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Gesneriaceae Genera
Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World (almost all Didymocarpoideae) and the New World (most Gesnerioideae), with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants. Etymology The family name is based on the genus ''Gesneria'', which honours Swiss naturalist and humanist Conrad Gessner. Description Most species are herbaceous perennials or subshrubs but a few are woody shrubs or small trees. The phyllotaxy is usually opposite and decussate, but leaves have a spiral or alternate arrangement in some groups. As with other members of the Lamiales the flowers have a (usually) zygomorphic corolla whose petals are fused into a tube and there is no one character that separates a gesneriad from any other member of Lamiales. Gesneriads differ from related families of the Lami ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Streptocarpus Ionanthus
''Streptocarpus ionanthus'' (Synonym (taxonomy), synonym ''Saintpaulia ionantha'') is a species of ''Streptocarpus'' in the section ''Streptocarpus sect. Saintpaulia, Saintpaulia'', commonly known as an African violet. It is native to eastern and southwestern Tanzania. Infraspecific taxa , ''Plants of the World Online'' accepted the following subspecies and varieties. Many have previously been treated as separate species in the no longer recognized genus ''Saintpaulia''. *''Streptocarpus ionanthus'' var. ''diplotrichus'' (B.L.Burtt) Christenh. (syn. ''Saintpaulia diplotricha'') *''Streptocarpus ionanthus'' subsp. ''grandifolius'' (B.L.Burtt) Christenh. (syn. ''Saintpaulia grandifolia'') *''Streptocarpus ionanthus'' subsp. ''grotei'' (Engl.) Christenh. (syn. ''Saintpaulia amaniensis'', ''Saintpaulia confusa'', ''Saintpaulia difficilis'', ''Saintpaulia grotei'', ''Saintpaulia magungensis'') *''Streptocarpus ionanthus'' subsp. ''mafiensis'' (I.Darbysh. & Pócs) Christenh. *''Strepto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naturalist
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is called a naturalist or natural historian. Natural history encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it. It involves the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms, so while it dates from studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the mediaeval Arabic world, through to European Renaissance naturalists working in near isolation, today's natural history is a cross-discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences; e.g., geobiology has a strong multidisciplinary nature. Definitions Before 1900 The meaning of the English term "natural history" (a calque of the Latin ''historia naturalis'') has narrowed progressively with time, while, by contrast, the meaning of the related term "nature" has widened (see also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berry (botany)
In botany, a berry is a fleshy fruit without a drupe, drupe (pit) produced from a single flower containing one Ovary (botany), ovary. Berries so defined include grapes, Ribes, currants, and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers, eggplants (aubergines), persimmons and bananas, but exclude certain fruits that meet the berry, culinary definition of berries, such as strawberries and raspberries. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire outer layer of the ovary wall ripens into a potentially edible "pericarp". Berries may be formed from one or more gynoecium, carpels from the same flower (i.e. from a simple or a compound ovary). The seeds are usually embedded in the fleshy interior of the ovary, but there are some non-fleshy exceptions, such as ''Capsicum'' species, with air rather than pulp around their seeds. Many berries are edible, but others, such as the Potato fruit, fruits of the potato and the deadly nightshade, are poisonous to humans. A plant that be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scrophulariaceae
The Scrophulariaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the figwort family. The plants are annual and perennial herbs, as well as shrubs. Flowers have bilateral (zygomorphic) or rarely radial (actinomorphic) symmetry. The Scrophulariaceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority found in temperate areas, including tropical mountains. The family name is based on the name of the included genus ''Scrophularia'' L. Taxonomy In the past, it was treated as including about 275 genera and over 5,000 species, but its circumscription has been radically altered since numerous molecular phylogenies have shown the traditional broad circumscription to be grossly polyphyletic. Many genera have recently been transferred to other families within the Lamiales, notably Plantaginaceae and Orobanchaceae, but also several new families. - on linhere/ref> Several families of the Lamiales have had their circumscriptions enlarged to accommodate genera transferred from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calceolariaceae
Calceolariaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that has been recently segregated from Scrophulariaceae. The family includes three genera, '' Calceolaria'', '' Porodittia'', and '' Jovellana'', but analysis suggests that the monotypic ''Porodittia'' should be placed within ''Calceolaria''.Andersson, S. 2006. On the phylogeny of the genus ''Calceolaria'' (Calceolariaceae) as inferred from ITS and plastid ''matK'' sequences. ''Taxon'' 55: 125-137abstract. Recent molecular phylogenies that included ''Calceolaria'' have shown not only that this genus does not belong in Scrophulariaceae (or any of the numerous families recently segregated from Scrophulariaceae) but also that it is the sister clade to the majority of the other families of the Lamiales. Morphological and chemical characters also support the separation of Calceolariaceae from Scrophulariaceae and other Lamiales. Some recent studies have supported a sister-group relationship between Calceolariace ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zygomorphic
