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Asparagus (genus)
''Asparagus'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Asparagoideae. It comprises up to 300 species. Most are evergreen long-lived perennial plants growing from the understory as lianas, bushes or climbing plants. The best-known species is the edible ''Asparagus officinalis'', commonly referred to as just ''asparagus''. Some other members of the genus, such as ''Asparagus densiflorus'', are grown as ornamental plants. Ecology The genus includes a variety of living forms, occurring from rainforest to semi-desert habitats; many are climbing plants. Most are dispersed by birds. Ornamental species such as '' Asparagus plumosus'', ''Asparagus aethiopicus'', ''Asparagus setaceus'', and '' Asparagus virgatus'' are finely branched and are misleadingly known as "asparagus fern". In the Macaronesian Islands, several species (such as '' Asparagus umbellatus'' and '' Asparagus scoparius'') grow in moist laurel forest habitat, and preserve the original form ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asparagus Setaceus
''Asparagus setaceus'', commonly known as common asparagus fern, asparagus grass, lace fern, climbing asparagus, or ferny asparagus, is a climbing plant in the genus ''Asparagus''. Despite its common name, the plant is not a true fern, but has leaves that resemble one. Naming Originally described by the German botanist Carl Sigismund Kunth, its Latin specific epithet ''setaceus'' means "hairy". Description ''Asparagus setaceus'' is a scrambling perennial herb with tough green stems and leaves, which may reach several metres in length. The leaves are actually leaf-like cladodes up to 7 mm long by 0.1 mm in diameter, which arise in clumps of up to 15 from the stem, making a fine, soft green fern-like foliage. Sharp barbed thorns occur on the stem. Occurring from spring to autumn, the small greenish-white bell-shaped flowers are 0.4 cm long, and are followed by small green berries, which blacken with maturity. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macaronesia
Macaronesia (Portuguese: ''Macaronésia,'' Spanish: ''Macaronesia'') is a collection of four volcanic archipelagos in the North Atlantic, off the coasts of Africa and Europe. Each archipelago is made up of a number of List of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic oceanic islands, which are formed by seamounts on the ocean floor whose peaks have risen above the ocean's surface. Some of the Macaronesian islands belong to Portugal, some belong to Spain, and the rest belong to Cape Verde. Politically, the islands belonging to Portugal and Spain are part of the European Union. Geologically, Macaronesia is part of the African Plate, African tectonic plate. Some of its islands – the Azores – are situated along the edge of that plate at the point where it abuts the Eurasian Plate, Eurasian and North American Plate, North American plates. In one biogeography, biogeographical system, the Cape Verde archipelago is in the Afrotropical realm while the other three archipelagos are in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asparagus Asparagoides
''Asparagus asparagoides'', commonly known as bridal creeper, bridal-veil creeper, ''gnarboola'', smilax or smilax asparagus, is a herbaceous climbing plant of the family Asparagaceae native to eastern and southern Africa. Sometimes grown as an ornamental plant, it has become a serious environmental weed in Australia and New Zealand. Taxonomy Linnaeus first described this species as ''Medeola asparagoides'' in 1753. It has been reclassified in the genus ''Asparagus'' by W. Wight in 1909, or ''Myrsiphyllum'' by Carl Ludwig von Willdenow in 1808. Description ''Asparagus asparagoides'' grows as a herbaceous vine with a scrambling or climbing habit which can reach 3 m (10 ft) in length. It has shiny green leaf-like structures (phylloclades) which are flattened stems rather than true leaves. They measure up to 4 cm long by 2 cm wide. The pendent white flowers appear over winter and spring, from July to September. It is rhizomatous, and bears tubers which reach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asparagus Africanus
''Asparagus africanus'', also known as African asparagus, bush asparagus, wild asparagus, climbing asparagus fern, ornamental asparagus and sparrow grass, is an African species of plant that is found in a variety of habitats. It has multiple medicinal properties and is used to treat various ailments. Description ''Asparagus africanus'' is a spiny shrub up to tall or a climbing plant with stems up to long. Stems of up to long have also been recorded. These plants have a rhizomatous root system, from which they can reshoot. Multiple stems grow from a central crown. Bunches of cladodes (modified branchlets) occur at the leaf scales. Each ends in a sharp point. These look fern-like, giving rise to one of this species' common names (climbing asparagus fern). The plant produces white flowers, which, like the leaves, grow in clusters. They have three sepals and three petals, which are similar in appearance. The six white filaments have yellow anthers. Flowers are present between A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asparagus Acutifolius
''Asparagus acutifolius'', common name wild asparagus, is an evergreen perennial plant belonging to the genus ''Asparagus''. The specific epithet, , meaning "thorny leaves", is derived from Latin (pointed, acute), and (-leaved), and refers to the characteristic shape of the leaves, a quite common feature in the typical plants of the Mediterranean. Description ''Asparagus acutifolius'' reaches on average of height. The stems have much-branched feathery foliage. The "leaves" are in fact needle-like modified stems. The flowers are bell-shaped and in small clusters, greenish-white to yellowish, long. The flowers are dioecious (on each plant they are only male or female). In some Mediterranean regions flowering occurs in late Summer from August through September, often after heavy storms. In this case the small green berries, of in diameter, are fully ripe in winter. Gallery Distribution This species is present throughout the Mediterranean Basin In biogeography, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 staff. Its board of trustees is chaired by Dame Amelia Fawcett. The organisation manages botanic gardens at Kew in Richmond upon Thames in south-west London, and at Wakehurst, a National Trust property in Sussex which is home to the internationally important Millennium Seed Bank, whose scientists work with partner organisations in more than 95 countries. Kew, jointly with the Forestry Commission, founded Bedgebury National Pinetum in Kent in 1923, specialising in growing conifers. In 1994, the Castle Howard Arboretum Trust, which runs the Yorkshire Arboretum, was formed as a partnership between Kew and the Castle Howard Estate. In 2019, the organisation had 2,316,699 public visitors at Kew, and 312,813 at Wakehurst. Its site at Kew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Checklist Of Selected Plant Families
