside.
Atractylodes
Atractylodes (苍术, 白术) is an East Asian Asteraceae genus of medicinal rhizome herbs; Kew accepts 4 species, with 371 isolated compounds dominated by sesquiterpenes and polyacetylenes like atractylenolides and atractylodin.
Atractylodes macrocephala
Atractylodes macrocephala (Baizhu, 白术) is an Asteraceae perennial herb of East Asia whose dried rhizome is a major traditional Chinese medicine tonic for the spleen, with 79+ isolated compounds including atractylenolides I-III.
Atriplex
Atriplex (orache, saltbush) is the largest genus of Amaranthaceae, about 250-260 species of C3 and C4 herbs and shrubs of deserts and saline habitats, originating in Oligocene Asia with diversity centers in Australia and the New World.
Atropa
Atropa is a small genus of perennial herbs in Solanaceae, tribe Hyoscyameae, named for the Greek Fate Atropos. Its six species, including deadly nightshade (Atropa bella-donna), contain toxic tropane alkaloids such as atropine and scopolamine.
Atropa belladonna
Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade), Solanaceae perennial herb native to Europe to N. Iran and NW. Africa; purple bell flowers, black glossy berries with 0.65% tropane alkaloids; source of atropine, first isolated 1831.
Aucuba
Aucuba (Japanese laurel, spotted laurel, gold dust plant; アオキ) is a genus of ten evergreen Asian shrubs in Garryaceae, dioecious, shade- and drought-tolerant, with Aucuba japonica widely grown as a variegated ornamental with red berries.
Aurinia
Aurinia (L.) Desv., goldentuft or basket of gold, is a genus of 7 Brassicaceae species native to central and southeastern Europe to Türkiye; A. saxatilis is a popular yellow rock-garden perennial.
Averrhoa
Averrhoa is a genus of five Oxalidaceae tree species native from Java to New Guinea, including star fruit (A. carambola) and bilimbi (A. bilimbi), cultivated fruits containing neurotoxic caramboxin and oxalic acid.
Averrhoa bilimbi
Averrhoa bilimbi, or tree sorrel, is a small tropical tree in the Oxalidaceae family, native to Malesia and grown for its extremely sour, cucumber-shaped fruit used in cooking.
Avicennia
Avicennia is a genus of eight accepted species of mangrove trees and shrubs in the Acanthaceae family, distinguished by salt-secreting leaf glands, non-dormant seeds, and aerial roots.
Avicennia germinans
Avicennia germinans, black mangrove, is an Acanthaceae mangrove tree native from the SE United States and Caribbean to South America and West Tropical Africa to Angola, with pneumatophores, salt-excreting leaves, and major blue carbon storage.
Azadirachta
Azadirachta A.Juss. (1830), a two-species genus of Meliaceae trees: neem (Azadirachta indica) and A. excelsa, native to tropical Asia, source of the insecticidal limonoid azadirachtin.
Azadirachta indica
Azadirachta indica, neem or margosa, a Meliaceae evergreen tree native from Assam to Indo-China, planted across dry tropics; source of azadirachtin, a limonoid insecticide sensitive to over 550 insect species.
Azorella
Azorella (yareta, llareta) is a genus of 58 cushion-forming Apiaceae species native from Costa Rica and the Andes to subantarctic islands, Australia, and New Zealand, including the giant long-lived Andean yareta Azorella compacta.
Baccharis
Baccharis L. (Baccharidinae, Asteraceae) is a New World genus of about 400-500 dioecious shrub species from the United States to Argentina, used in folk medicine and including the invasive B. halimifolia.