4,295 articles
Scutellaria
Scutellaria (skullcaps), a cosmopolitan Lamiaceae genus of roughly 360-485 species, defined by the scutellum calyx appendage; medicinal species S. baicalensis, S. barbata, S. lateriflora yield flavonoids baicalein, baicalin, wogonin.
Scutellaria baicalensis
Scutellaria baicalensis (Huangqin, Chinese or Baikal skullcap), a Lamiaceae perennial herb of Siberia to Vietnam; its dried root, rich in baicalin and baicalein, is a major traditional Chinese medicine with limited human clinical evidence.
Seagrass
Seagrass: about 72 species of submerged marine flowering plants in four families, forming coastal meadows covering ~0.1% of the seafloor; key blue carbon sinks (138 ± 38 gC m⁻² yr⁻¹) and fish nurseries, declining 20–35% since 1970.
Seaweed
Seaweed, also known as macroalgae, is the everyday term for large marine algae used as food, fertilizer, and a source of hydrocolloids like agar and carrageenan.
Seaweed-derived calcium
Seaweed-derived calcium (algal calcium, Aquamin) is dietary calcium from calcified red seaweed such as Lithothamnion, GRAS-notified as GRN 28 for food fortification up to 4.0 percent.
Secale
Secale is a Poaceae genus of Triticeae grasses including cultivated rye (Secale cereale), domesticated from weedy rye, grown on 4.1 million ha mostly in northeastern Europe, high in dietary fiber, and a gluten and allergen source.
Sedge meadows and tussock tundra
Sedge meadows and tussock tundra are wetland ecosystems dominated by sedges such as Carex stricta and Eriophorum vaginatum, which build peat and store large amounts of carbon.
Sedges of North America
Sedges of North America describes the sedge family Cyperaceae north of Mexico: 843 species in 27 genera, with Carex alone holding 480 species, about 57% of the flora.
Sedges of the British Isles
The sedges of the British Isles are the sedges, cotton-grasses, club-rushes, and allies of Britain and Ireland, about 85 species, covered by the BSBI's 2007 handbook of the same name.
Sedum
Sedum (stonecrop) is the largest genus of Crassulaceae, about 499 accepted succulent species native from temperate to tropical mountain regions; non-monophyletic, with Hylotelephium, Phedimus, and Petrosedum segregated, and many species using CAM photosynthesis on green roofs.
Sedum acre
Sedum acre (biting stonecrop, goldmoss stonecrop) is a mat-forming succulent Crassulaceae herb native from Greenland and Europe to the Caucasus, type species of Sedum, used on green roofs and naturalized widely.
Seed
Seed: the plant reproductive unit containing embryo, nutritive tissue, and protective coat; gymnosperm and angiosperm seeds, double fertilization, dormancy, Devonian origin, and seed banks like Svalbard and Kew's Millennium Seed Bank.
Seed Bank
A seed bank stores seeds dried and frozen for long-term preservation, conserving crop varieties and wild species; about 6 million accessions sat in 902 gene banks worldwide in 2024.
Seed dispersal
Seed dispersal, also called seed distribution, is the movement of seeds or seed-bearing fruits away from the parent plant by animals, wind, water, or the plant itself.
Seed-fern stomatal CO₂ proxies (Lepidopteris and allies)
Seed-fern stomatal CO₂ proxies reconstruct past atmospheric CO₂ from stomatal index on fossil Lepidopteris cuticles, via stomatal ratio, transfer functions, or Franks gas-exchange models; key for end-Triassic and Permian–Triassic greenhouse crises.
Seedless fruit
Seedless fruit develops without mature seeds via parthenocarpy (fruit set without fertilization) or stenospermocarpy (seed abortion after fertilization), as in seedless grapes, bananas, citrus, and watermelon, controlled by auxin, gibberellin, and cytokinin.
Seitan
Seitan (wheat meat, miànjīn 面筋) is cooked wheat gluten used as a meat substitute, made by washing starch from wheat flour dough. Not gluten-free; named by George Ohsawa in 1961.
Selaginella
Selaginella (spikemoss) is a cosmopolitan genus of about 750 heterosporous lycophyte species with ligulate four-ranked leaves and terminal strobili, dating to roughly 383 million years ago, including resurrection plants like S. lepidophylla.
Selaginella lepidophylla
Selaginella lepidophylla, the resurrection plant or false rose of Jericho, is a Chihuahuan desert lycophyte that survives >95% water loss for decades, curling into a ball when dry and reviving on rehydration.
Selaginellaceae
Selaginellaceae (spikemoss family), a lycophyte family with the single genus Selaginella, about 700–800 species worldwide; ligulate leaves, heterospory, rhizophores, split into 7 subfamilies and 19 genera in 2023.
Selaginellales
Selaginellales is an order of lycophytes containing one family, Selaginellaceae, and one genus, Selaginella (spikemoss), with about 750 heterosporous, ligulate-leaved species worldwide except Antarctica, dating to the Late Devonian.
Self-pollination
Self-pollination (autogamy, geitonogamy, cleistogamy) is pollen transfer within a flower or between flowers of the same plant, enabling self-fertilization; the most common evolutionary transition in flowering plants, favored by reproductive assurance and transmission advantage but limited by inbreeding depression.
Sempervivum
Sempervivum, houseleeks or hen-and-chicks, is a Crassulaceae succulent genus of 51 accepted species native from Europe to Iran and Morocco, grown for evergreen rosettes that die after flowering and spread by stolons.
Senecio
Senecio (groundsels, ragworts) is a huge, cosmopolitan genus of Asteraceae, tribe Senecioneae, with about 1,250-1,500 accepted species, established by Linnaeus in 1753, many species containing hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids.
Senecio retrorsus
Senecio retrorsus DC., also called Grass Stagger's Weed or Dunsiektebossie, is a pyrrolizidine-alkaloid-containing ragwort in Asteraceae native from Zimbabwe to South Africa, poisonous to livestock and assessed Least Concern by SANBI.
Senecio vulgaris
Senecio vulgaris, common groundsel or old-man-in-the-spring, is a petal-less-flowered annual Asteraceae weed native from Macaronesia to China, toxic from pyrrolizidine alkaloids, and the first weed found resistant to triazine herbicides.
Senegalia senegal
Senegalia senegal (gum arabic tree, formerly Acacia senegal) is a nitrogen-fixing Sahelian acacia supplying about 90% of traded gum arabic, formed schizogenously in inner secondary phloem and harvested after dry-season tapping.
Senna (plant)
Senna (plant genus, formerly in Cassia; senna, Senna alexandrina): a Fabaceae, Caesalpinioideae genus of about 300–350 pantropical species with yellow flowers, apical-pore anthers, and laxative drug uses.
Senna alexandrina
Senna alexandrina (Cassia senna, Cassia angustifolia; Alexandrian, Indian, or Tinnevelly senna) is a Fabaceae shrub whose sennoside-rich leaves and pods are stimulant laxatives for constipation, with grade A evidence and EU herbal monographs.
Sepal
Sepal: a modified leaf of the calyx, the outermost whorl of a flower, enclosing the bud; usually photosynthetic. Etymology 1821 (Necker 1790). Specified by A-class genes in the ABC model; tepals when undifferentiated from petals.