The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (usually abbreviated to WCSP) is an "international collaborative programme that provides the latest peer reviewed and published opinions on the accepted scientific names and synonyms of selected plant families." Maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, it is available online, allowing searches for the names of families, genera and species, as well as the ability to create checklists. The project traces its history to work done in the 1990s by Kew researcher Rafaël Govaerts on a checklist of the genus ''Quercus''. Influenced by the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, the project expanded. , 173 families of seed plants were included. Coverage of monocotyledon families is complete; other families are being added. There is a complementary project called the International Plant Names Index (IPNI), in which Kew is also involved. The IPNI aims to provide details of publication and does not aim to determine which are accepted spec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plant Sexuality
Plant reproductive morphology is the study of the physical form and structure (the Plant morphology, morphology) of those parts of plants directly or indirectly concerned with sexual reproduction. Among all living organisms, flowers, which are the reproductive structures of flowering plant, angiosperms, are the most varied physically and show a correspondingly great diversity in methods of reproduction. Plants that are not flowering plants (green algae, mosses, Marchantiophyta, liverworts, hornworts, ferns and gymnosperms such as conifers) also have complex interplays between morphological adaptation and environmental factors in their sexual reproduction. The breeding system, or how the sperm from one plant fertilizes the ovum of another, depends on the reproductive morphology, and is the single most important determinant of the genetic structure of nonclonal plant populations. Christian Konrad Sprengel (1793) studied the reproduction of flowering plants and for the first time it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asparagus Cochinchinensis
''Asparagus cochinchinensis'' is a species of plant, sometimes called "Chinese asparagus", in the subfamily Asparagoideae of the family Asparagaceae. No subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life. Range and description ''Asparagus cochinchinensis'' is distributed in eastern Asia including the Philippines and Japan; named after the southern region of Vietnam, in Vietnamese ''A. cochinchinensis'' is called ''thiên môn đông'', the latter similar to ''tian men dong'' (天門冬) in Chinese. This is a trailing plant, growing up to 2.5 m long; leaves are phyllode Phyllodes are modified petioles or leaf stems, which are leaf-like in appearance and function. In some plants, these become flattened and widened, while the leaf itself becomes reduced or vanishes altogether. Thus the phyllode comes to serve the ...s, 15-25 mm long. The flowers are axillary and the white berries are often in pairs. The roots and stems are used in traditional Chinese and Korean medicine.Lee D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asparagus Schoberioides
Asparagus, or garden asparagus, folk name sparrow grass, scientific name ''Asparagus officinalis'', is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus''. Its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. It was once classified in the lily family, like the related ''Allium'' species, onions and garlic. However, genetic research places lilies, ''Allium'', and asparagus in three separate families—the Liliaceae, Amaryllidaceae, and Asparagaceae, respectively— the Amaryllidaceae and Asparagaceae are grouped together in the order Asparagales. Sources differ as to the native range of ''Asparagus officinalis'', but generally include most of Europe and western temperate Asia. It is widely cultivated as a vegetable crop. Description Asparagus is a herbaceous, perennial plant growing to tall, with stout stems with much-branched, feathery foliage. The 'leaves' are in fact needle-like cladodes ( modified stems) in the axils of scale leaves; they are long ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phylloclade
Phylloclades and cladodes are flattened, photosynthetic shoots, which are usually considered to be modified branches. The two terms are used either differently or interchangeably by different authors. ''Phyllocladus'', a genus of conifer, is named after these structures. Phylloclades/cladodes have been identified in fossils dating from as early as the Permian. Definition and morphology The term "phylloclade" is from the New Latin ''phyllocladium'', itself derived from Greek ''phyllo'', leaf, and ''klados'', branch. Definitions of the terms "phylloclade" and "cladode" vary. All agree that they are flattened structures that are photosynthetic and resemble leaf-like branches. In one definition, phylloclades are a subset of cladodes, namely those that greatly resemble or perform the function of leaves, as in Butcher's broom (''Ruscus aculeatus'') as well as ''Phyllanthus'' and some ''Asparagus'' species. By an alternative definition, cladodes are distinguished by their limited gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start of the Cenozoic Era, and extended to the beginning of the Quaternary glaciation at the end of the Pliocene Epoch. The time span covered by the Tertiary has no exact equivalent in the current geologic time system, but it is essentially the merged Paleogene and Neogene periods, which are informally called the Early Tertiary and the Late Tertiary, respectively. The Tertiary established the Antarctic as an icy island continent. Historical use of the term The term Tertiary was first used by Giovanni Arduino during the mid-18th century. He classified geologic time into primitive (or primary), secondary, and tertiary periods based on observations of geology in Northern Italy. Later a fourth period, the Quaternary, was applied. In the early d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
