3,306 articles
Allium tricoccum
Allium tricoccum, ramp or wild leek (ail des bois), a spring-ephemeral edible allium native to eastern North American forests; slow-growing (5-7 years to flower), heavily overharvested, vulnerable in Québec, distinct from A. burdickii and European A. ursinum.
Allium tuberosum
Allium tuberosum (garlic chives, Chinese chives, nira, jiu, buchu) is an East Asian Allium crop grown for mild garlic-flavored leaves and flowers, domesticated in northern China over 3,000 years ago, tetraploid 2n=32.
Allium ursinum
Allium ursinum (ramsons, bear's garlic, wild garlic) is a bulbous European woodland plant whose spring leaves are eaten as a herb; toxic lookalikes and in vitro-only pharmacology distinguish it from cultivated garlic.
Allium vineale
Allium vineale (crow garlic, field garlic, wild garlic, wild onion) is a bulbous perennial allium native to Europe, the Mediterranean, and western Asia, naturalized in North America and Australia. It reproduces mainly by bulbils and offsets, has hollow cylindrical leaves, and is a difficult turf and cereal-crop weed.
Almond
Almond (Prunus dulcis, syn. P. amygdalus), an early-domesticated Near Eastern nut tree; wild ancestor likely P. fenzliana; California grows about 80% of world supply; kernels contain amygdalin.
Alnus glutinosa
Alnus glutinosa, common or black alder, is a European wetland tree in Betulaceae that fixes nitrogen via Frankia root nodules, has sticky buds, water-durable timber, and is invasive in North America, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Alnus rubra
Alnus rubra, the red alder, is a fast-growing deciduous tree of the birch family native to the Pacific Coast from Alaska to California, the largest alder in the Americas.
Alnus viridis
Alnus viridis (green alder, now often Alnus alnobetula) is a fast-growing deciduous nitrogen-fixing alder shrub of cool Northern Hemisphere subalpine zones, a pioneer on disturbed soils, 0.5–6 m tall.
Alocasia
Alocasia is a genus of over 113 Araceae species native from tropical Asia to eastern Australia, including giant taro and Chinese taro; rainforest herbs with calcium oxalate raphides and a Borneo-centered Miocene dispersal history.
Aloe
Aloe is a genus of over 300-550 succulent Asphodelaceae plants native to Africa, Madagascar, Arabia, and NW India; Aloe vera gel and latex are widely used medicinally, with mixed clinical evidence and CITES-listed species.
Aloe vera
Aloe vera (Aloe barbadensis), a succulent cultivated worldwide, yields inner-leaf gel used in cosmetics and burn care and bitter latex containing the laxative anthraquinone aloin; non-decolorized whole leaf extract is an IARC possible carcinogen.
Alopecurus
Alopecurus (foxtail grasses), Poaceae genus published by Linnaeus in 1753 with 45 temperate-zone species; includes meadow foxtail (A. pratensis) and black-grass (A. myosuroides), a major herbicide-resistant cereal weed in Europe.
Alopecurus myosuroides
Alopecurus myosuroides, black-grass, is an annual cross-pollinating grass weed of European winter cereals, the most important herbicide-resistant weed in European agriculture, with resistance to seven herbicide modes of action and estimated UK losses of £0.4 billion yearly.
Alopecurus pratensis
Alopecurus pratensis, the meadow foxtail (French vulpin des prés), is a perennial grass native from Europe to Mongolia, among the earliest-heading forage grasses of European meadows.
Aloysia
Aloysia Paláu is a genus of about 30-41 species of aromatic American shrubs in Verbenaceae, tribe Lantaneae, centered in South America; best known for lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora), used in teas, flavoring, and folk medicine.
Aloysia citrodora
Aloysia citrodora (lemon verbena, lemon beebrush; syn. Aloysia triphylla, Lippia citriodora) is a lemon-scented Verbenaceae shrub native to southern Bolivia and northwest Argentina, grown for herbal tea and medicine; verbascoside is its key extract constituent.
Alpinia purpurata
Alpinia purpurata (red ginger, red-ginger) is a rhizomatous Zingiberaceae herb native to Maluku and the SW Pacific, grown tropically for red-bracted cut-flower spikes; naturalized in Hawaii, Fiji, and Colombia.
Alstonia scholaris
Alstonia scholaris (devil tree, blackboard tree, dita bark, saptaparni) is an Apocynaceae tree native from South Asia to northern Australia, rich in indole alkaloids, used in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, with a Chinese leaf-alkaloid bronchitis drug in trials.
Alstroemeria
Alstroemeria, known in the trade as the Peruvian lily or lily of the Incas, is a South American genus of about 132 flowering plant species named by Linnaeus in 1762.
Alternanthera
Alternanthera (joyweed) is a genus of 80–200 Amaranthaceae herbs, mostly American tropics, with opposite leaves, head-like inflorescences, pseudostaminodes, medicinal and aquarium species, and the invasive alligatorweed.
Alternanthera sessilis
Alternanthera sessilis (sessile joyweed, dwarf copperleaf, mukunuwenna), Amaranthaceae herb with green and red cultivars; edible medicinal weed of tropical Asia, Australia, and tropical America, studied for antioxidant, analgesic, antihyperglycemic, and hepatoprotective effects, also an EPPO-listed invasive weed.
Alyssum
Alyssum (madwort) is a Brassicaceae genus of about 112 accepted species native from the Canary Islands and North Africa to temperate Eurasia; its Odontarrhena section contains many nickel hyperaccumulators, and sweet alyssum belongs instead to Lobularia.
Amana
Amana (Honda, 1935), East Asian tulips, a Liliaceae genus of bulbous herbs native to China, Korea, and Japan; about 13 species, sister to Erythronium, formerly placed in Tulipa.
Amaranth
Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) is a C4 pseudocereal genus of about 50-60 species; grain types A. caudatus, A. cruentus, and A. hypochondriacus are gluten-free, lysine-rich, drought- and salt-tolerant crops domesticated in Mesoamerica and the Andes.
Amaranth grain
Amaranth grain: seed of Amaranthus caudatus, cruentus, and hypochondriacus, a gluten-free American pseudocereal domesticated three times, cultivated over 8,000 years, rich in lysine, calcium, iron, and squalene oil.
Amaranthaceae
Amaranthaceae (amaranth family, including former Chenopodiaceae) is a cosmopolitan Caryophyllales family of about 185 genera and 2,050–2,500 species, with small petal-less flowers, C4 photosynthesis diversity, and crops like amaranth, quinoa, spinach, and sugar beet.
Amaranthus
Amaranthus (amaranth) is a cosmopolitan genus of C4 herbs in Amaranthaceae, including the grain crops A. cruentus, A. hypochondriacus, and A. caudatus, leafy vegetables such as A. tricolor, and noxious weeds like A. palmeri.
Amaranthus caudatus
Amaranthus caudatus (kiwicha, love-lies-bleeding) is an Andean pseudocereal grain amaranth domesticated from A. quitensis, incompletely domesticated, with protein-rich seeds, phytic acid 2.9–7.9 g/kg, and salt-tolerant varieties.
Amaranthus hybridus
Amaranthus hybridus (smooth pigweed, bledo) is a monoecious annual Amaranthaceae weed native from southern Ontario to western South America, wild ancestor of the three grain amaranths, used as a leafy vegetable, and a herbicide-resistant crop weed.
Amaranthus palmeri
Amaranthus palmeri (Palmer amaranth, carelessweed), a dioecious Sonoran Desert-native annual weed, now in over 45 countries, resistant to nine herbicide sites of action and among the most damaging weeds of cotton, maize, and soybean.