4,295 articles
Annual plant
Annual plant: a flowering plant completing its life cycle from seed to seed in one growing season, then dying. Includes winter annuals (fall germination, spring flowering) and summer annuals; contrasted with perennials in ecology, biogeography, and agriculture.
Anoda
Anoda is a genus of about 24 accepted Malvaceae (mallow) species of annual herbs native to tropical and subtropical America, centered in Mexico; its best-known species, Anoda cristata, is a crop weed and Mexican food plant.
Anredera
Anredera (Madeira-vines), genus of climbing vines in Basellaceae, Caryophyllales, published 1789; 10-12 species native to tropical and subtropical Americas; includes invasive ornamental Anredera cordifolia.
Anredera cordifolia
Anredera cordifolia, Madeira vine or mignonette vine (binahong), a Basellaceae twining vine native to South America, grown as ornamental and vegetable, invasive in Australia and New Zealand via aerial tubers.
Antennaria
Antennaria (pussytoes) is a genus of about 45 accepted species of dioecious perennial herbs in Asteraceae, tribe Gnaphalieae, native from subarctic and temperate Northern Hemisphere to Mexico and southern South America, known for apomixis and polyploid complexes.
Anthemis
Anthemis is a genus of about 175-210 Asteraceae herbs, mainly circum-Mediterranean, known as chamomiles; Anthemis nobilis is now Chamaemelum nobile, Roman chamomile, and Anthemis cotula is a toxic chamomile look-alike.
Antheridiogen
Antheridiogen (AG, A-substanz) is a gibberellin-like pheromone from mature female fern gametophytes that turns nearby young gametophytes precociously male; discovered by Döpp in 1950, with types A, B, and C across fern families.
Antheridium
Antheridium (plural antheridia): the male gametangium producing sperm in bryophytes, ferns, some algae, and fungi; jacket cells enclose spermatogenous cells, and water is needed for sperm release and swimming.
Anthoceros
Anthoceros is the most species-rich hornwort genus (60 species), named by Linnaeus in 1753, family Anthocerotaceae; includes the model species Anthoceros agrestis with a tiny 116 Mb genome, pyrenoid-bearing chloroplasts, and Nostoc nitrogen-fixing symbiosis.
Anthoxanthum
Anthoxanthum (vernal grasses, sweet vernal grass), a Poaceae genus published by Linnaeus in 1753, type species A. odoratum; about 52 species of aromatic temperate and tropical-mountain grasses with 3-flowered spikelets, including the invasive sweet vernal grass.
Anthoxanthum odoratum
Anthoxanthum odoratum, sweet vernal grass or vanilla grass, is a coumarin-scented perennial Poaceae grass native from Macaronesia and Europe to Mongolia and NW Africa, tetraploid, early-flowering, and naturalized as a low-yielding forage grass and weed worldwide.
Anthriscus
Anthriscus (chervils, beakchervils) is a conserved Apiaceae genus from Persoon (1805), native from temperate Eurasia to tropical African mountains; about 80 named species but roughly 9-14 accepted, including garden chervil (A. cerefolium) and cow parsley (A. sylvestris).
Anthriscus sylvestris
Anthriscus sylvestris, known as cow parsley, wild chervil, or keck, is a biennial or perennial herb in the carrot family native to temperate Eurasia, bearing white flower umbels in late spring.
Anthurium
Anthurium (flamingo flower, laceleaf, tailflower) is the largest genus of Araceae, 800 to 1,300+ species native to tropical America, grown for cut flowers and potted plants, chiefly Anthurium andraeanum hybrids.
Anthurium andraeanum
Anthurium andraeanum (flamingo-lily) is an epiphytic Araceae species native to Colombia and Ecuador, progenitor of over 2,000 anthurium cultivars, discovered 1876, bred mainly in Hawaii and the Netherlands, constrained by Xanthomonas bacterial blight.
Anthyllis
Anthyllis (kidney vetches) is a genus of about 23 legume species (Fabaceae, tribe Loteae) native from Macaronesia and Europe to Iran and NE tropical Africa, with all 10 stamens united and non-lomentaceous fruits; A. vulneraria is the most widespread species.
Antiaris toxicaria
Antiaris toxicaria, the upas tree, is a large tropical fig-family tree of the Old World tropics whose poisonous latex is a principal ingredient of dart and arrow poisons.
Anticlea
Anticlea Kunth (1843) is a genus of ten bulbous Melanthiaceae species, the death camas, native from eastern Europe and temperate Asia to North America and Guatemala; the same name also denotes a geometrid moth genus.
Antirrhinum
Antirrhinum (snapdragons), a Mediterranean genus of Plantaginaceae with about 20-24 diploid species (2n=16), whose type species Antirrhinum majus is a leading model for flower development genetics, the ABC model, and bee-pollinated personate flowers.
Antirrhinum majus
Antirrhinum majus, the garden snapdragon (muflier), a Plantaginaceae species native to Spain and France, self-compatible, bee-pollinated, and a model plant in genetics with a 510 Mb genome.
Apera
Apera (silkybent) is a genus of about five annual grasses in Poaceae, tribe Poeae, native from Europe to Central Asia; its type species Apera spica-venti is a major herbicide-resistant weed of European winter cereals.
Apiaceae
Apiaceae, also known as Umbelliferae, is the carrot or parsley family, a family of aromatic flowering herbs whose flowers grow in umbrella-shaped clusters called umbels.
Apiales
Apiales, also known as Araliales, is an order of flowering plants containing the carrot family Apiaceae and the ginseng or ivy family Araliaceae, along with five smaller families.
Apium
Apium is a genus of Apiaceae (carrot family, order Apiales) herbs published by Linnaeus in 1753, with about 18-30 species of temperate and subtropical Old World to South America; its type species Apium graveolens is celery, cultivated as stalk celery, celeriac, and leafy smallage.
Apium graveolens
Apium graveolens (celery) is a biennial Apiaceae herb native from Macaronesia to the W. Himalaya, with three cultivar groups: stalk celery (var. dulce), celeriac (var. rapaceum), and leaf celery (var. secalinum); trials suggest modest cardiometabolic benefits.
Apocynaceae
Apocynaceae (dogbane family), formerly including Asclepiadaceae and Periplocaceae, is a large Gentianales flowering-plant family of about 392 genera and 5,747 species, mostly tropical, with milky latex, gynostegia, pollinia, and medicinal plants like Catharanthus roseus.
Apocynum
Apocynum (dogbane, Indian hemp) is a genus of Apocynaceae herbs native from SE/E Europe to W China and North America, with milky latex, paired follicles, and species including A. cannabinum, A. androsaemifolium, and A. venetum (Luobuma).
Apocynum androsaemifolium
Apocynum androsaemifolium (spreading dogbane, bitter-root) is a rhizomatous, poisonous perennial herb of the dogbane family, native from Subarctic America to NE Mexico, type species of Apocynum, hybridizing with A. cannabinum.
Apogamy and apospory in ferns
Apogamy and apospory in ferns bypass the normal life cycle: apogamy grows a sporophyte from the gametophyte without fertilization, and apospory grows a gametophyte without spores.
Apostasia
Apostasia is a genus of terrestrial orchids in Apostasioideae, with Neuwiedia one of only two genera sister to all other orchids; eight species from tropical Asia to northern Australia, with powdery pollen, actinomorphic non-resupinate flowers, and cricket-dispersed seeds.