Plants and algae

Bletilla striata

Bletilla striata (Bai-Ji, Chinese ground orchid, urn orchid) is a hardy terrestrial orchid native to China, Korea, and Japan, used in traditional Chinese medicine for hemostasis and grown as an ornamental.

Blighia sapida

Blighia sapida (ackee, akee), Sapindaceae tree native to West and West Central Africa, national fruit of Jamaica; red capsules with edible yellow aril, toxic unripe due to hypoglycin A causing Jamaican vomiting sickness.

Blitum bonus-henricus

Blitum bonus-henricus, Good King Henry or perennial goosefoot, is a European Amaranthaceae perennial herb once widely grown as a spinach-like vegetable and medicinal plant, now a declining archaeophyte relic of cultivation.

Blitum capitatum

Blitum capitatum, known as strawberry blite or strawberry spinach, is an annual flowering plant in the amaranth family with dense clusters of bright red, edible fruits.

Blood orange

The blood orange, also called red orange, is a sweet orange variety with red flesh from anthocyanin pigments, grown in Sicily since the fifteenth century.

Blue agave

Blue agave (Agave tequilana Weber var. azul, agave azul) is a CAM succulent from Jalisco, Mexico, the only agave legally allowed for tequila, clonally propagated, maturing in about seven years, with severely reduced genetic diversity.

Blue corn

Blue corn, blue maize, varieties of Zea mays with blue kernels from anthocyanins in the aleurone layer; grown by Hopi and Mexican landrace farmers, nixtamalized into tortillas, higher protein and antioxidants than white or yellow corn.

Blue Java banana

Blue Java banana, also called Ice Cream banana or Ney Mannan, is an ABB-group Musa acuminata × balbisiana cultivar from Java with silvery blue-green unripe peel that turns yellow, creamy flesh, and cold tolerance.

Blue rose

A blue rose is a rose with blue or violet-blue color, impossible naturally because roses cannot make the pigment delphinidin; engineered versions were announced in 2004.

Blue spruce

Blue spruce (Picea pungens), also called Colorado blue spruce or silver spruce, is a slow-growing Rocky Mountain conifer native to Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, grown widely as an ornamental and Colorado's state tree.

Blueberry

Blueberry: fruit of Vaccinium shrubs, chiefly highbush V. corymbosum. Domesticated 1911-1916 by Coville and Elizabeth White at Whitesbog, NJ; needs acidic soil; US crop about 760-790 million pounds.

Blumea

Blumea DC. is a genus of about 100 Asteraceae (daisy) species, herbs and shrubs native to the tropical and subtropical Old World, mainly tropical Asia; disciform heads, tailed anthers; many species used in traditional medicine.

Boehmeria

Boehmeria (ramie genus, China grass) is a genus of about 51-65 Urticaceae shrubs and trees without stinging hairs, pantropical in distribution, including the fiber crop Boehmeria nivea and shown by phylogenomics to be non-monophyletic.

Boerhavia

Boerhavia (spiderling) is a pantropical genus of Nyctaginaceae herbs named for Herman Boerhaave, published by Linnaeus in 1753, with about 59 accepted species including the medicinal B. diffusa (punarnava).

Boesenbergia

Boesenbergia Kuntze (1891), a Zingiberaceae ginger genus of tropical and subtropical Asia with about 83–117 accepted species; best known for B. rotunda, fingerroot, a spice and traditional medicine rich in flavonoids such as panduratin and pinostrobin.

Bogoria

Bogoria is a genus of small monopodial epiphytic orchids in the family Orchidaceae, native from Malesia to New Guinea and Fiji and first published in 1905.

Boiled peanuts

Boiled peanuts, also called goober peas or pindars, are raw in-shell peanuts simmered in salted water until soft, a Southern US snack and South Carolina's official state snack since 2006, with West African origins.

Bok choy (小白菜)

Bok choy (小白菜, pak choi), Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis, is a non-heading Chinese cabbage with dark leaves and thick white stalks; cool-season crop harvested 40–50 days after sowing, 13 kcal per 100 g raw.

Bombax

Bombax (red silk cotton trees) is a genus of about eight Malvaceae trees native from tropical Africa to northern Australia; type species Bombax ceiba, source of kapok-like fibre, low-grade timber, and traditional medicine.

Bombax ceiba

Bombax ceiba, the red silk-cotton tree or Indian kapok (Salmalia malabarica), is a large Malvaceae tree native from tropical Asia to northern Australia, grown for kapok floss, matchwood, medicine, and crimson dry-season flowers; IUCN Least Concern.

Bontia daphnoides

Bontia daphnoides (white alling, wild olive, sea olive) is the sole species of the genus Bontia, a coastal Caribbean and northern South American shrub or small tree in Scrophulariaceae, used as a hedge, windbreak, and medicine, introduced to Florida and Hawaii.

Borage

Borage (Borago officinalis, starflower) is a Mediterranean annual herb with edible blue star flowers and cucumber-flavored leaves; its seed oil is the richest plant source of GLA, though oral borage oil shows no benefit for eczema.

Boraginaceae

Boraginaceae, the borage or forget-me-not family (Boraginales), comprises roughly 90 genera and 1,600–1,700 species sensu stricto, with rough-haired alternate leaves, scorpioid cymes, gynobasic styles, and four-nutlet fruits; APG IV treats it as the sole family of its order.

Boraginales

Boraginales, the borage order, is an order of lamiid flowering plants with ~2,700 species; APG IV treats it as one family Boraginaceae, while recent phylogenomics proposes nine families.

Borassus

Borassus (borassus palm, palmyra palm, Borassus flabellifer) is a genus of massive, dioecious fan palms in Arecaceae, tribe Borasseae, native to tropical Africa, Madagascar, and tropical Asia, with 5-6 accepted species and very large mammal-dispersed fruits.

Borassus flabellifer

Borassus flabellifer, the Asian palmyra or toddy palm (Arecaceae), is a dioecious fan palm from India to Indonesia tapped for sucrose-rich sap made into jaggery, palm sugar, and toddy; fruits, timber, and leaves are also used.

Boreal forest of Canada

Boreal forest of Canada: the conifer-dominated forest belt across Canada's 5.5 million km² boreal zone, 29.2% of world boreal area; fire-adapted spruce-pine forests, vast peatland carbon stores, record 2023 wildfires, and mostly public, largely intact land.