Seed plants

Bromeliad cultivation

Bromeliad cultivation is the growing of pineapple-family plants, chiefly tank-forming rosettes like Aechmea and epiphytic air plants, as ornamentals that bloom once and produce offsets.

Bromeliad fibers and traditional uses

Bromeliad fibers are tough leaf fibers from plants like Aechmea and Bromelia, spun by Indigenous and campesino communities across Latin America into hammocks, bags, nets, ropes, and ceremonial textiles.

Bromeliad phytotelmata

Bromeliad phytotelmata are water bodies impounded in bromeliad leaf rosettes and axils, one of five phytotelm types. Tank formation evolved twice in about 1300 of 3600 Bromeliaceae species; tanks host discrete detritus-based aquatic food webs and serve as ecological model systems.

Bromelioideae

Bromelioideae is a subfamily of the bromeliad family, defined by fleshy berry fruits and inferior ovaries, and it contains the pineapple, the family's only agriculturally important member.

Bromus

Bromus (brome grasses), genus of about 165 annual and perennial grasses in Poaceae, sole genus of tribe Bromeae, sister to Triticeae. Native to temperate and subtropical to tropical mountain regions worldwide; includes forage species like B. inermis and major invaders like cheatgrass B. tectorum.

Bromus erectus

Bromus erectus (upright brome, erect brome; synonym Bromopsis erecta) is a perennial tufted grass native from western and central Europe to the Mediterranean, Iran, and Tibet, dominant on dry calcareous soils and an expanding neophyte in central German dry grasslands.

Bromus inermis

Bromus inermis, smooth brome or awnless brome, is a Eurasian rhizomatous cool-season grass introduced to North America in 1884 as forage, now a widespread invasive of Great Plains prairies that reduces native diversity while remaining a major hay grass.

Bromus racemosus

Bromus racemosus (smooth brome, bald brome) is an annual or biennial brome-grass native from Europe to China, distinguished from B. commutatus by a lax, usually unbranched panicle with branches under 4 cm.

Bromus tectorum

Bromus tectorum, known as cheatgrass or downy brome, is a winter annual grass native to Eurasia that has become one of western North America's worst plant invasions.

Brosimum

Brosimum is a genus of 19 accepted Neotropical tree species in Moraceae, tribe Dorstenieae, described by Swartz in 1788; type species B. alicastrum (breadnut, ramón), with timber species B. guianense and B. rubescens.

Broussonetia

Broussonetia (paper mulberry genus), Moraceae trees native from India to Japan and Indo-China; B. papyrifera bark fiber made ancient Chinese paper and Polynesian tapa cloth, and the species is now invasive in Ghana, India, and elsewhere.

Broussonetia papyrifera

Broussonetia papyrifera, paper mulberry (tapa cloth tree), a Moraceae tree native from India to Korea and Indo-China; inner bark used for washi paper and Pacific tapa; carried by Austronesians to Remote Oceania, now invasive in parts of the USA, Ghana, and India.

Brown planthopper

Brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens (Stål), Delphacidae, is a rice-specific sap-sucking pest across Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific causing hopperburn, transmitting rice stunt viruses, and showing rapid insecticide resistance.

Brown rice

Brown rice is whole-grain rice with only the hull removed, keeping the bran and germ; higher fiber (1.6 g/100 g cooked), GI about 65, more arsenic than white rice, and modest weight benefits in trials.

Brucea

Brucea J.F.Mill. is a Paleotropical genus of bitter-barked shrubs in Simaroubaceae, about five to nine species, whose Brucea javanica (Ya-dan-zi) yields quassinoids such as bruceines used against dysentery, malaria, and cancer.

Brugmansia

Brugmansia (angel's trumpets, floripondios, tree daturas) is a Solanaceae genus of six to eight woody Andean South American species with pendulous fragrant trumpet flowers, tropane alkaloid toxicity, and close relation to Datura.

Bruguiera

Bruguiera (Lam. ex Savigny, 1798) is a genus of five accepted true mangrove tree species in Rhizophoraceae, native from East Africa to the West Pacific, with buttressed stems, knee pneumatophores, and explosive bird- or insect-triggered pollen release.

Bryonia

Bryonia (bryony) is a genus of ten climbing Cucurbitaceae herbs native from Macaronesia and Europe to Central Asia, sister to Ecballium, with dioecious and monoecious species and a two-millennium medicinal history.

Bucatini

Bucatini (perciatelli) is a thick hollow Italian pasta strand of semolina and water from Lazio and Abruzzo, 2.7-3 mm across, the classic shape for bucatini all'amatriciana and other rich Roman sauces.

Buckwheat

Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), a gluten-free Polygonaceae pseudocereal from China; seeds used for soba and kasha, plant used as cover crop; ~2 million tons produced 2024, led by China, Russia, Ukraine.

Buddleja

Buddleja (buddleia, butterfly bush) is a genus of about 114 accepted species of shrubs in Scrophulariaceae, native to tropical and subtropical America, Africa, Madagascar, and Asia; Buddleja davidii is a popular but invasive garden plant.

Bulb

Bulb: a compressed underground stem with fleshy leaf scales, basal plate, and tunic; horticulturally also corms, tubers, tuberous roots, and rhizomes. ABA and temperature govern dormancy; tulips drove the Dutch bulb trade.

Bulbophyllum

Bulbophyllum (Thouars 1822) is the second largest orchid and flowering-plant genus, over 2,100 pantropical epiphytic species centered in tropical Asia, with 97 sections, many non-monophyletic, and CITES Appendix II coverage.

Bulbophyllum beccarii

Bulbophyllum beccarii Rchb.f. (1879) is a large climbing epiphytic orchid from Borneo, with a bristly creeping rhizome, cup-shaped detritus-trapping leaves up to 50 cm, and pink flowers smelling of rotting flesh.

Bulbophyllum fletcherianum

Bulbophyllum fletcherianum J.G.Fowler, the tongue orchid, a giant New Guinea orchid described in 1914, with leaves to 1.8 m and fetid deep red flowers; synonyms include Cirrhopetalum fletcherianum and B. spiesii.

Bulgur

Bulgur (bulgar, bulghur, burgul) is parboiled, dried, partially debranned wheat, usually durum, sold cracked or whole; a Middle Eastern staple, tabbouleh base, and Turkey-dominated trade (HS 190430) with GI about 55-65.

Bulnesia

Bulnesia (lignumvitae, guayacán, palo santo) is a South American Zygophyllaceae genus described by Gay in 1846, native Peru to southern South America, with hard aromatic wood; B. sarmientoi is CITES Appendix II listed.

Bún bò Huế

Bún bò Huế (bún bò Huế, Hue beef noodle soup) is a spicy Vietnamese noodle soup from Huế, built on lemongrass, fermented shrimp paste, and chili oil, with thick round noodles, beef shank, and pork hock, distinct from pho.

Burl

Burl: a large woody, rounded swelling on a tree trunk or branch with contorted, swirling grain, caused by stress such as insects, bacteria, fungi, or injury; benign, prized as burl wood, and distinct from galls and lignotubers.