3,306 articles
Melia azedarach
Melia azedarach, chinaberry or Persian lilac (Meliaceae), a deciduous Asian-Australian tree with lilac flowers and toxic yellow drupes; planted for timber and pesticide, invasive in the southern US, South Africa, and on EPPO's 2025 list.
Meliaceae
Meliaceae, the mahogany family (Meliaceae Juss., nom. cons., type genus Melia), is a pantropical Sapindales family of about 50 genera and 600-800 species of scented-wood trees, including Swietenia mahogany, neem, and limonoid-rich chemistry.
Melica
Melica, commonly known as melic or melicgrass, is a genus of about 90 species of perennial grasses in the grass family Poaceae, found in temperate and subtropical regions worldwide.
Melicoccus bijugatus
Melicoccus bijugatus (mamoncillo, Spanish lime, quenepa, genip) is a Sapindaceae fruit tree native to northern South America, naturalized in the Caribbean and Florida; IUCN Least Concern, sister to Talisia in RAxML phylogenies.
Melilotus
Melilotus (sweet-clover, melilot) is a Fabaceae genus of fragrant annual and biennial herbs, 23 accepted species native from temperate Eurasia to South Africa, used as forage and cover crops, source of the anticoagulant dicoumarol, and invasive in North American grasslands.
Melilotus albus
Melilotus albus (white sweet-clover, Bokhara-clover), Fabaceae biennial legume native from Europe to China and N. Africa; grown for forage, honey, and green manure; coumarin-bearing, salt- and drought-relevant, invasive in North America.
Melilotus officinalis
Melilotus officinalis, yellow sweetclover or ribbed melilot, a Eurasian biennial Fabaceae legume introduced as forage, nitrogen-fixing and invasive in North America; moldy hay yields toxic dicoumarol.
Melinis
Melinis P.Beauv. (Natal grass genus, molasses grass, Melinis repens) is a genus of about 20-23 African and Arabian grasses in Poaceae, subtribe Melinidinae, published 1812; several species are forage or ornamental grasses and invasive weeds.
Melinis minutiflora
Melinis minutiflora (molasses grass, capim-gordura), an African perennial fodder grass of Poaceae, invasive in the Brazilian Cerrado and Hawaii; sticky, molasses-scented leaves, flammable biomass, suppresses tree regeneration, controlled by integrated fire-herbicide-manual management.
Melocactus
Melocactus (Turk's cap cacti), genus Link & Otto 1827 in Cactaceae, tribe Cereeae, native from S. Mexico to tropical America; ~36-50 species; distinctive bristly cephalium; hummingbird and lizard pollination; several CITES Appendix I species.
Melocactus matanzanus
Melocactus matanzanus (dwarf Turk's-cap cactus, erizo) is a small endangered Cuban cactus described by León in 1934, 7-10 cm across, with 8-9 ribs, a cephalium, pink flowers, and serpentine-scrub habitat in Matanzas and nearby provinces.
Mentha
Mentha (mint) is a genus of aromatic Lamiaceae herbs, first published by Linnaeus in 1753, with a cosmopolitan native range and about 26 accepted species. Spearmint and peppermint are its main cultivated hybrids; hybridization, polyploidy, and chromosome numbers of 24–120 make its taxonomy notoriously difficult.
Mentha aquatica
Mentha aquatica (water mint), Lamiaceae perennial wetland herb native to Africa, Europe, and W. Asia; IUCN Least Concern; parent of peppermint (Mentha × piperita) with M. spicata; aromatic, rhizomatous, marsh plant.
Mentha canadensis
Mentha canadensis (薄荷, bo he), Canada mint, American wild mint, Japanese mint, or corn mint: a perennial Lamiaceae herb native from Siberia to East Asia and North America, source of cornmint oil rich in menthol (28–47%), with 74 synonyms and disputed species versus subspecies rank.
