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Smilax Ligneoriparia
''Smilax'' is a genus of about 300–350 species, found in the tropics and subtropics worldwide. In China for example about 80 are found (39 of which are endemic), while there are 20 in North America north of Mexico. They are climbing flowering plants, many of which are woody and/or thorny, in the monocotyledon family Smilacaceae, native throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Common names include ''catbriers'', ''greenbriers'', ''prickly-ivys'' and ''smilaxes''. ''Sarsaparilla'' (also zarzaparrilla, sarsparilla) is a name used specifically for the Jamaican '' S. ornata'' as well as a catch-all term in particular for American species. Occasionally, the non-woody species such as the smooth herbaceous greenbrier (''S. herbacea'') are separated as genus ''Nemexia''; they are commonly known by the rather ambiguous name ''carrion flowers''. Greenbriers get their scientific name from the Greek myth of Crocus and the nymph Smilax. Though this myth h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smilax Aspera
''Smilax aspera'', with common names common smilax, rough bindweed, sarsaparille, includes photos and European distribution map and Mediterranean smilax, is a species of Flowering plant, flowering vine in the Smilacaceae, greenbriar family. Description ''Smilax aspera'' is a perennial, evergreen climber with a flexible and delicate stem, with sharp thorns. The climbing stem is long.Pignatti S. - Flora d'Italia – Edagricole – 1982. Vol. III, pag. 401 The leaves are long, petiolated, alternate, tough and leathery, heart-shaped, with toothed and spiny margins. It is the Monocotyledon, ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carrion Flower
Carrion flowers, also known as corpse flowers or stinking flowers, are mimetic flowers that emit an odor that smells like rotting flesh. Apart from the scent, carrion flowers often display additional characteristics that contribute to the mimesis of a decaying corpse. These include their specific coloration (red, purple, brown), the presence of setae and orifice-like flower architecture. Carrion flowers attract mostly scavenging flies and beetles as pollinators. Some species may trap the insects temporarily to ensure the gathering and transfer of pollen. Plants known as "carrion flower" ''Amorphophallus'' Many plants in the genus '' Amorphophallus'' (family Araceae) are known as carrion flowers. One such plant is the Titan arum ('' Amorphophallus titanum''), which has the world's largest unbranched inflorescence. Rather than a single flower, the titan arum presents an inflorescence or compound flower composed of a spadix or stalk of small and anatomically reduced male and ... [...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] |
Pollination
Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds, most often by an animal or by wind. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, birds, and bats; water; wind; and even plants themselves, when self-pollination occurs within a closed flower. Pollination often occurs within a species. When pollination occurs between species, it can produce hybrid offspring in nature and in plant breeding work. In angiosperms, after the pollen grain (gametophyte) has landed on the stigma, it germinates and develops a pollen tube which grows down the style until it reaches an ovary. Its two gametes travel down the tube to where the gametophyte(s) containing the female gametes are held within the carpel. After entering an ovum cell through the micropyle, one male nucleus fuses with the polar bodies to produce the endosperm tissues, while the other fuses with the ovule to produce the embr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
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] |
Leaf
A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, flower, and fruit collectively form the shoot system. In most leaves, the primary photosynthetic tissue is the palisade mesophyll and is located on the upper side of the blade or lamina of the leaf but in some species, including the mature foliage of ''Eucalyptus'', palisade mesophyll is present on both sides and the leaves are said to be isobilateral. Most leaves are flattened and have distinct upper (adaxial) and lower ( abaxial) surfaces that differ in color, hairiness, the number of stomata (pores that intake and output gases), the amount and structure of epicuticular wax and other features. Leaves are mostly green in color due to the presence of a compound called chlorophyll that is essential for photosynthesis as it absorbs light ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season. Evergreen species There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs. Evergreens include: *Most species of conifers (e.g., pine, hemlock, blue spruce, and red cedar), but not all (e.g., larch) *Live oak, holly, and "ancient" gymnosperms such as cycads *Most angiosperms from frost-free climates, and rainforest trees *All Eucalypts * Clubmosses and relatives *Bamboos The Latin binomial term , meaning "always green", refers to the evergreen nature of the plant, for instance :'' Cupressus sempervirens'' (a cypress) :''Lonicera sempervirens'' (a honeysuckle) :''Sequoia sempervirens'' (a sequoia) Leaf longevity in evergreen plants varies from a few months ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deciduous
In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, after flowering; and to the shedding of ripe fruit. The antonym of ''deciduous'' in the botanical sense is evergreen. Generally, the term "deciduous" means "the dropping of a part that is no longer needed or useful" and the "falling away after its purpose is finished". In plants, it is the result of natural processes. "Deciduous" has a similar meaning when referring to animal parts, such as deciduous antlers in deer, deciduous teeth (baby teeth) in some mammals (including humans); or decidua, the uterine lining that sheds off after birth. Botany In botany and horticulture, deciduous plants, including trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials, are those that lose all of their leaves for part of the year. This process is called abscissio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crocus
''Crocus'' (; plural: crocuses or croci) is a genus of seasonal flowering plants in the family Iridaceae (iris family) comprising about 100 species of perennials growing from corms. They are low growing plants, whose flower stems remain underground, that bear relatively large white, yellow, orange or purple flowers and then become dormant after flowering. Many are cultivated for their flowers, appearing in autumn, winter, or spring. The flowers close at night and in overcast weather conditions. The crocus has been known throughout recorded history, mainly as the source of saffron. Saffron is obtained from the dried stigma of ''Crocus sativus'', an autumn-blooming species. It is valued as a spice and dyestuff, and is one of the most expensive spices in the world. Iran is the center of saffron production. Crocuses are native to woodland, scrub, and meadows from sea level to alpine tundra from the Mediterranean, through North Africa, central and southern Europe, the islands of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, and language. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which bolster human society. Its intelligence and its desire to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena have motivated humanity's development of science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of study. Although some scientists equate the term ''humans'' with all members of the genus ''Homo'', in common usage, it generally refers to ''Homo sapiens'', the only extant member. Anatomically moder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smilax (mythology)
In Greek mythology Smilax (; ; grc-gre, Σμῖλαξ, Smílax, bindweed) was the name of a nymph who was in love with Crocus (mythology), Crocus and was turned into the Smilax aspera, plant bearing her name (the bindweed). Ancient sources with information about her and her tale are few and far in between. Mythology Details of her story are vague and sparse. Pliny the Elder, Pliny writes that Smilax was turned into bindweed shrub for loving the young Crocus (mythology), Crocus. Ovid writes that the smilax and saffron, crocus both tell a love story, and Nonnus also mentions Crocus' love for Smilax, the "airgarlanded girl".Nonnus, ''Dionysiaca'12.86/ref> See also * Clytie (Oceanid), Clytia, another nymph turned into plant out of unfulfilled love. Notes References * Ovid, Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Metamorphoses'' translated by Brookes More (1859-1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.* Ovid, Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Metamorp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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