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Bhesa Nitidissima
''Bhesa nitidissima'' is a species of plant in the Centroplacaceae family. It is endemic to Sri Lanka. Description A tree with an average height of 20-30 meters (65-98 feet) but can reach as high as 50 meters (164 feet). Bark is usually dark brown and deeply cracked on older specimens. The unique feature of the Bhesa genus within the Centroplacaceae family is its geniculate petioles; which essentially means that the leaf bends sharply away from the stalk. The petiole usually contains three vascular bundles. Seed germination is epigeal. Produces 3-4mm wide, greenish to white sessile flowers with 5 petals. The flowers produce greenish brown, oblong seeds encased in a thick gelatinous aril inside capsules up to 2.2cm long. Ecology Endemic to Sri Lanka. Found mostly in low elevation wet zone forests, but have a recorded range of up to 1600 meters (5249 feet). The tree flowers September through October and produces fruit November through December. Although listed as critically end ...
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André Joseph Guillaume Henri Kostermans
Dr. André Joseph Guillaume Henri 'Dok' Kostermans (Purworejo, 1 July 1906 – Jakarta, 10 July 1994) was an Indonesian botanist of Dutch ancestry. He was born in Purworejo, Java, Dutch East Indies, and educated at Utrecht University, taking his doctoral degree in 1936 with a paper on Surinamese Lauraceae. He spent most of his professional life studying the plants of southeastern Asia, settled at Buitenzorg, later Bogor, Indonesia. At an early stage in his career he also contributed a number of family treatments to Pulle's ''Flora of Suriname''. Kostermans was especially interested in Lauraceae, Malvales (Bombacaceae and Sterculiaceae), and Dipterocarpaceae. In later years he turned his attention to Asian Anacardiaceae. He was a productive worker and published extensively on these and other groups. The genus ''Kostermansia'' Soegeng, of the family Bombacaceae, and over 50 species were named in his honour. Kostermans suffered a heart attack in March 1991, but his letter to his f ...
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Plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin name for "green plants") which is sister of the Glaucophyta, and consists of the green algae and Embryophyta (land plants). The latter includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, and mosses. Most plants are multicellular organisms. Green plants obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts that are derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic or mycotrophic and have lost the ...
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Centroplacaceae
Centroplacaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Malpighiales and is recognized by the APG III system of classification. The family comprises two genera: ''Bhesa'', which was formerly recognized in the Celastraceae, and ''Centroplacus'', which was formerly recognized in the Euphorbiaceae, together comprising six species. The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group determined that based on previous phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ... analysis, these two genera formed an isolated clade and recognition of the family was "reasonable." References External links Malpighiales families {{Malpighiales-stub ...
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Endemism
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to ...
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Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea; it is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with India and Maldives. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and financial centre. Sri Lanka has a population of around 22 million (2020) and is a multinational state, home to diverse cultures, languages, and ethnicities. The Sinhalese are the majority of the nation's population. The Tamils, who are a large minority group, have also played an influential role in the island's history. Other long established groups include the Moors, the Burghers ...
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Petiole (botany)
In botany, the petiole () is the stalk that attaches the leaf blade to the stem, and is able to twist the leaf to face the sun. This gives a characteristic foliage arrangement to the plant. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole in some species are called stipules. Leaves with a petiole are said to be petiolate, while leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile or apetiolate. Description The petiole is a stalk that attaches a leaf to the plant stem. In petiolate leaves, the leaf stalk may be long, as in the leaves of celery and rhubarb, or short. When completely absent, the blade attaches directly to the stem and is said to be sessile. Subpetiolate leaves have an extremely short petiole, and may appear sessile. The broomrape family Orobanchaceae is an example of a family in which the leaves are always sessile. In some other plant groups, such as the speedwell genus '' Veronica'', petiolate and sessile leaves may occur in different species. In the grasses (Poaceae), ...
