Creeping Devil
''Stenocereus eruca'', commonly known as the creeping devil, is a member of the family Cactaceae. It is one of the most distinctive cacti, a member of the relatively small genus ''Stenocereus''. It is endemic to the central Pacific coast of Baja California Sur, and is found only on sandy soils, where it forms massive colonies. As with all cacti, creeping devil is succulent, and is reported to contain mescaline and sterols. Growth patterns can be widely scattered as individual stems; in favorable localities they can form impenetrable patches of branching stems measuring several metres across. The creeping devil is columnar, with a very spiny stem which is creamy green in color, averaging 5 cm in diameter and 1.5-2 m long, with only the terminal end raised from the ground. A height of 20-30 cm is normal since this cactus is recumbent. The large, nocturnal flowers are white, pink, or yellow; usually 10-14 cm long with a spiny ovary, and flowering sparingly in respons ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cactus
A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek word (''káktos''), a name originally used by Theophrastus for a spiny plant whose identity is now not certain. Cacti occur in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Although some species live in quite humid environments, most cacti live in habitats subject to at least some drought. Many live in extremely dry environments, even being found in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. Because of this, cacti show many adaptations to conserve water. For example, almost all cacti are succulents, meaning they have thickened, fleshy parts adapted to store water. Unlike many other succulents, the stem is the only part of most cacti where this vital process takes place. Most species of cacti have lost true leaves, retaining only spines, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stenocereus
''Stenocereus'' ( Gk. ''stenos'', narrow, L. ''cereus'', candle) is a genus of columnar or tree-like cacti from the Baja California Peninsula and other parts of Mexico, Arizona in the United States, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Venezuela and the ABC islands of the Dutch Caribbean. The genus has been enlarged by the addition of species from several other genus, genera. A close relative is the peculiar chinoa or chende cactus, ''Polaskia chende''. Description The flowers are mostly borne near the wikt:apex, apex of the stems and mostly nocturnal. They are considered easy to grow and generally grow slowly. ''Stenocereus thurberi'' (the organ pipe cactus) is a well-known member of this genus and is widely distributed in Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ... a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Endemic (ecology)
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 s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Oceania in the west and the Americas in the east. At in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of its total surface area, larger than Earth's entire land area combined .Pacific Ocean . '' Britannica Concise.'' 2008: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The centers of both the [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur (; 'South Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California Sur ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California Sur), is the least populated state and the 31st admitted state of the 32 federal entities which comprise the 31 States of Mexico. It is also the ninth-largest Mexican state in terms of area. Before becoming a state on 8 October 1974, the area was known as the ''El Territorio Sur de Baja California'' ("South Territory of Lower California"). It has an area of , or 3.57% of the land mass of Mexico, and occupies the southern half of the Baja California Peninsula, south of the 28th parallel, plus the uninhabited Rocas Alijos in the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered to the north by the state of Baja California, to the west by the Pacific Ocean, and to the east by the Gulf of California. The state has maritime borders with Sonora and Sinaloa to the east, across the Gulf of California. The state is home to the tourist resorts ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mescaline
Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin. Biological sources It occurs naturally in several species of cacti. It is also found in small amounts in certain members of the bean family, Fabaceae, including ''Acacia berlandieri''. However those claims concerning ''Acacia'' species have been challenged and have been unsupported in any additional analysis. History and use Peyote has been used for at least 5,700 years by Indigenous peoples of the Americas in Mexico. Europeans noted use of peyote in Native American religious ceremonies upon early contact, notably by the Huichols in Mexico. Other mescaline-containing cacti such as the San Pedro have a long history of use in South America, from Peru to Ecuador. While religious and ceremonial peyote use was widespread in the Aztec empire and northern M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sterol
Sterol is an organic compound with formula , whose molecule is derived from that of gonane by replacement of a hydrogen atom in position 3 by a hydroxyl group. It is therefore an alcohol of gonane. More generally, any compounds that contain the gonane structure, additional functional groups, and/or modified ring systems derived from gonane are called steroids. Therefore, sterols are a subgroup of the steroids. They occur naturally in most eukaryotes, including plants, animals, and fungi, and can also be produced by some bacteria (however likely with different functions). The most familiar type of animal sterol is cholesterol, which is vital to cell membrane structure, and functions as a precursor to fat-soluble vitamins and steroid hormones. While technically alcohols, sterols are classified by biochemists as lipids (fats in the broader sense of the term). Types Sterols of plants are called ''phytosterols'' and sterols of animals are called ''zoosterols''. The most importa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Recumbence
Lyingalso called recumbency, prostration, or decubitus in medicine ()is a type of human position in which the body is more or less horizontal and supported along its length by the surface underneath. Lying is the most common position while being immobilized (e.g. in bedrest), while sleeping, or while being struck by injury or disease. Positions When lying, the body may assume a great variety of shapes and positions. The following are the basic recognized ones. * Supine: lying on the back on the ground with the face up. * Prone: lying on the chest with the face down ("lying down" or "going prone"). See also "Prostration". * Lying on either side, with the body straight or bent/curled forward or backward. ** The fetal position is lying or sitting curled, with limbs close to the torso and the head close to the knees. ** The recovery position (coma position), one of a series of variations on a lateral recumbent or three-quarters prone position of the body, into which an unconsc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs. Flowers may facilitate outcrossing (fusion of sperm and eggs from different individuals in a population) resulting from cross-pollination or allow selfing (fusion of sperm and egg from the same flower) when self-pollination occurs. There are two types of pollination: self-pollination and cross-pollination. Self-pollination occurs when the pollen from the anther is deposited on the stigma of the same flower, or another flower on the same plant. Cross-pollination is when pollen is transferred from the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower on a different individual of the same species. Self-pollination happens in flowers where the stamen and carpel mature at the same time, and are positi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagated using the movements of humans and animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; in fact, humans and many animals have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Consequently, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the world's agricultural output, and some (such as the apple and the pomegranate) have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. In common language usage, "fruit" normally means the seed-associated fleshy structures (or produce) of plants that typically are sweet or sour and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries. In botanical usage, the term "fruit" also i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cloning
Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical or virtually identical DNA, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction. In the field of biotechnology, cloning is the process of creating cloned organisms (copies) of Cell (biology), cells and of DNA fragments (molecular cloning). Etymology Coined by Herbert J. Webber, the term clone derives from the Ancient Greek word (), ''twig'', which is the process whereby a new plant is created from a twig. In botany, the term ''lusus'' was used. In horticulture, the spelling ''clon'' was used until the early twentieth century; the final ''e'' came into use to indicate the vowel is a "long o" instead of a "short o". Since the term entered the popular lexicon in a more general context, the spelling ''clone'' has been used exclusively. Natural cloning Cloning is a natural form of reproduction that has allowed life forms to spread for hundreds of millio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stenocereus Thurberi
''Stenocereus thurberi'', the organ pipe cactus, is a species of cactus native to Mexico and the United States. The species is found in rocky desert. Two subspecies are recognized based on their distribution and height. The Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is named for the species. Its English common name is derived from its resemblance to a pipe organ. It is locally known as ''pitaya dulce'', Spanish (language), Spanish for "sweet pitaya" or sweet cactus fruit. Description This cactus species has several narrow stems that rise vertically, growing from a single short trunk just above the ground level. These stems are about thick and grow to a height of , however it has been known to reach . These stems rarely branch but rather grow annually from the tip of the last growth. The mature plant can reach a width of . Each stem has twelve to nineteen high ribs that bear dark brown to black spines that turn gray as it matures. It takes 150 years to reach maturity. The older plants ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |