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Balm of Gilead
Balm of Gilead: biblical Hebrew tsori resin of Gilead, ancient Judean Commiphora balsam of Jericho and Ein Gedi, poplar-bud herbal salve, and the "There Is a Balm in Gilead" spiritual metaphor.
Balsam woolly adelgid
The balsam woolly adelgid (Adelges piceae) is a tiny, flightless European insect introduced to North America around 1900 that has killed large numbers of balsam, Fraser, and subalpine firs.
Balsaminaceae
Balsaminaceae, the touch-me-not or balsam family (Impatiens, Hydrocera), is an Ericales family of about 1,000 species of succulent herbs with spurred zygomorphic flowers and explosive seed capsules.
Bamboo
Bamboo (Bambusoideae): woody grasses of Poaceae with hollow culms, 1885 species in 144 genera, native to all continents except Europe and Antarctica, growing up to 60 cm per day and flowering synchronously on 50-year cycles.
Bamboo blossom
Bamboo blossom: flowering in Bambusoideae grasses, also called gregarious flowering or masting. Species flower once after 3–150-year cycles, often synchronously, then die; events trigger rodent outbreaks and famine in northeast India.
Bamboo construction
Bamboo construction uses whole round culms or engineered bamboo as structural material. Key facts: ISO 22156:2021 limits round-bamboo buildings to two storeys and 7 m; joints are the main difficulty; bamboo floors emit 12 vs 160 kg CO2-eq/m2 for concrete; Hong Kong bamboo scaffolding tradition.
Bamboo in East Asian culture
Bamboo in East Asian culture is a system of moral and literary symbols in which bamboo's hollow stem, straight growth, and winter survival stand for integrity, humility, and endurance.
Bamboo mosaic virus
Bamboo mosaic virus (BaMV, 竹嵌紋病毒), a Potexvirus (Alphaflexiviridae) with a 6,366-nt positive-sense RNA genome, infects bamboo causing mosaic disease and bamboo-nail shoot lesions, and serves as a plant expression vector for pharmaceuticals and bamboo gene studies.
Bamboo shoot
Bamboo shoot, takenoko, the young culm of bamboo eaten as a vegetable across Asia; nutritious but containing taxiphyllin cyanogenic glycosides, so shoots must be boiled, fermented, or canned before eating.
Bambooworking
Bambooworking is the craft of splitting and weaving bamboo into baskets, mats, and furniture, often alongside rattan (wicker). Known through Chinese, Japanese (Beppu, Living National Treasures), and Southeast Asian traditions, now extending to composites and architecture.
Bambusa
Bambusa Schreb. is a genus of clumping woody bamboos (Poaceae, Bambusoideae, Bambusinae) native from tropical and subtropical Asia to northern Australia, with roughly 70-153 accepted species, hollow jointed culms, six stamens, and widely cultivated species such as B. vulgaris and B. bambos.
Bambusa vulgaris
Bambusa vulgaris (common or yellow bamboo), a clumping tropical bamboo native from Assam to Indo-China, culms to about 13 m, hollow, green, or yellow; widely naturalized, used in construction, composites, and food, with compressive strength up to about 64 MPa dry.
Banana
Banana, the seedless fruit of genus Musa (Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana), domesticated about 7,000 years ago in Southeast Asia; Cavendish is roughly half of global production and faces the TR4 fungus.
Banana pepper
Banana pepper, also called yellow wax or sweet banana pepper, a mild 0-500 SHU Capsicum annuum cultivar with smooth waxy yellow fruits, pickled or fresh; distinct from pepperoncini and Hungarian wax.
Bánh chưng, bánh giầy
Bánh chưng and bánh giầy are Vietnamese sticky-rice cakes of Tết: a square boiled cake with mung bean and pork, and a round pounded-rice cake.
Banisteriopsis
Banisteriopsis (ayahuasca vine genus, Malpighiaceae), lianas and shrubs from Mexico to tropical South America; 65 accepted species including Banisteriopsis caapi, the principal component of Ayahuasca tea; Miocene origin about 22 million years ago.
Banisteriopsis caapi
Banisteriopsis caapi (ayahuasca, yagé, caapi) is an Amazonian Malpighiaceae liana containing the β-carboline alkaloids harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine, MAO inhibitors that make DMT orally active in ayahuasca brews.
Banksia
Banksia, genus of Australian Proteaceae shrubs and trees named for Joseph Banks in 1782; about 170 species, cone-like flower spikes, serotinous woody follicles, fire-adapted, many threatened by habitat loss and Phytophthora dieback.
Bansuri (बाँसुरी)
Bansuri (बाँसुरी), North Indian keyless side-blown bamboo flute with six or seven holes, 30–100 cm long; adapted for Hindustani classical music by Pannalal Ghosh and associated with Krishna.
Banyan
Banyan (Ficus benghalensis, Indian banyan, Bengal fig): national tree of India, a fig whose aerial roots become prop trunks, letting one tree cover acres; Great Banyan near Kolkata spans ~1.5 ha with 3,000+ pillar roots; sacred, wasp-pollinated, invasive in Florida and Hawaii (Chinese banyan).
Barbarea
Barbarea (winter-cress) is a genus of 29 Brassicaceae species, temperate Northern Hemisphere and SE Australia, unique in the family for triterpenoid saponins conferring insect resistance, notably against the diamondback moth.
Barbula
Barbula Hedw. (1801) is a conserved moss genus in Pottiaceae, type species B. unguiculata, with about 200 species on calcareous soil and rock; molecular work shows it polyphyletic. Distinct from Barbula Lour., a flowering-plant synonym of Caryopteris.
Bark beetle
Bark beetles (Scolytinae) are phloem-feeding beetles of conifers; species like Dendroctonus ponderosae and Ips typographus mass-attack trees using aggregation pheromones and fungal symbionts, causing major outbreaks shaped by drought and warming.
Barley
Barley (Hordeum vulgare), a cool-season cereal domesticated in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago; fourth-largest world grain, used mainly for livestock feed and malting for beer.
Barley as food
Barley as food is the use of barley grain in cooking, in hulled, pot, pearl, flaked, and flour forms, in dishes from soups and stews to flatbreads.
Barton's Bush
Barton's Bush, Trentham Memorial Park, Upper Hutt, New Zealand: the largest remaining lowland podocarp/broadleaf forest remnant on the Hutt Valley floor, named after settler Richard Barton, bought as a public reserve in 1950, tawa-dominated with threatened mistletoes.
Basella
Basella is a small genus of succulent twining vines in the Basellaceae family, best known for Basella alba, Malabar spinach, a leafy vegetable of tropical Asia.
Basella alba
Basella alba (Malabar spinach, Indian spinach, Ceylon spinach) is a succulent climbing vine of Basellaceae grown in the tropics for edible mucilaginous leaves; its fleshy purplish-black perianth encloses the fruit and yields a red food dye.
Basil
Basil (Ocimum basilicum), sweet basil, holy basil, Thai basil: a mint-family annual herb from Africa and Asia grown for culinary, essential-oil, and medicinal use, with linalool and methyl chavicol chemotypes and DMR cultivars bred against downy mildew.
Basmati (बासमती)
Basmati (बासमती) is an aromatic long-grain rice cultivated for centuries in the Himalayan foothills of India and Pakistan; its grains double in length when cooked.