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Vascular Bundle
A vascular bundle is a part of the transport system in vascular plants. The transport itself happens in the stem, which exists in two forms: xylem and phloem. Both these tissues are present in a vascular bundle, which in addition will include supporting and protective tissues. In addition, there is also a tissue between xylem and phloem which is the cambium. The xylem typically lies towards the axis (adaxial) with phloem positioned away from the axis (abaxial). In a stem or root this means that the xylem is closer to the centre of the stem or root while the phloem is closer to the exterior. In a leaf, the adaxial surface of the leaf will usually be the upper side, with the abaxial surface the lower side. The sugars synthesized by the plant with sun light are transported by the phloem, which is closer to the lower surface. Aphids and leaf hoppers feed off of these sugars by tapping into the phloem. This is why aphids and leaf hoppers are typically found on the underside ...
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Epigeal Germination
Epigeal germination (Ancient Greek [] 'above ground', from [] 'on' and [] 'earth, ground') is a Glossary of botanical terms, botanical term indicating that the germination of a plant takes place above the ground. An example of a plant with epigeal germination is the common bean ('' Phaseolus vulgaris''). The opposite of epigeal is hypogeal (underground germination). , Epi: Above + Geo: Earth , + Epigeal germination Epigeal germination implies that the cotyledons are pushed above ground. The hypocotyl elongates while the epicotyl remains the same in length. In this way, the hypocotyl pushes the cotyledon upward. Normally, the cotyledon itself contains very little nutrients in plants that show this kind of germination. Instead, the first leaflets are already folded up inside it, and photosynthesis starts to take place in it rather quickly.Parolin, P., Ferreira, L.V., Junk, W.J. (2003"Germination characteristics and establishment of trees from central Amazonian flood plains"' ...
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Sessility (botany)
In botany, sessility (meaning "sitting", used in the sense of "resting on the surface") is a characteristic of plant parts (such as flowers and leaves) that have no stalk. Plant parts can also be described as subsessile, that is, not completely sessile. A sessile flower is one that lacks a pedicel (flower stalk). A flower that is not sessile is pedicellate. For example, the genus ''Trillium'' is partitioned into two subgenera, the sessile-flowered trilliums (''Trillium'' subg. ''Sessilium'') and the pedicellate-flowered trilliums. Sessile leaves lack petioles (leaf stalks). A leaf that is not sessile is petiolate. For example, the leaves of most monocotyledons lack petioles. The term sessility is also used in mycology to describe a fungal fruit body that is attached to or seated directly on the surface of the substrate, lacking a supporting stipe or pedicel Pedicle or pedicel may refer to: Human anatomy *Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transvers ...
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Aril
An aril (pronounced ), also called an arillus, is a specialized outgrowth from a seed that partly or completely covers the seed. An arillode or false aril is sometimes distinguished: whereas an aril grows from the attachment point of the seed to the ovary (from the funiculus or '' hilum''), an arillode forms from a different point on the seed coat. The term "aril" is sometimes applied to any fleshy appendage of the seed in flowering plants, such as the mace of the nutmeg seed. Arils and arillodes are often edible enticements that encourage animals to transport the seed, thereby assisting in seed dispersal. Pseudarils are aril-like structures commonly found on the pyrenes of Burseraceae species that develop from the mesocarp of the ovary. The fleshy, edible pericarp splits neatly in two halves, then falling away or being eaten to reveal a brightly coloured pseudaril around the black seed. The aril may create a fruit-like structure, called (among other names) a ''false fruit ...
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Endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to ...
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Sri Lanka Lowland Rain Forests
The Sri Lanka lowland rain forests represents Sri Lanka's Tropical rainforests below in elevation in the southwestern part of the island. The year-around warm, wet climate together with thousands years of isolation from mainland India have resulted in the evolution of numerous plants and animal species that can only be found in rain forests in Sri Lanka. The thick forest canopy is made up of over 150 species of trees, some of the emergent layer reaching as high as . The lowland rain forests accounts for 2.14 percent of Sri Lanka's land area. This ecoregion is the home of the jungle shrew, a small endemic mammal of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has the highest density of amphibian species worldwide. Many of these, including 250 species of tree frogs, live in these rain forests. Forest cover The lowland rain forests cover in total and accounts for 2.14 percent of Sri Lanka's land area. Wet monsoon forests receive of annual rainfall and are situated belove of altitude. Kanneliya, ...
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