3,306 articles
Boraginales
Boraginales, the borage order, is an order of lamiid flowering plants with ~2,700 species; APG IV treats it as one family Boraginaceae, while recent phylogenomics proposes nine families.
Borassus
Borassus (borassus palm, palmyra palm, Borassus flabellifer) is a genus of massive, dioecious fan palms in Arecaceae, tribe Borasseae, native to tropical Africa, Madagascar, and tropical Asia, with 5-6 accepted species and very large mammal-dispersed fruits.
Borassus flabellifer
Borassus flabellifer, the Asian palmyra or toddy palm (Arecaceae), is a dioecious fan palm from India to Indonesia tapped for sucrose-rich sap made into jaggery, palm sugar, and toddy; fruits, timber, and leaves are also used.
Boreal forest of Canada
Boreal forest of Canada: the conifer-dominated forest belt across Canada's 5.5 million km² boreal zone, 29.2% of world boreal area; fire-adapted spruce-pine forests, vast peatland carbon stores, record 2023 wildfires, and mostly public, largely intact land.
Boscia
Boscia Lam. (Capparaceae), a genus of about 30 unarmed shrubs and small trees of dry tropical Africa, Madagascar, and Arabia; petal-less flowers, indehiscent fruit, deep-rooted desert species, and African medicinal and fodder uses.
Boswellia
Boswellia (frankincense genus), Burseraceae trees of Africa, Arabia, and India; 25 species; resin contains boswellic acids (AKBA, KBA) inhibiting 5-LOX; studied for osteoarthritis; many species endangered.
Boswellia sacra
Boswellia sacra (Arabian frankincense tree, olibanum) is a 1.5–8 m Burseraceae tree of Somalia, Yemen, and Oman's Dhofar, source of frankincense resin traded since at least 2000 BC; Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List.
Boswellia serrata
Boswellia serrata (Indian frankincense, Shallaki) is an Indian resin-yielding tree whose boswellic acids, especially AKBA, underpin supplements studied mainly for knee osteoarthritis; evidence is modest and industry-funded.
Bothriochloa
Bothriochloa (bluestems), grass genus in Poaceae, Panicoideae, Andropogoneae; about 35-37 species of Old World tropics; forage grasses such as B. bladhii and B. ischaemum, invasive Old World bluestems in US rangelands.
Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea, a South American genus of Nyctaginaceae woody climbers grown for colorful bracts around small true flowers; discovered in Rio de Janeiro on the 1766-1769 La Boudeuse voyage and named after Louis Antoine de Bougainville.
Bouteloua
Bouteloua, known commonly as grama or grama grass, is a genus of about 57 New World grasses, including blue grama, black grama, sideoats grama, and buffalograss.
Bouteloua gracilis
Bouteloua gracilis, known as blue grama, is a perennial warm-season grass native to Canada, the United States, and Mexico, making up 75% to 90% of production in the shortgrass prairie.
Bowenia
Bowenia is a Queensland-endemic cycad genus in Zamiaceae with two species, B. spectabilis and B. serrulata, unique among living cycads for bipinnate leaves and weevil pollination.
Brachypodium
Brachypodium (P.Beauv., 1812) is a genus of 23 temperate grass species in Poaceae, tribe Brachypodieae, native from Mexico to Bolivia and the Old World; its flagship species B. distachyon is a small-genome model grass for cereal and bioenergy research.
Brachypodium distachyon
Brachypodium distachyon, purple false broom, is a small temperate grass (Poaceae) native from Macaronesia to India and a key model organism for cereal and bioenergy grass genomics, with a ~272 Mb genome, 2n=10, and an 8-18 week life cycle.
Brachypodium pinnatum
Brachypodium pinnatum (tor grass, heath false-brome, chalk false broom) is a perennial rhizomatous Poaceae grass native from temperate Eurasia to the Himalaya and Eritrea, notorious for dominating and reducing diversity in European calcareous chalk grasslands.
Brachystegia
Brachystegia (msasa, miombo) is a genus of about 29 African legume trees dominating miombo woodlands of central and southern Africa, valued for timber, bark fibre, and food, with Pliocene diversification and hybridization complicating its taxonomy.
Bran
Bran is the outer layer of cereal grains (pericarp, seed coat, aleurone), separated in milling; wheat bran, ~14–19% of kernel weight, supplies up to 45 g fiber/100 g and approved EFSA gut-health claims.
Brasenia schreberi
Brasenia schreberi (watershield, water shield, chun cai 莼菜, junsai) is the sole species of Cabombaceae genus Brasenia, a mucilage-coated floating-leaved aquatic plant of lakes and ponds across Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas, eaten in East Asia and globally rated Least Concern.
Brassavola nodosa
Brassavola nodosa, the lady-of-the-night orchid, is an epiphytic Cattleya-alliance orchid from Mexico to Venezuela with white, night-fragrant, moth-pollinated flowers; widely grown and used in hybrids like Little Stars.
Brassia caudata
Brassia caudata (L.) Lindl., the cricket orchid, is a spider-like epiphytic orchid from southern Florida, Mexico, the West Indies, and tropical South America, with long-tailed sepals, wasp-mimic pollination, and disputed species limits.
Brassica carinata
Brassica carinata, Ethiopian mustard or Abyssinian mustard, is an allotetraploid (BBCC, 2n=34) oilseed crop from the Ethiopian highlands, derived from B. nigra × B. oleracea, developed for jet fuel and industrial erucic oil.
Brassica nigra
Brassica nigra, black mustard (Sinapis nigra), an erect annual Brassicaceae herb with BB genome 2n=16, grown since antiquity for pungent sinigrin-rich seeds used as condiment mustard and oil; parent of B. juncea and B. carinata.
Brassicaceae
Brassicaceae (Cruciferae), the mustard or cabbage family of order Brassicales: ~4,000 species with cruciform flowers, tetradynamous stamens, siliques, glucosinolate defense, and crops like Brassica, plus Arabidopsis thaliana.
Brazil nut
Brazil nut (Amazon nut), seed of Bertholletia excelsa, the only globally traded wild-collected seed crop; Bolivia leads production and exports; very high selenium, 68-91 mcg per nut.
Brazilian rosewood
Brazilian rosewood names two trees: Aniba rosodora (pau-rosa), an endangered Amazonian laurel distilled for linalool-rich essential oil, and Dalbergia nigra, a Vulnerable Atlantic Forest timber tree on CITES Appendix I.
Breadfruit
Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a tropical tree in the mulberry family, cultivated for starchy fruits that taste like bread when roasted and grown in 90 countries.
Bristlecone pine
Bristlecone pines (Pinus aristata, P. longaeva, P. balfouriana), subsection Balfourianae, are high-elevation western North American pines; Great Basin bristlecone holds the oldest non-clonal tree record at about 4,850 to 5,000 years.
Bromelia
Bromelia is a genus of about 50 spiny terrestrial bromeliads (Bromeliaceae) native from Mexico and the West Indies to Argentina, with edible berry fruits, fiber leaves, and living-fence uses.
Bromeliaceae
Bromeliaceae (bromeliad or pineapple family), Juss. 1789, monocot family of Poales with about 3,140-3,500 Neotropical species in 58-77 genera; tank rosettes, CAM photosynthesis, pineapple Ananas comosus, 81% possibly threatened.