3,306 articles
Citrus unshiu
Citrus unshiu (ウンシュウミカン), satsuma mandarin, is a seedless easy-peeling mandarin from China/Japan, the most cold-tolerant commercial citrus, Japan's top fruit crop with 617,100 tons in 2023 and over 100 cultivars.
Clausena
Clausena (Burm.f.), a genus of aromatic shrubs and trees in Rutaceae (citrus family) native from tropical Africa and Asia to Australia; includes wampee (Clausena lansium); known for carbazole alkaloids, coumarins, and essential oils.
Clavija
Clavija Ruiz & Pav. is a Neotropical genus of about 56-60 species of understory shrubs and treelets in Primulaceae (Theophrastoideae), ranging from Nicaragua to southern Brazil, with large leathery leaves, orange flowers, and fleshy fruits.
Claytonia
Claytonia (springbeauties) is a genus of about 33 Montiaceae herbs native to temperate Asia and North and Central America, named for botanist John Clayton; includes edible-tubered C. virginica and miner's lettuce C. perfoliata, moved from Portulacaceae by APG III in 2009.
Clematis vitalba
Clematis vitalba, old man's beard or traveller's joy, a deciduous Ranunculaceae climbing vine native from Europe to Afghanistan, creamy-white flowers and fluffy seed heads; invasive smothering weed in New Zealand and western North America.
Clerodendrum
Clerodendrum (glorybower, bagflower, bleeding-heart) is a Lamiaceae genus of about 250 species of trees, shrubs, and lianas of the Old World tropics, with tubular flowers and accrescent fruiting calyces.
Clethra
Clethra (sweet pepperbush, summersweet) is a genus of about 65-86 shrub and small tree species in Clethraceae, Ericales, native disjunctly to the Americas, Madeira, and tropical-subtropical Asia, with fragrant summer racemes and vicariance-driven biogeography.
Cleyera japonica
Cleyera japonica (sakaki, サカキ), Japanese cleyera, an evergreen Pentaphylacaceae shrub or small tree from Himalaya to East Asia; sacred in Shinto, IUCN Least Concern, with fragrant white flowers and red-to-black berries.
Clitoria
Clitoria (butterfly pea genus) is a pantropical Fabaceae genus published by Linnaeus in 1753, with 30-70 species centered in northern South America; C. ternatea yields ternatins, cyclotides, and butelase-1.
Clitoria ternatea
Clitoria ternatea (butterfly pea, blue pea), a perennial Fabaceae legume native to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, grown for forage and ornament and known for ternatin blue anthocyanins, cyclotides, and food-colorant use.
Clivia
Clivia, also called bush lily, is a genus of six evergreen flowering plant species in the Amaryllis family, native to South Africa and Eswatini and widely grown as houseplants.
Clover
Clover (Trifolium), also called trefoils, is a legume genus of about 240+ species centered in north temperate regions; white clover (T. repens) and red clover (T. pratense) are major forage and nitrogen-fixing pasture plants.
Clusia
Clusia (attorney) is a Neotropical genus of about 250-310 Clusiaceae trees and shrubs with leathery leaves and latex, the only dicotyledonous tree genus with CAM photosynthesis species.
Clusiaceae
Clusiaceae, commonly called the mangosteen family and alternatively known as Guttiferae, is a family of pantropical flowering plants in the order Malpighiales, named by John Lindley in 1836.
Cnidoscolus
Cnidoscolus (spurge nettle, chaya) is an American Euphorbiaceae genus of about 93–99 stinging-haired species centered in Mexico and Brazil, used in folk medicine and as the leafy vegetable chaya, which must be boiled to remove cyanogenic glycosides.
Coca
Coca (Erythroxylum coca, E. novogranatense; Spanish coca, 古柯) is a South American shrub whose cocaine-bearing leaves have been chewed for 8,000 years; four cultivated varieties contain 0.11-1.02% cocaine.
Coccinia
Coccinia (ivy gourd genus, Cucurbitaceae, Benincaseae) is a genus of dioecious African climbing gourds with scarlet berries; 25 species per Holstein's 2015 monograph, with Coccinia grandis naturalized across the tropics and used medicinally against diabetes.
Coccinia grandis
Coccinia grandis, ivy gourd or scarlet-fruited gourd (Cucurbitaceae), is a dioecious perennial tuberous climber to 20 m native from tropical Africa to Asia, eaten as a vegetable, studied as an antidiabetic herb, and a noxious invasive weed in Hawaii.
Coccoloba
Coccoloba (sea grape genus) P.Browne, Polygonaceae; ~150-400 neotropical tree, shrub, and liana species; type species Coccoloba uvifera, the seagrape, a salt-tolerant Caribbean beach tree with grape-like edible fruit clusters.
Coccothrinax
Coccothrinax is a Caribbean-centered palm genus (Arecaceae), described 1899, with fan-shaped silvery-backed leaves; species counts range 14–56, a 2023 revision recognizes 39, and many Cuban endemics are threatened.
Coccothrinax argentata
Coccothrinax argentata, Florida silver palm or silver palm, a small solitary Arecaceae palm of south Florida, the Bahamas, Mexico, and Colombia, with silver leaf undersides, IUCN Least Concern status, and thatch and ornamental uses.
Cocculus
Cocculus DC., a genus of dioecious climbing plants in Menispermaceae (moonseed family), native from Eritrea to southern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to western Indo-China; alkaloid-rich medicinal plants, with C. hirsutus the type species and a taxonomically disputed circumscription.
Cochlearia
Cochlearia (scurvy-grass) is a Brassicaceae genus of cold-adapted coastal and alpine plants of temperate Eurasia and subarctic America, named for spoon-shaped leaves, with polyploid evolution, Pleistocene Arctic diversification, and vitamin C-rich C. officinalis once eaten by sailors against scurvy.
Cocoa butter
Cocoa butter, the fat of Theobroma cacao beans, is the continuous phase of chocolate, ~30% of the product, with POS/SOS/POP TAGs, six polymorphs, Form V tempering, and CBE/CBR/CBS alternatives.
Cocobolo
Cocobolo, the heartwood of Dalbergia retusa, a Central American rosewood tree from Mexico to Colombia; dense, oily, figured timber for instruments and luxury furniture; CITES Appendix II and IUCN Critically Endangered.
Coconut
Coconut (Cocos nucifera), the coconut palm's fruit, a tropical drupe with fibrous husk, three-eyed shell, and liquid-filled seed cavity; independently domesticated in Indian and Pacific Ocean basins, grown for copra oil, coir, and food.
Coconut sugar
Coconut sugar, or coconut palm sugar, is a brown granulated sweetener made by evaporating coconut palm flower sap. Substitutes 1:1 for cane sugar; GI of 35 is unreplicated; major production in Banyumas, Indonesia.
Coconut water
Coconut water is the liquid endosperm of the coconut (Cocos nucifera), high in potassium (~50–55 mmol/L) and low in sodium. Trials show rehydration roughly equal to water or sports drinks; sodium-enriched versions restore plasma volume better.
Codiaeum variegatum
Codiaeum variegatum, the garden croton (garden croton, fire croton, Joseph's Coat), is an Euphorbiaceae shrub native from Malesia to the SW Pacific, grown for variegated foliage in over 300 cultivars; mildly toxic sap, IUCN least concern.
Codonopsis
Codonopsis (党参, Dangshen) is a Campanulaceae genus of about 49 Asian perennial herbs whose dried roots are a qi-tonifying traditional Chinese medicine and food, rich in polyacetylenes, alkaloids, and polysaccharides.