Floral symmetry describes whether, and how, a flower, in particular its perianth, can be divided into two or more identical or mirror-image parts. Uncommonly, flowers may have no axis of symmetry at all, typically because their parts are spirally arranged. Actinomorphic Most flowers are actinomorphic ("star shaped", "radial"), meaning they can be divided into three or more identical sectors which are related to each other by rotation about the center of the flower. Typically, each sector might contain one tepal or one petal and one sepal and so on. It may or may not be possible to divide the flower into symmetrical halves by the same number of longitudinal planes passing through the axis: oleander is an example of a flower without such mirror planes. Actinomorphic flowers are also called radially symmetrical or regular flowers. Other examples of actinomorphic flowers are the lily ('' Lilium'', Liliaceae) and the buttercup ('' Ranunculus'', Ranunculaceae). Zygomor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lamiales
The Lamiales (also known as the mint order) are an order of flowering plants in the asterids clade of the Eudicots. Under the APG IV system of flowering plant classification the order consists of 24 families, and includes about 23,810 species and 1,059 genera with representatives found all over the world. Well-known or economically important members of this order include aromatic, culinary, and medicinal herbs such as basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savory, marjoram, oregano, hyssop, thyme, lavender, perilla, lemon verbena, catnip, bee balm, wild dagga, and oriental motherwort, as well as olives, ash trees, teak, foxgloves, lilacs, jasmine, snapdragons, African violets, Jacarandas, Paulownias, butterfly bushes, sesame, and psyllium. Description Plant species within the order Lamiales are eudicots and are herbaceous or have woody stems. Zygomorphic flowers are common, having five petals with an upper lip of two petals and lower lip of three petals, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decussate
Decussation is used in biological contexts to describe a crossing (due to the shape of the Roman numeral for ten, an uppercase 'X' (), ). In Latin anatomical terms, the form is used, e.g. . Similarly, the anatomical term chiasma is named after the Greek uppercase 'Χ' ( chi). Whereas a decussation refers to a crossing within the central nervous system, various kinds of crossings in the peripheral nervous system are called chiasma. Examples include: * In the brain, where nerve fibers obliquely cross from one lateral side of the brain to the other, that is to say they cross at a level other than their origin. See for examples decussation of pyramids and sensory decussation. In neuroanatomy, the term ''chiasma'' is reserved for crossing of- or within nerves such as in the optic chiasm. * In botanical leaf taxology, the word ''decussate'' describes an opposite pattern of leaves which has successive pairs at right angles to each other (i.e. rotated 90 degrees along the stem w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phyllotaxy
In botany, phyllotaxis () or phyllotaxy is the arrangement of leaves on a plant stem. Phyllotactic spirals form a distinctive class of patterns in nature. Leaf arrangement The basic arrangements of leaves on a stem are opposite and alternate (also known as spiral). Leaves may also be whorled if several leaves arise, or appear to arise, from the same level (at the same node) on a stem. With an opposite leaf arrangement, two leaves arise from the stem at the same level (at the same node), on opposite sides of the stem. An opposite leaf pair can be thought of as a whorl of two leaves. With an alternate (spiral) pattern, each leaf arises at a different point (node) on the stem. Distichous phyllotaxis, also called "two-ranked leaf arrangement" is a special case of either opposite or alternate leaf arrangement where the leaves on a stem are arranged in two vertical columns on opposite sides of the stem. Examples include various bulbous plants such as '' Boophone''. It a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only plants that are usable as lumber, or only plants above a specified height. But wider definitions include taller palms, tree ferns, bananas, and bamboos. Trees are not a monophyletic taxonomic group but consist of a wide variety of plant species that have independently evolved a trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. The majority of tree species are angiosperms or hardwoods; of the rest, many are gymnosperms or softwoods. Trees tend to be long-lived, some trees reaching several thousand years old. Trees evolved around 400 million years ago, and it is estimated that there are around three trillion mature trees in the world currently. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported cle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subshrub
A subshrub (Latin ''suffrutex'') or undershrub is either a small shrub (e.g. prostrate shrubs) or a perennial that is largely herbaceous but slightly woody at the base (e.g. garden pink and florist's chrysanthemum). The term is often interchangeable with "bush".Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Derivation and Accent; Published by Gerald Duckworth & Co. London, 4th ed 1928 Because the criteria are matters of degree (normally of height) rather than of kind, the definition of a subshrub is not sharply distinguishable from that of a shrub; examples of reasons for describing plants as subshrubs include ground-hugging stems or low growth habit. Subshrubs may be largely herbaceous though still classified as woody, with overwintering perennial woody growth much lower-growing than deciduous summer growth. Some plants described as subshrubs are only weakly woody and some persist for only a few years. Others, such as '' Oldenburgia paradoxa'' live indefin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perennial Plant
In horticulture, the term perennial (''wikt:per-#Prefix, per-'' + ''wikt:-ennial#Suffix, -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annual plant, annuals and biennial plant, biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also loosely used to distinguish plants with little or no woody growth (secondary growth in Tree girth measurement, girth) from trees and shrubs, which are also technically ''perennials''. Notably, it is estimated that 94% of plant species fall under the category of perennials, underscoring the prevalence of plants with lifespans exceeding two years in the botanical world. Perennials (especially small flowering plants) that grow and bloom over the spring and summer, die back every autumn and winter, and then return in the spring from their rootstock or other overwintering structure, are known as Herbaceous plant, herbaceous perennials. However, depending on the rigours of the loca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
