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Hypoxideae
Hypoxidaceae is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots. The APG IV system of 2016 (unchanged from the 1998, 2003, and 2009 versions) recognizes this family. The family consists of four genera totalling some 160 species. The members of the family are small to medium herbs, with grass-like leaves and an invisible stem, modified into a corm or a rhizome. The flowers are born on leafless shoots, also called scapes. The flowers are trimerous, radially symmetric. The ovary is inferior, developing into a capsule or a berry. Uses Curculin is a taste modifying sweet protein that was discovered and from the fruit of a plant in this family (''Curculigo latifolia ''Curculigo'' is a flowering plant genus in the family Hypoxidaceae, first described in 1788. It is widespread across tropical regions of Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. Curculin is a sweet protein that was discovered and isolated in ...''). Consuming it causes wate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypoxis Hemerocallidea
''Hypoxis hemerocallidea'', the African star grass or African potato, is a medicinal plant in the Hypoxidaceae family. It is native to southern Africa from South Africa as far north as Mozambique and Zimbabwe. This plant is the best known member of this genus. Medicinal uses ''Hypoxis'' is promoted as an alternative medicine treatment for benign prostatic hyperplasia, but research has found no evidence of beneficial effect. Additionally, one study suggests ''Hypoxis'' alters the activity of cytochrome p450, cytochrome P450, suggesting that it may interfere with the effectiveness of other drugs or supplements, such as antiretroviral drugs. References External links * Hypoxis hemerocallidea research University Kwazulu-Nata* Hypoxis hemerocallidea South African National Biodiversity Institut Hypoxis, hemerocallidea Flora of Southern Africa Medicinal plants of Africa Plants described in 1842 {{medicinal-plant-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monocot
Monocotyledons (), commonly referred to as monocots, (Lilianae ''sensu'' Chase & Reveal) are grass and grass-like flowering plants (angiosperms), the seeds of which typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. They constitute one of the major groups into which the flowering plants have traditionally been divided; the rest of the flowering plants have two cotyledons and are classified as dicotyledons, or dicots. Monocotyledons have almost always been recognized as a group, but with various taxonomic ranks and under several different names. The APG III system of 2009 recognises a clade called "monocots" but does not assign it to a taxonomic rank. The monocotyledons include about 60,000 species, about a quarter of all angiosperms. The largest family in this group (and in the flowering plants as a whole) by number of species are the orchids (family Orchidaceae), with more than 20,000 species. About half as many species belong to the true grasses ( Poaceae), which are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curculigo Latifolia
''Curculigo'' is a flowering plant genus in the family Hypoxidaceae, first described in 1788. It is widespread across tropical regions of Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. Curculin is a sweet protein that was discovered and isolated in 1990 from the fruit of ''Curculigo latifolia'', a plant from Malaysia. Like miraculin, curculin exhibits taste-modifying activity; however, unlike miraculin, it also exhibits a sweet taste by itself. After consumption of curculin, water and sour solutions taste sweet. The plant is referred to locally as 'lembah' or 'lumbah'; English: 'weevil-wort'. ;Species # '' Curculigo annamitica'' Gagnep. – Vietnam # '' Curculigo breviscapa'' S.C.Chen – China (Guangxi, Guangdong) # '' Curculigo conoc'' Gagnep. – Vietnam # '' Curculigo disticha'' Gagnep. – Vietnam # '' Curculigo ensifolia'' R.Br. – Australia # '' Curculigo erecta'' Lauterb. – Philippines, Sumatra, New Guinea, Solomon Island # '' Curculigo maharashtrensis'' M.R.Almeida & ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, responding to stimuli, providing structure to cells and organisms, and transporting molecules from one location to another. Proteins differ from one another primarily in their sequence of amino acids, which is dictated by the nucleotide sequence of their genes, and which usually results in protein folding into a specific 3D structure that determines its activity. A linear chain of amino acid residues is called a polypeptide. A protein contains at least one long polypeptide. Short polypeptides, containing less than 20–30 residues, are rarely considered to be proteins and are commonly called peptides. The individual amino acid residues are bonded together by peptide bonds and adjacent amino acid residues. The sequence of amino acid residue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curculin
Curculin or neoculin is a sweet protein that was discovered and isolated in 1990 from the fruit of ''Curculigo latifolia'' (Hypoxidaceae), a plant from Malaysia. Like miraculin, curculin exhibits taste-modifying activity; however, unlike miraculin, it also exhibits a sweet taste by itself. After consumption of curculin, water and sour solutions taste sweet. The plant is referred to locally as 'Lumbah' or 'Lemba'. Protein structure The active form of curculin is a heterodimer consisting of two monomeric units connected through two disulfide bridges. The mature monomers each consist of a sequence of 114 amino acids, weighing 12.5 kDa (curculin 1) and 12.7 kDa (curculin 2), respectively. While each of the two isoforms is capable of forming a homodimer, these do not possess the sweet taste nor the taste-modifying activity of the heterodimeric form. To avoid confusion, the heterodimeric form is sometimes referred to as "neoculin". *1, 1-50: DNVLLSGQTL HADHSLQAGA YTLTIQNKCN LVKYQ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berry (botany)
