Avocados

picture info	Avocados The avocado ( Persea americana) is a tree, long thought to have originated in South Central Mexico, classified as a member of the flowering plant family Lauraceae. Avocado (also alligator pear) refers to the tree's fruit, which is botanically a large berry containing a single large seed. Avocados are commercially valuable and are cultivated in tropical and Mediterranean climates throughout the world. They have a green-skinned, fleshy body that may be pear-shaped, egg-shaped, or spherical. Commercially, they ripen after harvesting [...More...]
	Oaxaca Oaxaca (English: /wəˈhɑːkə/ wə-HAH-kə, Spanish: [waˈxaka] ( listen), from Nahuatl languages: Huāxyacac, pronounced [waːʃˈjakak] ( listen)), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, make up the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 570 municipalities, of which 418 (almost three quarters) are governed by the system of Usos y costumbres (customs and traditions) with recognized local forms of self-governance. Its capital city is Oaxaca de Juárez. Oaxaca is located in Southwestern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Guerrero to the west, Puebla to the northwest, Veracruz to the north, Chiapas to the east [...More...]
picture info	Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México [ˈmexiko] ( listen)), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos, listen (help·info)), is a federal republic in the southern portion of North America [...More...]
	Classification Classification is a general process related to categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood. A classification system is an approach to accomplishing classification. Classification may refer specifically to: [...More...]
picture info	Flowering Plant The flowering plants, also known as angiosperms, Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approximately 13,164 known genera and c. 295,383 known species. Like gymnosperms, angiosperms are seed-producing plants. However, they are distinguished from gymnosperms by characteristics including flowers, endosperm within the seeds, and the production of fruits that contain the seeds. Etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure; in other words, a fruiting plant. The term comes from the Greek words angeion ("case" or "casing") and sperma ("seed"). The ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, 245 to 202 million years ago (mya), and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya [...More...]
picture info	Fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate seeds. Edible fruits, in particular, have propagated with the movements of humans and animals in a symbiotic relationship as a means for Seed dispersal">seed dispersal and nutrition; in fact, humans and many animals have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Accordingly, 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 fleshy seed-associated structures of a plant that are sweet or sour, and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries [...More...]
picture info	Botany Botany, also called plant science(s), plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek word Ancient Greek language text">βοτάνη (botanē) meaning "pasture", "grass", or "fodder"; Ancient Greek language text">βοτάνη is in turn derived from Ancient Greek language text">βόσκειν (boskein), "to feed" or "to graze". Traditionally, botany has also included the study of fungi and algae by mycologists and phycologists respectively, with the study of these three groups of organisms remaining within the sphere of interest of the International Botanical Congress [...More...]
	Mediterranean Climate A Mediterranean climate /ˌmɛdɪtəˈreɪniən/ or dry summer climate, is the climate typical of areas in the Mediterranean Basin. The Mediterranean climate is usually characterized by rainy winters and dry, warm to hot summers. While the climate receives its name from the Mediterranean Sea, an area where this climate is commonplace, it is also present in other areas of the planet, although with variations in the distribution of temperatures [...More...]
	Self-pollination Self-pollination is when pollen from the same plant arrives at the stigma of a flower (in flowering plants) or at the ovule (in gymnosperms). There are two types of self-pollination: in autogamy, pollen is transferred to the stigma of the same flower; in geitonogamy, pollen is transferred from the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower on the same flowering plant, or from microsporangium to ovule within a single (monoecious) gymnosperm. Some plants have mechanisms that ensure autogamy, such as flowers that do not open (cleistogamy), or stamens that move to come into contact with the stigma [...More...]
	Plant Propagation Plant propagation is the process of creating new plants from a variety of sources: seeds, cuttings, bulbs and other plant parts [...More...]
	Grafting Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together. The upper part of the combined plant is called the scion (/ˈsaɪən/) while the lower part is called the rootstock. The success of this joining requires that the vascular tissue grow together and such joining is called inosculation. The technique is most commonly used in asexual propagation of commercially grown plants for the horticultural and agricultural trades. In most cases, one plant is selected for its roots and this is called the stock or rootstock [...More...]
	Tehuacan Valley Tehuacán (Spanish pronunciation: [tewaˈkan]) is the second largest city in the Mexican state of Puebla, nestled in the Southeast Valley of Tehuacán, bordering the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. The 2010 census reported a population of 248,716 in the city and 274,906 in the surrounding Tehuacán Municipality, of which it serves as municipal seat [...More...]
picture info	Synonym (taxonomy) In scientific nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name, although the term is used somewhat differently in the zoological code of nomenclature. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name (under the currently used system of scientific nomenclature) to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies. This name is no longer in use: it is now a synonym of the current scientific name, Picea abies. Unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms are not equals, but have a different status. For any taxon with a particular circumscription, position, and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time (this correct name is to be determined by applying the relevant Nomenclature codes">code of nomenclature) [...More...]
picture info	Puebla Puebla (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpweβla] ( listen)), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Puebla (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla) is one of the 31 states which, with the Mexico City">Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla. It is located in East-Central Mexico [...More...]
picture info	Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin fossilis; literally, "obtained by digging") is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, hair, petrified wood, oil, coal, and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the fossil record. Paleontology is the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are usually considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are from around 3.48 billion years old to 4.1 billion years old. The observation in the 19th century that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led to the recognition of a geological timescale and the relative ages of different fossils [...More...]