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Laurelia
Laurelia (pukatea, Chilean laurel) is a genus of two evergreen tree species in Atherospermataceae, order Laurales, native to New Zealand and Chile; L. novae-zelandiae is endemic to New Zealand, L. sempervirens is Near Threatened in Chile.
Laurus
Laurus is a small genus of evergreen trees and shrubs in the laurel family, native to the Mediterranean Basin and Macaronesia; its type species, Laurus nobilis, is the bay laurel of cooking.
Laurus nobilis
Laurus nobilis (bay laurel, sweet bay) is a Mediterranean evergreen Lauraceae tree, source of culinary bay leaves; dioecious, up to 18 m, IUCN Least Concern, leaf essential oil dominated by 1,8-cineole.
Lavandula
Lavandula (lavenders), a genus of about 41 aromatic Lamiaceae species native from Macaronesia to India, cultivated for essential oil rich in linalool and linalyl acetate; key species are L. angustifolia and the hybrid lavandin L. × intermedia.
Lavandula angustifolia
Lavandula angustifolia (English lavender, true lavender, synonym L. officinalis) is a Lamiaceae subshrub native to NE Spain to Italy, grown for linalool- and linalyl acetate-rich essential oil and hardiness.
Lavandula x intermedia
Lavandula x intermedia (lavandin, Dutch or bastard lavender) is a sterile hybrid of true lavender and spike lavender, native to SE France and NE Spain, the most cultivated lavender, yielding about 120 kg oil/ha with camphor notes.
Lawsonia inermis
Lawsonia inermis, henna (also mehndi, Egyptian privet), the sole Lythraceae species of its genus; a 2–6 m shrub whose leaves yield the dye lawsone, used for millennia as hair and skin colorant and in traditional medicine.
Leaf
Leaf: the primary photosynthetic plant organ, a flat thin structure with stomata and veins. Covers leaf anatomy, C3/C4/CAM photosynthesis, hydraulics, evolution tied to CO2 decline, autumn senescence, and measured leaf traits.
Leaf vegetable
Leaf vegetable (leafy green): crop grown for edible leaves, e.g. lettuce, spinach, cabbage, kale. Highly perishable (0 °C storage), nitrate-accumulating, and regulated for raw-eating safety such as Australia's Standard 4.2.8 (2025).
Lecythidaceae
Lecythidaceae, the Brazil nut family, is a pantropical tree family in Ericales with about 25-30 genera and 280-300 species, centered in South American rain forests; includes Bertholletia excelsa and Couroupita.
Leea
Leea D.Royen is a genus of Old World tropical shrubs and small trees in Vitales, historically the monogeneric family Leeaceae, now placed in Vitaceae; about 34-70 species, tendrils absent, used in traditional medicine.
Leek
Leek (Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum, A. porrum) is a mild-flavored Amaryllidaceae vegetable grown for its blanched leaf-sheath pseudostem; no bulb, cool-season biennial, Welsh national symbol, Egyptian domestication history.
Leersia
Leersia, commonly called cutgrass, is a genus of 18 accepted species of annual and perennial wetland grasses in the rice tribe Oryzeae, found worldwide and closely related to rice.
Legume
Legume: seeds and fruits of Fabaceae plants (beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, soybean); dry-seed types are pulses. Fix nitrogen via rhizobia nodules, boost following-crop yields ~20%, cover ~180 Mha globally.
Leguminous flora
Leguminous flora, the Fabaceae or Leguminosae (豆科), the third largest flowering plant family with about 22,520 species in 796 genera, defined by pod fruits and root-nodule nitrogen fixation with Rhizobium bacteria.
Leiosporoceros
Leiosporoceros (L. dussii) is a monotypic Neotropical hornwort genus in its own class Leiosporocerotopsida, with smooth monolete spores, Nostoc strands, no pyrenoid, and a contested sister-to-all-hornworts position.
Lemna
Lemna (duckweed) is a cosmopolitan genus of about 13 species of tiny free-floating aquatic plants in Araceae, reduced to fronds with one root each, used in wastewater phytoremediation, animal feed, and plant research.
Lemna gibba
Lemna gibba (gibbous duckweed, swollen duckweed), Araceae, a free-floating duckweed with swollen fronds 1-8 mm, native from Europe to Central Asia, Africa, and America; used in OECD 221 toxicity tests, wastewater phytoremediation, and aquaculture feed.
Lemna minor
Lemna minor (common duckweed, lesser duckweed) is a tiny free-floating Araceae aquatic plant of temperate waters worldwide, used for phytoremediation, animal feed, medicine, and OECD toxicity testing; IUCN Least Concern.
Lemna protein
Lemna protein, or Lemna leaf protein (LLP), is protein from the duckweed Lemna minor; Plantible Foods' GRN 1256 received an FDA no-questions letter in 2026, with EU novel food authorization and egg-white-like functional properties.
Lemnoideae
Lemnoideae (duckweeds, formerly Lemnaceae): five genera, 36–37 species of tiny free-floating aquatic flowering plants in Araceae; fastest-growing angiosperms, Wolffia doubling in under 24 hours, protein-rich and used as food and wastewater treatment.
Lemon
Lemon (Citrus × limon), a citron-sour orange hybrid citrus fruit from the Himalayan foothills; major varieties Eureka, Lisbon, Femminello, Verna, Meyer; top producers India, Argentina, Spain, Iran, US.
Lemon balm
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis, sweet balm, toronjil) is a lemon-scented Lamiaceae perennial herb native from the Mediterranean to Central Asia, grown as a culinary and medicinal herb; rich in rosmarinic acid and citronellal, studied for anxiety and sleep.
Lemon basil
Lemon basil (Ocimum × africanum, syn. O. × citriodorum; kemangi, hoary or Lao basil) is a citral-scented hybrid herb of O. americanum and O. basilicum, native to tropical Asia, used in Thai and Lao cuisine.
Lentibulariaceae
Lentibulariaceae, the bladderwort family (Lentibulariaceae Rich., 1808), is the largest carnivorous plant family in Lamiales, with three genera: Pinguicula (flypaper traps), Genlisea (eel traps), and Utricularia (suction bladders).
Lentil
Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.), an annual self-pollinating pulse legume domesticated about 8,500 years ago in the Near East; grown in 53 countries for protein-rich seeds, led by Canada and India.
Leontopodium
Leontopodium (edelweiss) is an Asteraceae genus of roughly 30–57 perennial species, mostly Asian with two European alpines, L. alpinum and L. nivale, studied for phylogeny, lignans like leoligin, and alpine conservation.
Leontopodium nivale
Leontopodium nivale, the edelweiss (also Leontopodium alpinum), is a European mountain daisy with white felted bracts, split into widespread subsp. alpinum and the Apennines–Pirin endemic subsp. nivale.
Leonurus
Leonurus (motherwort), Lamiaceae genus of about 25 temperate Eurasian herb species; source of alkaloids leonurine and stachydrine, used as uterotonic in East Asia and sedative in Europe.
Leopoldinia piassaba
Leopoldinia piassaba (piassaba palm, chiquichiqui) is an Amazonian Rio Negro palm described by Wallace in 1853 whose leaf-sheath fiber, harvested on a 4–5 year cycle, supplies brooms, ropes, and composites.