4,295 articles
Bristlecone pine
Bristlecone pines (Pinus aristata, P. longaeva, P. balfouriana), subsection Balfourianae, are high-elevation western North American pines; Great Basin bristlecone holds the oldest non-clonal tree record at about 4,850 to 5,000 years.
British Pteridological Society
British Pteridological Society (BPS), UK charity founded 1891 in the Lake District for ferns, horsetails, clubmosses, and quillworts; publishes Fern Gazette, Bulletin, Pteridologist; ICRA for Polypodium; patron King Charles III.
Broccoli
Broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica), also called sprouting or Calabrese broccoli, is a cruciferous vegetable eaten for its immature flower-bud head; cool-season crop, rich in vitamins C and K, stored at 0°C, major US vegetable crop.
Broccolini
Broccolini, also sold as baby broccoli, tenderstem, or bimi, is a trademarked hybrid of broccoli and gai lan (Chinese kale) bred by Japan's Sakata Seed, released in 1993, with long tender edible stems, mild sweet flavor, and multi-cut harvests.
Bromelia
Bromelia is a genus of about 50 spiny terrestrial bromeliads (Bromeliaceae) native from Mexico and the West Indies to Argentina, with edible berry fruits, fiber leaves, and living-fence uses.
Bromeliaceae
Bromeliaceae (bromeliad or pineapple family), Juss. 1789, monocot family of Poales with about 3,140-3,500 Neotropical species in 58-77 genera; tank rosettes, CAM photosynthesis, pineapple Ananas comosus, 81% possibly threatened.
Bromeliad cultivation
Bromeliad cultivation is the growing of pineapple-family plants, chiefly tank-forming rosettes like Aechmea and epiphytic air plants, as ornamentals that bloom once and produce offsets.
Bromeliad fibers and traditional uses
Bromeliad fibers are tough leaf fibers from plants like Aechmea and Bromelia, spun by Indigenous and campesino communities across Latin America into hammocks, bags, nets, ropes, and ceremonial textiles.
Bromeliad phytotelmata
Bromeliad phytotelmata are water bodies impounded in bromeliad leaf rosettes and axils, one of five phytotelm types. Tank formation evolved twice in about 1300 of 3600 Bromeliaceae species; tanks host discrete detritus-based aquatic food webs and serve as ecological model systems.
Bromelioideae
Bromelioideae is a subfamily of the bromeliad family, defined by fleshy berry fruits and inferior ovaries, and it contains the pineapple, the family's only agriculturally important member.
Bromus
Bromus (brome grasses), genus of about 165 annual and perennial grasses in Poaceae, sole genus of tribe Bromeae, sister to Triticeae. Native to temperate and subtropical to tropical mountain regions worldwide; includes forage species like B. inermis and major invaders like cheatgrass B. tectorum.
Bromus erectus
Bromus erectus (upright brome, erect brome; synonym Bromopsis erecta) is a perennial tufted grass native from western and central Europe to the Mediterranean, Iran, and Tibet, dominant on dry calcareous soils and an expanding neophyte in central German dry grasslands.
Bromus inermis
Bromus inermis, smooth brome or awnless brome, is a Eurasian rhizomatous cool-season grass introduced to North America in 1884 as forage, now a widespread invasive of Great Plains prairies that reduces native diversity while remaining a major hay grass.
Bromus racemosus
Bromus racemosus (smooth brome, bald brome) is an annual or biennial brome-grass native from Europe to China, distinguished from B. commutatus by a lax, usually unbranched panicle with branches under 4 cm.
Bromus tectorum
Bromus tectorum, known as cheatgrass or downy brome, is a winter annual grass native to Eurasia that has become one of western North America's worst plant invasions.
Brosimum
Brosimum is a genus of 19 accepted Neotropical tree species in Moraceae, tribe Dorstenieae, described by Swartz in 1788; type species B. alicastrum (breadnut, ramón), with timber species B. guianense and B. rubescens.
Broussonetia
Broussonetia (paper mulberry genus), Moraceae trees native from India to Japan and Indo-China; B. papyrifera bark fiber made ancient Chinese paper and Polynesian tapa cloth, and the species is now invasive in Ghana, India, and elsewhere.
Broussonetia papyrifera
Broussonetia papyrifera, paper mulberry (tapa cloth tree), a Moraceae tree native from India to Korea and Indo-China; inner bark used for washi paper and Pacific tapa; carried by Austronesians to Remote Oceania, now invasive in parts of the USA, Ghana, and India.
Brown algae
Brown algae (Phaeophyceae) are multicellular marine seaweeds with chlorophyll a, c, and fucoxanthin; over 1,800 species including kelps, alginate- and fucoidan-rich cell walls, Ordovician origin, and major roles in kelp forests, food, and alginate production.
Brown planthopper
Brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens (Stål), Delphacidae, is a rice-specific sap-sucking pest across Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific causing hopperburn, transmitting rice stunt viruses, and showing rapid insecticide resistance.
Brown rice
Brown rice is whole-grain rice with only the hull removed, keeping the bran and germ; higher fiber (1.6 g/100 g cooked), GI about 65, more arsenic than white rice, and modest weight benefits in trials.
Brucea
Brucea J.F.Mill. is a Paleotropical genus of bitter-barked shrubs in Simaroubaceae, about five to nine species, whose Brucea javanica (Ya-dan-zi) yields quassinoids such as bruceines used against dysentery, malaria, and cancer.
Brugmansia
Brugmansia (angel's trumpets, floripondios, tree daturas) is a Solanaceae genus of six to eight woody Andean South American species with pendulous fragrant trumpet flowers, tropane alkaloid toxicity, and close relation to Datura.
Bruguiera
Bruguiera (Lam. ex Savigny, 1798) is a genus of five accepted true mangrove tree species in Rhizophoraceae, native from East Africa to the West Pacific, with buttressed stems, knee pneumatophores, and explosive bird- or insect-triggered pollen release.
Brushwood
Brushwood, also called scrub, is woody vegetation of shrubs and scrubby trees of no commercial value, typically growing after a disturbance; the cut branches also serve as a material.
Brussels sprout
Brussels sprout (Brassica oleracea var. gemmifera, choux de Bruxelles) is a tall-stemmed cabbage grown for its edible axillary buds. Originating near Brussels, Belgium, first recorded 1587; yields 50-100 sprouts per plant, sweetened by frost.
Bryales and allied orders
Bryales (syn. Eubryales) is an order of diplolepideous mosses in subclass Bryidae, class Bryopsida, including Bryaceae, Mniaceae, Bartramiaceae and allied families; molecular phylogenomics places it as an early split within the Bryidae.
Bryonia
Bryonia (bryony) is a genus of ten climbing Cucurbitaceae herbs native from Macaronesia and Europe to Central Asia, sister to Ecballium, with dioecious and monoecious species and a two-millennium medicinal history.
Bryophyte
Bryophytes: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts, the non-vascular, spore-producing land plants with dominant gametophytes; monophyletic sister to vascular plants, poikilohydric, used in moss biomonitoring.
Bryophyte biogeography
Bryophyte biogeography is the study of where mosses, liverworts, and hornworts occur worldwide and why, covering spore dispersal, disjunct southern-hemisphere ranges, and their low island endemism compared with flowering plants.