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Podocarps in cultivation and use
The cultivation and use of podocarps centers on Podocarpus macrophyllus, a staple hedge and topiary conifer, and on yellowwood, rimu, and mataī timber in South Africa and New Zealand.
Podocarpus
Podocarpus, known as plum pine, is a genus of roughly 100 to 120 evergreen conifer species native to tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia, Australasia, and the Americas.
Podocarpus latifolius
Podocarpus latifolius, the real yellowwood or broad-leaved yellowwood, is South Africa's national tree, a slow-growing evergreen conifer of Podocarpaceae reaching 20-30 m in forests, with pale yellow timber once heavily logged and now protected.
Podocarpus parlatorei
Podocarpus parlatorei (pino de cerro, Parlatore's podocarp) is a dioecious conifer tree endemic to Yungas montane forests of Bolivia and NW Argentina, 1200–3000 m; CITES Appendix I since 1975, IUCN Vulnerable 2025, threatened by climate-driven niche squeeze.
Podocarpus totara
Podocarpus totara (tōtara) is a large New Zealand conifer growing up to 30 m tall, valued for its naturally durable timber and its central place in Māori culture.
Podophyllotoxin
Podophyllotoxin (Condylox, Wartec) is a plant lignan extracted from mayapple roots, applied topically for genital warts and chemically modified into the anticancer drugs etoposide, teniposide, and etopophos.
Podophyllum
Podophyllum (mayapples) is a Berberidaceae genus of 17 species from Afghanistan to China and eastern North America; P. hexandrum, the Himalayan mayapple, is the main podophyllotoxin source and is Endangered.
Pogostemon
Pogostemon, also called pogostemon or patchouli genus, is a Lamiaceae genus of about 80-95 herb and shrub species with disjunct African-Asian distribution; P. cablin yields patchouli essential oil, about 1,300 tonnes yearly.
Poinsettia
Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima, cuetlaxochitl, flor de Nochebuena), a Mexican shrub grown for red winter bracts; introduced to the U.S. by Joel Poinsett in 1828; short-day flowering; low toxicity.
Poison ivy
Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans, formerly Rhus radicans) is a North American Anacardiaceae vine or shrub whose urushiol oil causes allergic contact dermatitis in 10–50 million Americans yearly; three leaflets, cross-reacts with poison oak and sumac.
Polemoniaceae
Polemoniaceae, the phlox family, is an Ericales family of about 27 genera and 400 species of herbs and shrubs with 5-merous fused-petal flowers, centered in western North America; ornamentals include Phlox, Cobaea, Gilia, and Polemonium.
Polemonium caeruleum
Polemonium caeruleum, Jacob's-ladder or Greek valerian, is a perennial Polemoniaceae herb native from Europe to Japan and the Himalaya, with blue flowers, insect pollination, and five accepted subspecies.
Polianthes tuberosa
Polianthes tuberosa, commonly known as the tuberose, is a night-fragrant flowering plant native to Mexico, grown worldwide as a cut flower and a source of expensive perfume oil.
Pollia
Pollia Thunb. (1781) is a genus of about 19-26 perennial herbs in Commelinaceae, pantropical mainly in Asia; known for the structurally colored metallic-blue marble berry Pollia condensata and distinct from the gastropod genus Pollia Gray, 1834.
Pollination
Pollination: transfer of pollen from anthers to stigmas by insects, other animals, wind, or water. Angiosperms are ancestrally insect pollinated; 87.5% of wild flowering plants and 35% of crop production depend on it.
Polyalthia
Polyalthia (Blume, 1830) is a genus of about 100 accepted species of trees and shrubs in Annonaceae, native from Madagascar to tropical Asia and NE Australia, polyphyletic historically, with medicinal clerodane diterpenoids and alkaloids.
Polygala
Polygala, known commonly as milkwort, is a large nearly cosmopolitan genus of flowering plants in the milkwort family, Polygalaceae, first published by Linnaeus in 1753.
Polygalaceae
Polygalaceae, the milkwort family, is a Fabales family of about 30 genera and 1,200 species with keel-like zygomorphic flowers; largest genus Polygala (about 750 species), New World clade now genus Senega.
Polygonaceae
Polygonaceae, the buckwheat or knotweed family, is a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants in the order Caryophyllales, with sheathing stipules called ocreae, and includes the food plants buckwheat, rhubarb, and sorrel.
Polygonatum
Polygonatum (Solomon's seal, Huangjing) is a genus of about 78 accepted perennial herbs in Asparagaceae, native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, with three sections, Himalaya-Hengduan origin c. 20 Ma, and rhizomes used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Polygonum
Polygonum (knotweed), a Linnaean 1753 genus of Polygonaceae herbs with ocreae and trigonous achenes, cosmopolitan with most species north temperate; formerly included Persicaria, Fallopia, Reynoutria, and Fagopyrum.
Polygonum aviculare
Polygonum aviculare (prostrate knotweed, knotgrass, bian xu) is a prostrate annual knotweed of Polygonaceae, native to temperate Eurasia, a cosmopolitan weed with medicinal, diuretic use and herbicide-resistant populations.
Polypogon
Polypogon (rabbitsfoot grass, beard grass) is a genus of annual and perennial grasses in Poaceae, published by Desfontaines in 1798, with fluffy awned spike-like panicles, one-flowered deciduous spikelets, and a Mediterranean-centered distribution; the type species is P. monspeliensis.
Polystachya
Polystachya Hook. (yellowspike orchid) is a conserved pantropical orchid genus of about 240-250 epiphytic, lithophytic, or terrestrial species, richest in Africa, with pseudopollen food hairs instead of nectar and a non-monophyletic Polystachya concreta complex.
Pome
A pome is a fleshy fruit of the rose family, such as the apple, pear, quince, or medlar, whose flesh derives from the hypanthium around a leathery core, the true fruit.
Pometia pinnata
Pometia pinnata (tava, matoa, kasai, oceanic lychee) is a Sapindaceae tree native from Sri Lanka and Yunnan to the Pacific, to 50 m tall, grown for timber and sweet lychee-like edible fruit.
Pongamia
Pongamia (pongam, Indian beech, Millettia pinnata) is a genus of nitrogen-fixing legume trees in Fabaceae native from tropical Asia to the western Pacific; its oil-rich seeds (about 40% oil) are a biofuel feedstock, and it is used for medicine, shade, and land restoration.
Pontederia
Pontederia is a genus of roughly two dozen aquatic flowering plants in the family Pontederiaceae, known for the pickerelweeds and the water hyacinth, one of the world's worst invasive aquatic plants.
Pontederiaceae
Pontederiaceae (water-hyacinth family), aquatic monocot herbs in Commelinales; about 25 species, now often 2 genera (Heteranthera, Pontederia); includes invasive water hyacinth and tristylous pickerelweeds.
Popcorn
Popcorn (Zea mays everta) is a flint-type maize whose thick pericarp lets steam pressure reach about 135 psi before rupture at ~180 °C, popping kernels 30–40-fold; distinct from dent, sweet, and flint corn.