4,295 articles
Watercress
Watercress (Nasturtium officinale) is a perennial aquatic plant in the cabbage family grown for its peppery leaves, native to Eurasia and spread worldwide by European settlement.
Watermelon
Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus), African Cucurbitaceae vine grown for its large sweet fruit over 90% water; seedless triploid types need diploid pollenizers; China leads 2024 production.
Wax gourd
The wax gourd, also called winter melon or ash gourd (冬瓜), is an annual climbing gourd cultivated throughout tropical and subtropical Asia for its very large, wax-coated fruit.
Weigela
Weigela, a genus of about ten deciduous shrub species in Caprifoliaceae native from China to the Russian Far East and Japan, named for C.E. von Weigel; famous for W. florida, over 130 garden cultivars in eight Hoffmann Groups, and spring trumpet flowers on old wood.
Welwitschia
Welwitschia (Welwitschia mirabilis, tree tumbo, tweeblaarkanniedood) is the sole species of Welwitschiaceae, a Namib Desert gymnosperm with two lifelong leaves, ages over 1,500 years, XY sex chromosomes, and high northern-Namib extinction risk.
Westfalische wilhelms universitat herbarium
Herbarium of Münster University (MSUN), founded 1994, held Apocynaceae, Geraniaceae, and karyological vouchers plus a Daniëls moss-lichen collection; dispersed in 2009 to LWL-Museum herbarium MSTR and Hannover.
Wheat
Wheat (Triticum), including bread wheat (T. aestivum) and durum (T. durum), is the world's most widely grown and traded food grain, a hexaploid cereal supplying ~20% of human calories and protein, domesticated in the Fertile Crescent.
Wheat fiber extract
Wheat fiber extract, a brown powder from wheat straw (Triticum aestivum) rich in arabinoxylan and xylo-oligosaccharides, is a dietary fiber ingredient notified as GRAS in FDA GRN 001266 by Comet Biorefining, distinct from wheat bran extract.
Wheat flour
Wheat flour: powder milled from wheat grain, refined or whole wheat, used for bread, pasta, and baked goods. Defined by grain hardness, 8-17% protein, and gluten, its viscoelastic glutenin-gliadin complex.
Wheat gluten
Wheat gluten is the natural protein of wheat, essentially flour with the starch removed, used by bakers to make bread more uniform and known as the trigger of celiac disease.
Wheat protein isolate
Wheat protein isolate (WPI) is a flour-derived ingredient of at least 90% wheat protein, mainly gluten, used to strengthen dough and fortify baked goods, pastas, and meat analogues; lysine-limited and unsuitable for celiac diets.
Wheat research and breeding programs
Wheat research and breeding programs are the public institutes, international centers like CIMMYT and ICARDA, universities, and grower-funded bodies that develop and release new wheat varieties.
Wheat seed polar lipids
Wheat seed polar lipids (WSPL), sold as Ceramosides Powder Neutra by SEPPIC, are a wheat (Triticum aestivum) seed extract of ≥90% polar lipids (≥50% sphingolipids, ≥40% DGDG) judged GRAS by FDA under GRN 906 (August 24, 2020) for fruit and vegetable juice drinks at 0.1 mg/g.
Wheat weevil
The wheat weevil (Sitophilus granarius), also called the granary or grain weevil, is a flightless 3–5 mm snout beetle and major pest of stored grain.
Wheatgrass
Wheatgrass: young grass of common wheat (Triticum aestivum) consumed as juice, powder, or tablets; nutrient-rich but perishable, with thin clinical evidence and FDA limits on disease claims.
White rice
White rice (milled or polished rice) is rice with hull and bran removed, a staple for over half the world's population; GI 73±4, US-enriched with iron, niacin, thiamin, folic acid, stores 25–30 years.
Wild rice
Wild rice is the grain of aquatic grasses in the genus Zizania, native to North America and East Asia; the Great Lakes' northern wild rice, called manoomin by the Ojibwe, is the most widely eaten species.
Wilhelm Barthlott
Wilhelm Barthlott (born 1946) is a German botanist at Bonn who discovered the lotus effect of self-cleaning superhydrophobic plant surfaces (1997, with Neinhuis) and the Salvinia effect of underwater air retention (2010).
Willard Nelson Clute
Willard Nelson Clute (1869–1950), American botanist and pteridologist, co-founder of the American Fern Society, editor of the Fern Bulletin and American Botanist, author of Our Ferns in their Haunts.
Williamsonia (plant)
Williamsonia, an extinct Bennettitales seed-plant genus named by Carruthers in 1870, with slender branching trunks, Ptilophyllum foliage, and flower-like ovulate structures; species include W. gigas and W. sanjuanensis.
Willow
Willow (Salix, Salicaceae): about 450 dioecious, catkin-bearing tree and shrub species of northern temperate riparian zones, polyploid (2n=38-224), chemically rich in salicinoids, invasive in the Southern Hemisphere, and widely used for bioenergy, restoration, and phytoremediation.
Willow (disambiguation)
Willow (disambiguation): the genus Salix (350-450 willow species), named species such as weeping, white, black, and crack willow, willow bark medicine and aspirin, shrub willow bioenergy, Willowpedia, and the UK National Willow Collection.
Wilmar International
Wilmar International (SGX:F34), founded 1991 in Singapore by Kuok Khoon Hong and Martua Sitorus, is Asia's leading agribusiness group: over 1,000 plants in 36 countries, ~279,000 ha oil palm, FY2025 revenue US$70.42 billion, world's largest palm biodiesel and oleochemicals producer.
Winter squash
Winter squash: mature-harvested Cucurbita fruit (butternut, acorn, hubbard, kabocha, spaghetti, pumpkins) from C. maxima, C. moschata, and C. pepo; hard rind, cured and stored 1-6 months, about 65 calories per half-cup serving.
Winter wheat
Winter wheat is autumn-sown wheat requiring vernalization (0-7 degrees C for 30-60 days) to flower; it makes up nearly 70 percent of U.S. wheat production, mainly as Hard Red Winter and Soft Red Winter classes.
Winteraceae
Winteraceae R.Br. ex Lindl., the winter's bark family, is a magnoliid family in Canellales with five genera and c. 90 species of vesselless, peppery-aromatic trees and shrubs, from Mexico and Papuasia to southern South America; best-known genus Drimys.
Wintergreen
Gaultheria procumbens (American wintergreen, eastern teaberry, checkerberry) is a low evergreen Ericaceae shrub of northeastern North America; its gaultherin-rich extracts are anti-inflammatory, and its wintergreen oil is 96.9–100% methyl salicylate.
Wisteria
Wisteria, also called wistaria, is a genus of about five to seven deciduous twining vine species in Fabaceae, including Chinese Wisteria sinensis, Japanese W. floribunda, and native American W. frutescens, known for long fragrant flower racemes and the invasiveness of the Asian species in the US.
Witch-hazel
Witch-hazel (Hamamelis) is a genus of five winter- or fall-blooming shrubs in Hamamelidaceae, native to eastern North America, China, and Japan, with straplike fragrant flowers and explosive seed pods; garden hybrids are H. x intermedia.
Withania
Withania (ashwagandha genus), Solanaceae shrub genus of about 23-26 species; W. somnifera and W. coagulans are medicinal, withanolide-rich, used over 3000 years in Ayurveda.