4,295 articles
Jalapeño
Jalapeño (chile jalapeño), a Capsicum annuum cultivar group named for Xalapa, Veracruz; moderate 2,000-8,000 SHU heat, mild TAM and NuMex cultivars, chipotle and pickled products.
Japanese bamboo weaving
Japanese bamboo weaving (竹編み): the craft of interlacing split or whole bamboo culms into baskets and sculpture, practiced since the Jomon period and centered in Kyoto, Beppu, Osaka, and Kantō, with six Living National Treasure masters.
Japanese moss garden
Japanese moss garden (koke niwa, 苔庭): a garden using moss as ground cover, a practice peculiar to Japanese gardens. Best known example is Saihoji (Kokedera) in Kyoto, a 14th-century Muso Soseki garden with about 120 moss varieties, UNESCO-listed in 1994.
Japanese rice
Japanese rice: short-grain japonica Oryza sativa grown nationwide, staple of the Japanese diet. About 300 varieties planted; Koshihikari (1956) leads at 33.4%. Prices doubled in the 2024-25 shortage.
Jasione
Jasione, or sheep's bit, is a genus of about 14-16 Campanulaceae herbs native to Europe and the Mediterranean, with blue flower heads, two diversity centers (Iberia-Morocco and Balkans-Anatolia), and Jasione montana as its best-known species.
Jasmine
Jasminum, the jasmine genus, is a group of about 200 accepted Oleaceae shrubs and vines native to the Old World tropics, with fragrant white or yellow tubular flowers, including cultivated species like J. sambac.
Jasmine rice (ข้าวหอมมะลิ)
Jasmine rice (ข้าวหอมมะลิ), officially Thai Hom Mali Rice, is Thailand's fragrant long-grain rice from varieties KDML105 and RD15, defined by law at 92% purity, 7 mm kernels, and 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline aroma.
Jasminum officinale
Jasminum officinale, common or poet's jasmine (su fang hua), a scrambling Oleaceae shrub native from Transcaucasus to south-central China, long cultivated for fragrant flowers used in perfume, medicine, and food.
Jasminum sambac
Jasminum sambac, Arabian jasmine or sampaguita, is a South Asian Oleaceae shrub used for jasmine tea, perfume, and religious garlands; national flower of the Philippines and Indonesia.
Jatropha
Jatropha, a Euphorbiaceae genus of about 150 tropical species including the physic nut (Jatropha curcas), a toxic-seeded oil crop promoted for biodiesel whose large plantations proved barely financially viable.
Jatropha curcas
Jatropha curcas, physic nut or piñón de purga, a toxic Euphorbiaceae shrub native from Mexico to tropical America, grown as hedges and promoted as a biodiesel feedstock; seeds contain phorbol esters and curcin, making the oil non-edible.
Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi (ජය ශ්රී මහා බෝධි)
Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi (ජය ශ්රී මහා බෝධි) is the sacred fig tree in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, planted in 288 BC by Sanghamitta from the original Bodhi tree; the oldest human-planted tree with a known planting date.
Jerusalem artichoke
Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus, sunchoke, topinambour) is a North American perennial sunflower grown for inulin-rich tubers; hexaploid, hybrid origin, food, feed, and biofuel crop.
Jimmy Nardello Pepper
Jimmy Nardello pepper, also called Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying Pepper, an heirloom Capsicum annuum from Ruoti, Basilicata, brought to Connecticut in 1887; heatless, thin-walled red pods prized for frying and preserved via Seed Savers Exchange and Slow Food's Ark of Taste.
Job's tears
Job's tears (Coix lacryma-jobi, adlay, coix seed, 薏苡) is an Asian grass grown as a minor cereal, medicine, fodder, and bead plant; soft-shelled var. ma-yuen yields grain, hard-shelled var. lacryma-jobi yields ornamental beads.
Jojoba
Jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis), a dioecious desert shrub native to Arizona, California, and Mexico, whose seeds yield about 50% liquid wax ester oil used in cosmetics, lubricants, and biodiesel research.
Jojoba oil
Jojoba oil, from Simmondsia chinensis seeds, is a liquid wax ester (97% monounsaturated C16-C26 esters) used in cosmetics, dermatology, and pharmaceuticals; about 40% of world production is Israeli.
Jollof rice
Jollof rice, also called thieboudienne, ceebu jen, benachin, or riz au gras, is a West African one-pot rice dish cooked in a fried tomato-onion-pepper base, originating with the Wolof people of Senegambia and fueling the Ghana-Nigeria "Jollof Wars".
Judean date palm
Judean date palm, a lost Phoenix dactylifera population of ancient Judea, revived from ~2,000-year-old seeds including Methuselah, Adam, and Hannah; genetics show Middle Eastern and North African mixing with Cretan palm introgression.
Juglandaceae
Juglandaceae, the walnut family (DC. ex Perleb, 1818), is a Fagales family of trees including Juglans, Carya, Pterocarya, and Rhoiptelea, with compound leaves, catkins, and one-seeded nuts, source of walnuts, pecans, and valuable timber.
Juglans
Juglans, the walnut genus of Juglandaceae, has 21 accepted species including J. regia, J. nigra, and J. cinerea, native from the Americas to East Asia; threatened by thousand cankers disease and butternut canker.
Juglans nigra
Juglans nigra, black walnut or American walnut, is an eastern North American hardwood tree prized for dark chocolate-brown, dimensionally stable, decay-resistant timber used in furniture, veneer, and gunstocks, with edible nuts and disputed juglone allelopathy.
Juglans regia
Juglans regia, Persian or common walnut, a Juglandaceae tree native from Türkiye to the west Himalaya, anciently hybrid-origin, spread across Europe by humans since the Bronze Age for nuts and timber.
Jujube
Jujube (Ziziphus jujuba, Chinese date, red date, 枣) is a temperate Rhamnaceae fruit tree native to China and Korea, domesticated from wild sour jujube over 7,000 years ago; distinct from Indian jujube Z. mauritiana, with ~2 million hectares grown in China.
Juncus
Juncus is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the rush family, commonly known as rushes, with about 350 species distributed almost worldwide, primarily in temperate regions.
Jungermanniales
Jungermanniales: largest order of leafy liverworts (Marchantiophyta), about 3,000 terrestrial species with incubous or succubous leaves, no water sacs; sister to Porellales, split at least in the Jurassic.
Juniper
Juniper (Juniperus, Cupressaceae): genus of about 70 evergreen conifer trees and shrubs of the northern hemisphere, with needle or scale leaves and berry-like fleshy seed cones used to flavor gin.
Juniper berry
Juniper berry, the fleshy female seed cone (galbulus) of Juniperus, especially Juniperus communis; not a true berry. Key gin flavoring and game spice; oil rich in alpha-pinene; limited clinical evidence for medicinal uses.
Juniper expansion in western North America
Juniper expansion in western North America is the spread of juniper trees, chiefly western juniper, into sagebrush shrublands, driven mainly by fire suppression and livestock grazing.
Juniperus ashei
Juniperus ashei (Ashe juniper, mountain cedar), Cupressaceae conifer of the Edwards Plateau, Texas, with disjunct stands in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Coahuila; fire-sensitive, causes winter cedar fever, and hosts golden-cheeked warbler nesting.