3,306 articles
Barley as food
Barley as food is the use of barley grain in cooking, in hulled, pot, pearl, flaked, and flour forms, in dishes from soups and stews to flatbreads.
Barton's Bush
Barton's Bush, Trentham Memorial Park, Upper Hutt, New Zealand: the largest remaining lowland podocarp/broadleaf forest remnant on the Hutt Valley floor, named after settler Richard Barton, bought as a public reserve in 1950, tawa-dominated with threatened mistletoes.
Basella
Basella is a small genus of succulent twining vines in the Basellaceae family, best known for Basella alba, Malabar spinach, a leafy vegetable of tropical Asia.
Basella alba
Basella alba (Malabar spinach, Indian spinach, Ceylon spinach) is a succulent climbing vine of Basellaceae grown in the tropics for edible mucilaginous leaves; its fleshy purplish-black perianth encloses the fruit and yields a red food dye.
Basmati (बासमती)
Basmati (बासमती) is an aromatic long-grain rice cultivated for centuries in the Himalayan foothills of India and Pakistan; its grains double in length when cooked.
Bassia
Bassia (Bassia All., 1766; formerly Kochia) is a genus of about 20 C4 herbs in Amaranthaceae native to the Northern Hemisphere and southern Africa; its best-known species, B. scoparia (burningbush, summer cypress), is an ornamental and invasive weed.
Bassia scoparia
Bassia scoparia (kochia, summer cypress, burning bush; syn. Kochia scoparia) is a C4 annual Amaranthaceae native to Eurasia, an ornamental and forage plant that is a major tumbleweed weed of the North American Great Plains with resistance to five herbicide sites of action.
Bauhinia
Bauhinia (Plum) is a genus of pantropical trees and shrubs belonging to the Fabaceae family. Taxonomic debate exists over its circumscription, with counts ranging from 150 to 380 species.
Bay leaf
Bay leaf, from the Mediterranean bay laurel (Laurus nobilis), is used whole to flavor soups, stews, and braises, then removed before serving because it stays rigid.
Beech
Beech (Fagus), genus of ~15 Northern Hemisphere deciduous trees in Fagaceae; smooth grey bark, three-angled nuts in spiny cupules, masting every 5–8 years, hard 710 kg/m3 timber, threatened by bark and leaf disease and warming.
Begonia
Begonia is a mega-diverse genus of Begoniaceae with roughly 1,400–2,167 species of succulent herbs across tropical Africa, America, Asia, and Oceania, known for asymmetric leaves, monoecious flowers, three-winged capsules, and thousands of ornamental hybrids.
Begoniaceae
Begoniaceae (begonia family), C.Agardh 1824, a Cucurbitales family with two genera, Begonia (1,400-2,200+ species, pantropical) and monotypic Hawaiian Hillebrandia; asymmetric leaves, inferior ovary, three-winged capsules, sister to Datiscaceae.
Bellis
Bellis (daisies) is an accepted Asteraceae genus published by Linnaeus in 1753, native from Macaronesia, North Africa, and Europe to Central Asia and Iran, with 15 accepted species including the common daisy Bellis perennis.
Bellis perennis
Bellis perennis (English daisy, lawn daisy, common daisy), Linnaeus 1753, a perennial Asteraceae herb native from Madeira and Europe to Central Asia, a rosette lawn weed with white-rayed, yellow-centered flower heads, 2n=18, and medicinal and food uses.
Bellium minutum
Bellium minutum (little-Mary, Zwergmaßliebchen) is a small annual daisy in Asteraceae, tribe Astereae, native to Sicily, the East Aegean Islands, NW Türkiye, and Cyprus, first published in 1771 and grown as an ornamental mat-forming groundcover.
Bennettitales
Bennettitales, or cycadeoids, are extinct Mesozoic seed plants with cycad-like foliage and flower-like cones, ranging from the Triassic to an Oligocene relict, and central to angiosperm-origin debates.
Berberidaceae
Berberidaceae, the barberry family (Berberis, Mahonia), is a Ranunculales family of 13–19 genera and about 769 species of shrubs and herbs with yellow wood, berberine alkaloids, and temperate to tropical-mountain distribution.
Berberis
Berberis (barberry, zeresh) is a genus of about 600 spiny Berberidaceae shrubs native to temperate and tropical mountains, source of the alkaloid berberine; Japanese barberry B. thunbergii is invasive in North America.
Berberis vulgaris
Berberis vulgaris, common or European barberry, is a spiny Berberidaceae shrub native to Europe to W. and N. Iran, source of berberine, studied for lipid and glycemic effects, and alternate host of wheat stem rust.
Bergenia
Bergenia (elephant's ears, pigsqueak) is a Saxifragaceae genus of evergreen rhizomatous perennials native to temperate Asia, with 10 accepted species per Kew, red winter foliage, spring pink flowers, and rhizomes used in Ayurveda as Pashanabheda.
Berry (botany)
Berry (botany): a simple fleshy fruit from a single flower's ovary with an entirely fleshy pericarp, e.g. grape, tomato, banana; includes hesperidium and pepo; excludes strawberries, raspberries, and drupes.
Bersama
Bersama Fresen. (1837), a genus of African evergreen trees and shrubs in Francoaceae (formerly Melianthaceae), type species B. abyssinica; 7 accepted species per Kew, widely used in traditional medicine.
Beta vulgaris
Beta vulgaris (beet) is a biennial Amaranthaceae species whose varieties include beetroot, Swiss chard, spinach beet, sugar beet, and fodder beet, all descended from wild sea beet subsp. maritima; sugar beet supplies about 35% of world sugar.
Betel
Betel (Piper betle, paan leaf): climbing Piperaceae vine of Indo-China to Malesia whose leaves wrap the betel quid with areca nut and lime; quid and areca nut are IARC Group 1 carcinogens, the leaf itself is not.
Betonica
Betonica (betony) is a genus of 10 perennial Lamiaceae species native to Europe, Central Asia, Iran, and NW Africa, including Betonica officinalis; molecular, cytological, and phytochemical evidence supports separating it from Stachys in tribe Betoniceae.
Betula alleghaniensis
Betula alleghaniensis, yellow birch (bouleau jaune), a large eastern North American birch with bronze peeling bark and wintergreen twigs; IUCN Least Concern, major timber and veneer species.
Betula papyrifera
Betula papyrifera, paper birch or canoe birch, a North American birch with white peeling bark, native from subarctic America to Virginia, used for revegetation, traditional bark crafts, and hybridizing with yellow birch.
Betula pendula
Betula pendula (垂枝桦), silver birch or European white birch, is a pioneer broadleaved tree of Europe and western Asia with white papery bark, pendulous resin-glanded twigs, IUCN Least Concern status, and the Finnish national tree designation.
Betula pubescens
Betula pubescens (downy birch, moor birch) is a tetraploid (2n=56) Eurasian birch tree, native from Newfoundland to the Russian Far East, distinguished from silver birch by downy shoots and wet-site habitat, and prone to widespread introgression.
Betulaceae
Betulaceae, the birch family of Fagales, has six genera (Alnus, Betula, Carpinus, Corylus, Ostrya, Ostryopsis) and about 160 northern-temperate tree and shrub species in two subfamilies.