edgepedia

Plants and algae

4,295 articles

Quercus coccinea

Quercus coccinea, scarlet oak (also Spanish oak), an eastern US red oak of dry upland soils, 50-80 ft tall, with C-shaped leaf sinuses, scarlet fall color, thin fire-susceptible bark, and vigorous postfire sprouting; state tree of Washington, DC.

Quercus douglasii

Quercus douglasii, the blue oak (also iron oak, mountain white oak), is a drought-deciduous California endemic oak dominating foothill woodlands around the Central Valley; IUCN Least Concern, but low recruitment and projected range loss under climate change concern conservationists.

Quercus ilex

Quercus ilex, holm or holly oak, an evergreen Mediterranean oak of Fagaceae, dominant in dehesa woodlands; over 2 million ha, two subspecies (ilex, ballota), low-rate hybridization with cork oak, drought-tolerant anisohydric physiology.

Quercus nigra

Quercus nigra (water oak, possum oak) is a fast-growing red-group oak of the southeastern US Coastal Plain and bottomlands, with spatulate leaves, small biennial black acorns, weak wood, and wide use as a southern street tree.

Quercus palustris

Quercus palustris, the pin oak (also swamp oak, water oak), is a fast-growing red oak of eastern North American bottomlands, 50–70 ft tall, requiring acid soil and developing iron chlorosis on alkaline sites.

Quercus petraea

Quercus petraea, the sessile or durmast oak, is a large European oak native to Europe and N. Iran, distinguished from Q. robur by stalkless acorns and long leaf stalks, drought-tolerant, and valued for timber and barrels.

Quercus pubescens

Quercus pubescens (downy oak, pubescent oak), a polymorphic European white oak with hairy leaves and twigs, native from France to Türkiye, xerophilous on chalky soils, hybridizing with Q. petraea and Q. robur.

Quercus robur

Quercus robur (English or pedunculate oak), a 20-40 m Fagaceae tree native from Europe to Iran, Britain's iconic oak, hybridizing with Q. petraea, timber for ships and Westminster Hall, IUCN Least Concern.

Quercus rubra

Quercus rubra, northern red oak (dąb czerwony, chêne rouge), a large deciduous oak native to eastern North America, introduced to Europe in 1691; fast-growing timber and ornamental tree, drought-tolerant, invasive in Central Europe, susceptible to oak wilt.

Quercus stellata

Quercus stellata, post oak or iron oak, a slow-growing white oak of the southeastern and south-central US, drought-resistant on dry uplands, living 300-400 years, with fencepost wood and Cross Timbers pure stands.

Quercus suber

Quercus suber, the cork oak, is an evergreen oak of the western and central Mediterranean whose bark is stripped periodically and regrown, chiefly for wine stoppers.

Quercus variabilis

Quercus variabilis (栓皮栎), the Chinese cork oak or oriental oak, is an East Asian deciduous oak to 30 m with thick corky bark, cork and tannin uses, IUCN Least Concern status, and a 787 Mb genome.

Quercus velutina

Quercus velutina, black oak or yellow oak, is a deciduous eastern North American red oak of dry upland slopes, with black furrowed bark, yellow bitter inner bark (quercitron dye), biennial acorns, and wood sold as red oak.

Quercus virginiana

Quercus virginiana, the southern live oak (Virginia live oak), is a nearly evergreen southeastern US coastal plain oak with crowns to 150 ft, extremely dense wood used in USS Constitution shipbuilding, high salt tolerance, and G5/LC conservation status.

Quisqueya

Quisqueya (pronounced kwiss-KWAY-ah) is a genus of four orchid species in Laeliinae, endemic to Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), described by Donald Dod in 1979 with type species Q. karstii.

R . m . myers herbarium

R.M. Myers Herbarium (MWI), Western Illinois University herbarium founded 1945 by R. Maurice Myers; about 75,000 specimens, sixth-largest in Illinois, focused on west-central Illinois flora.

Racomitrium lanuginosum

Racomitrium lanuginosum (Woolly Fringe-moss, còinneach gruaig chlòimhe) is a hoary, woolly Grimmiaceae moss dominating upland Racomitrium heath and scree, circumpolar and sub-Antarctic, with toothed hyaline leaf hair points and a 5°C photosynthesis optimum.

Radish

Radish (Raphanus sativus), also daikon (大根, great root), a cool-season Brassicaceae root vegetable harvested 3-5 weeks after planting; pungency comes from slow growth, and daikon roots reach about 18 inches and 5-6 pounds.

Raffia palm

Raffia palm (Raphia, jupatí, wine palm): massive African wetland palms yielding raffia and piassava fiber, palm wine, thatch, and food; monocarpic, with the largest leaves in the plant kingdom and about 100 recorded uses.

Rafflesia

Rafflesia, the corpse flower genus (Rafflesiaceae), is a Southeast Asian holoparasite on Tetrastigma vines with no leaves, stems, or roots; R. arnoldii bears the world's largest single flower, up to 1 m and 7 kg, smelling of rotting meat.

Rafflesia arnoldii

Rafflesia arnoldii (corpse flower, padma raksasa) is a holoparasitic Sumatran and Bornean plant on Tetrastigma vines, producing the world's largest single flower, up to 1 m across, smelling of rotting meat and pollinated by carrion flies.

Ragweed

Ragweed (Ambrosia, Asteraceae), including common ragweed Ambrosia artemisiifolia, is a North American wind-pollinated weed whose highly allergenic pollen causes hay fever; it invaded Europe via multiple introductions and contaminated grain, costing billions annually.

Rainier cherry

Rainier cherry: blushed yellow sweet cherry cultivar, Bing x Van cross made 1952 by Harold Fogle at WSU Prosser, released 1960, named for Mount Rainier; highest-value Pacific Northwest cherry, ripens 3-6 days after Bing.

Raisin

A raisin is a dried grape, made by drying Vitis vinifera in the sun or by dehydration; Thompson Seedless makes up 90 percent of the U.S. supply.

Rambutan

Rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum, Vietnamese Chom Chom, Thai Ngo) is a Sapindaceae tropical tree from southern China to Malesia with hairy red fruit, sweet aril, 1.4 Mt annual Southeast Asian production, Indonesia largest producer.

Rambutan cultivars

Rambutan cultivars are named, clonally propagated selections of the tropical rambutan tree Nephelium lappaceum, with over 200 cultivars across tropical Asia, all derived by cloning superior trees rather than cross-breeding.

Ranunculaceae

Ranunculaceae, the buttercup family, is an early-diverging eudicot family in Ranunculales with about 49 accepted genera including Ranunculus, Clematis, Aconitum, Delphinium, and Pulsatilla, mostly temperate northern hemisphere herbs used in horticulture and medicine.

Ranunculales

Ranunculales, an order of flowering plants and the sister lineage to all other eudicots, with about 4,500 mainly temperate species in seven APG IV families including Ranunculaceae, the buttercup family.

Ranunculus

Ranunculus (buttercups), largest genus of Ranunculaceae, first published by Linnaeus in 1753; Kew lists 1788 species distributed on all continents, with yellow or white flowers, achenes, and ranunculin-derived protoanemonin toxicity.

Ranunculus bulbosus

Ranunculus bulbosus, the bulbous buttercup, is a perennial herb in the buttercup family that regrows from a bulbous stem base and is native from Morocco across Europe to Central Asia.