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Ficus sycomorus
Ficus sycomorus (sycamore fig, Egyptian sycamore), Moraceae, a large African riverine fig tree pollinated by Ceratosolen arabicus; seedless and human-propagated in Egypt and the Middle East; sacred in ancient Egypt; IUCN Least Concern.
Fiddlehead
Fiddlehead, or crozier, the coiled young fern frond formed by circinate vernation; also the edible spring shoot of the ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), which must be boiled 15 minutes or steamed 10-12 minutes before eating.
Fig
Fig (Ficus carica), the common fig of the mulberry family, an edible syconium fruit. Four types (Caprifig, Smyrna, San Pedro, Common); common types are parthenocarpic, needing no fig wasp pollination; Turkey leads production.
Fig cultivars
Fig cultivars are named, propagated selections of Ficus carica, divided by pollination need into caprifig, Smyrna, San Pedro, and common types, with Condit recording 720 varieties in 1955.
Filipendula
Filipendula (meadowsweet, dropwort), a Rosaceae genus of about 10–15 perennial herbs of the temperate Northern Hemisphere; basal genus of Rosoideae, diverging about 82.88 Ma; includes medicinal F. ulmaria.
Filmy ferns of the British Isles
The filmy ferns of the British Isles are three Hymenophyllaceae species, Tunbridge filmy-fern, Wilson's filmy fern, and the Killarney fern, restricted to humid western localities.
Fimbristylis
Fimbristylis (fringe rush, fimbry) is a conserved genus of about 313 sedge species in Cyperaceae, tribe Abildgaardieae, established by Vahl in 1805; cosmopolitan, C4, with deciduous fringed styles and weaving species such as F. umbellaris.
Finger millet
Finger millet (Eleusine coracana, ragi) is a nutritious African-domesticated annual cereal rich in calcium, iron, and methionine, grown in arid Africa and Asia, tolerant of drought and poor soils, and limited by tannins, phytate, and blast disease.
Fir
Fir (Abies, silver firs) is a genus of about 58–60 evergreen conifer species of the Northern Hemisphere, with flat needles and erect cones that disintegrate on the tree; includes threatened species like Abies nebrodensis and excludes Douglas fir.
Fissidens
Fissidens, sole genus of the moss family Fissidentaceae (Dicranales), about 440 species; unique four-lamina leaves with sheathing vaginant laminae, 16-toothed split peristome, tropical distribution, three subgenera from the 2018 molecular phylogeny.
Fissidens adianthoides
Fissidens adianthoides (maidenhair pocketmoss), Fissidentaceae, is a robust bipolar wet-habitat moss with unistratose laminae and a pale marginal band, confused with F. dubius, genome sequenced 2025.
Fissidentaceae
Fissidentaceae, also called pocket moss family, is a moss family with the single genus Fissidens (450–500 species), defined by distichous leaves with pocket-like vaginant laminae; tropical diversity, Dicranales, three molecular subgenera since 2018.
Fittonia albivenis
Fittonia albivenis, the nerve plant or mosaic plant (syn. Fittonia verschaffeltii), is a South American rainforest Acanthaceae herb grown as a pet-safe houseplant with white, pink, or red leaf veins.
Fitzroya
Fitzroya (alerce, lahuán, Fitzroya cupressoides) is a monotypic Patagonian cypress genus of Chile and Argentina; an Endangered, CITES-listed conifer living over 3,600 years, reaching 4–5 m diameter, with only 15% of original forest remaining.
Flammekueche
Flammekueche (tarte flambée, Flammkuchen) is an Alsatian thin bread-dough tart with crème fraîche, onions, and lardons, baked about 3 minutes in a wood-fired oven; it originated in the Kochersberg as an oven-heat test.
Flapjack (oat bar)
Flapjack (oat bar), also called oat bar, cereal bar, or oat slice, is a British baked bar of rolled oats, butter, brown sugar, and golden syrup, set by cooling syrup, distinct from the North American pancake sense of flapjack.
Flattened rice
Flattened rice, also called poha, aval, or chiura, is parboiled dehusked rice pressed into dry flakes that rehydrate in minutes. Sold in thin and thick grades, it is a South Asian breakfast staple and often iron-fortified.
Flax
Flax (Linum usitatissimum, from wild L. bienne) is a founder crop grown for linen fibre and linseed. Fibre types are tall and unbranched, oil types short and branched; seeds hold 40-45% oil, over 50% linolenic acid, and flax is the richest known lignan source.
Flint corn
Flint corn (Zea mays indurate), also called Indian corn, is hard-vitreous-endosperm maize with convex kernels; popcorn is a flint type. Lower yielding than dent corn but higher in protein and digestible amino acids, it dominates Brazilian and high-latitude production.
Flora of Chile
The flora of Chile (Flora de Chile) is the roughly 4,655 native vascular plant species of Chile, about 40% endemic, shaped by isolation between the Atacama Desert, Andes, and Pacific.
Flora of China
Flora of China (《中国植物志》英文修订版), English revision of FRPS; 25 text volumes, 1994–2013, Missouri Botanical Garden and Science Press; catalogs 31,362 Chinese vascular plant species.
Flora of Ireland
Flora of Ireland: the island's native and naturalized plants. Notable for 797 bryophyte species in a cool moist climate, a vascular flora poorer than Britain's (74 British natives absent), Red List No. 14 (2025), and Flora (Protection) Order 2022.
Flour
Flour, powder milled from cereal grains, chiefly wheat endosperm; wholemeal keeps bran and germ. Covers milling history, protein grades, gluten, fortification, and whole-grain health evidence.
Flower
Flower: the reproductive structure of angiosperms, bearing anthers and stigma for pollen transfer and seed formation. Over 80% of flowering plant species need animal pollination; explosive early diversification produced over 80% of extant angiosperm orders.
Flowering plant
Flowering plant (angiosperm): seed plants with ovules enclosed in an ovary that becomes a fruit. 250,000+ species versus ~1,000 gymnosperms; ANA grade basal; Mesangiospermae hold ~97% of species; classified by APG systems.
Folioceros
Folioceros, also written Folioceros D.C.Bharadwaj, is a genus of hornworts in Anthocerotaceae established in 1971, with about 17 Asian tropical species, pinnate thalli, dark elongated pseudoelaters, and a clade shared with Anthoceros.
Folk museum herbarium
Folk museum herbarium (FKE): a herbarium registered under the Index Herbariorum code FKE, listed as "Folk Museum" in the NCBI institution codes; a preserved-specimen plant collection identified by that code.
Forest understory ferns
Forest understory ferns are shade-adapted ferns forming a persistent ground layer beneath closed forest canopies, distinct from epiphytic ferns, and dense fern layers can suppress tree regeneration for decades.
Forestiera
Forestiera, known as swampprivet, is a genus of dioecious shrubs and small trees in the olive family, native from the southern United States to Ecuador.
Forsythia
Forsythia (golden bells, lian qiao shu) is a genus of about 11 East Asian deciduous shrubs in Oleaceae with yellow early-spring flowers on bare branches; most garden clones derive from the hybrid F. × intermedia, and flowers are heterostylous.