In botany, a berry is a fleshy fruit without a stone (pit) produced from a single flower containing one ovary. Berries so defined include grapes, currants, and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers, eggplants (aubergines) and bananas, but exclude certain fruits that meet the 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 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 peppers, with air rather than pulp around their seeds. Many berries are edible, but others, such as the fruits of the potato and the deadly nightshade, are poisonous to humans. A plant that bears berries is said to be bacciferous or baccate (a fruit that resembles a ber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow horizontally. The rhizome also retains the ability to allow new shoots to grow upwards. A rhizome is the main stem of the plant that runs underground horizontally. A stolon is similar to a rhizome, but a stolon sprouts from an existing stem, has long internodes, and generates new shoots at the end, such as in the strawberry plant. In general, rhizomes have short internodes, send out roots from the bottom of the nodes, and generate new upward-growing shoots from the top of the nodes. A stem tuber is a thickened part of a rhizome or stolon that has been enlarged for use as a storage organ. In general, a tuber is high in starch, e.g. the potato, which is a modified stolon. The term "tuber" is often used imprecisely and is sometimes applied to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corm
A corm, bulbo-tuber, or bulbotuber is a short, vertical, swollen underground plant stem that serves as a storage organ that some plants use to survive winter or other adverse conditions such as summer drought and heat (perennation). The word ''cormous'' usually means plants that grow from corms, parallel to the terms ''tuberous'' and ''bulbous'' to describe plants growing from tubers and bulbs. Structure A corm consists of one or more internodes with at least one growing point, generally with protective leaves modified into skins or tunics. The tunic of a corm forms from dead petiole sheaths—remnants of leaves produced in previous years. They act as a covering, protecting the corm from insects, digging animals, flooding, and water loss. The tunics of some species are thin, dry, and papery, at least in young plants, however, in some families, such as ''Iridaceae'', the tunic of a mature corm can be formidable protection. For example, some of the larger species of '' Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. However, only about 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a two-part name, a "binomial". The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet (in botanical nomenclature, also sometimes i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
APG III System
The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy being developed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG). Published in 2009, it was superseded in 2016 by a further revision, the APG IV system. Along with the publication outlining the new system, there were two accompanying publications in the same issue of the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society: * The first, by Chase & Reveal, was a formal phylogenetic classification of all land plants (embryophytes), compatible with the APG III classification. As the APG have chosen to eschew ranks above order, this paper was meant to fit the system into the existing Linnaean hierarchy for those that prefer such a classification. The result was that all land plants were placed in the class Equisetopsida, which was then divided into 16 subclasses and a multitude of superorders. * The second, by Haston ''et al.'', was a linear sequence of families followi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
APG II System
The APG II system (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II system) of plant classification is the second, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in April 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group.Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2003)An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG II.''Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society'' 141(4): 399-436. doi: 10.1046/j.1095-8339.2003.t01-1-00158.x It was a revision of the first APG system, published in 1998, and was superseded in 2009 by a further revision, the APG III system. History APG II was published as: *Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2003). "An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG II". ''Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society'' 141(4): 399-436. (Available onlineAbstractFull text (HTML)Full text (PDF) doi: 10.1046/j.1095-8339.2003.t01-1-00158.x) Each o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
APG System
The APG system (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system) of plant classification is the first version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy. Published in 1998 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, it was replaced by the improved APG II in 2003, APG III system in 2009 and APG IV system in 2016. History The original APG system is unusual in being based, not on total evidence, but on the cladistic analysis of the DNA sequences of three genes, two chloroplast genes and one gene coding for ribosomes. Although based on molecular evidence only, its constituent groups prove to be supported by other evidence as well, for example pollen morphology supports the split between the eudicots and the rest of the former dicotyledons. The system is rather controversial in its decisions at the family level, splitting a number of long-established families and submerging some other families. It also is unusual in not using botanical names above the level of order, that is, an orde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