Mentha longifolia
Mentha longifolia, horsemint or wild mint (欧薄荷), a perennial Lamiaceae herb from Macaronesia to South Africa; variable pulegone/piperitenone oxide essential oil, antimicrobial and antioxidant activity, traditional medicinal uses.
Mentha pulegium
Mentha pulegium, pennyroyal or European pennyroyal, is a perennial mint (Lamiaceae) native to Europe and the Mediterranean, with pulegone-rich toxic essential oil, grown as a herb and invasive in California wetlands.
Menyanthes trifoliata
Menyanthes trifoliata (bogbean, buckbean), sole species of the genus Menyanthes in Menyanthaceae, order Asterales; a distylous emergent aquatic herb of Northern Hemisphere bogs and fens, IUCN Least Concern, used as a bitter herbal medicine.
Mercurialis
Mercurialis (annual mercury, dog's mercury) is a genus of about 10 dioecious herbaceous Euphorbiaceae species native from Macaronesia and Europe to the Himalaya, type species M. annua, used in traditional medicine but toxic when fresh.
Mercurialis annua
Mercurialis annua (annual mercury, herb mercury) is an annual wind-pollinated Euphorbiaceae herb of Europe and the Mediterranean, a polyploid complex with dioecious, monoecious, and androdioecious populations.
Mercurialis perennis
Mercurialis perennis, dog's mercury, a dioecious clonal perennial herb of European woodlands and ancient-woodland indicator; spreads mainly by rhizomes, toxic, pH 4.3–8.5, common in Britain.
Merremia
Merremia Dennst. ex Endl., a genus of twining Convolvulaceae vines native from tropical to temperate Asia; once ~100 species, now 38 accepted after Simões & Staples (2017) split; yellow campanulate flowers, smooth pollen.
Mertensia virginica
Mertensia virginica, Virginia bluebells or Virginia cowslip, is a spring-ephemeral perennial in Boraginaceae native from Ontario and Quebec to the eastern and central United States, with pink buds opening to blue flowers and NatureServe rank G5.
Mespilus germanica
Mespilus germanica, the common medlar, is a small rose-family tree grown for brown fruits that become sweet only after bletting, native from the Caucasus to Iran.
Mesquite
Mesquite, also called mezquite or mesquite bush, is the common name for spiny, pod-bearing trees and shrubs of the legume genus Prosopis and relatives, used for food, fodder, and wood.
Metasequoia
Metasequoia (dawn redwood, 水杉) is a genus of deciduous conifers in Cupressaceae with one living species, M. glyptostroboides, described from fossils by Miki in 1941 and rediscovered alive in Hubei, China in the 1940s; IUCN Endangered.
Metasequoia glyptostroboides (水杉)
Metasequoia glyptostroboides (水杉, shui shan), dawn redwood, is a deciduous conifer and living fossil from Lichuan, Hubei, China; described from fossils by Miki in 1941, rediscovered alive in the 1940s, named by Hu and Cheng in 1948, and endangered in the wild.
Metrosideros
Metrosideros, the rātā and pōhutukawa genus of Myrtaceae, is a group of about 60 Pacific woody species with centres of diversity in New Zealand and New Caledonia, wind-dispersed seeds, red flowers, and vulnerability to myrtle rust and rapid ʻōhiʻa death.
Metroxylon
Metroxylon Rottb. is a genus of hapaxanthic sago palms in Arecaceae, native from Maluku to the western Pacific; its trunk starch yields sago, with M. sagu the true sago palm of Southeast Asia.
Miconia
Miconia (Ruiz & Pav.) is a large Neotropical genus of Melastomataceae shrubs and trees with about 1,893 accepted species, native to tropical and subtropical America, introduced to Hawaii and Indian Ocean islands, and including rare Atlantic Forest endemics such as Miconia ulei.
Miconia calvescens
Miconia calvescens (velvet tree, purple plague), a Melastomataceae tree from Central and South America, is a notorious Pacific island invader that has overrun Tahiti's forests and is targeted by eradication programs in Hawaii, Australia, and New Caledonia.