Scilloideae

Scilloideae (named after the genus "Scilla", "squill") is a subfamily of bulbous plants within the family "Asparagaceae". Scilloideae is sometimes treated as a separate family Hyacinthaceae, named after the genus "Hyacinthus". Scilloideae or Hyacinthaceae include many familiar garden plants such as "Hyacinthus" (hyacinths), "Hyacinthoides" (bluebells), "Muscari" (grape hyacinths) and "Scilla" and "Puschkinia" (squills or scillas). Some are important as cut flowers.
Scilloideae are distributed mostly in Mediterranean climates, including South Africa, Central Asia and South America. Their flowers have six tepals and six stamens with a superior ovary, which previously placed them within the lily family (Liliaceae), and their leaves are fleshy, mucilaginous, and arranged in a basal rosette.
The Scilloideae, like most lily-like monocots, were at one time placed in a very broadly defined lily family (Liliaceae). The subfamily is recognized in modern classification systems such as the APG III system of 2009. It is also treated as the separate family Hyacinthaceae, as it is by many researchers and was in earlier APG systems. Determining the boundaries between genera within the Scilloideae is an active area of research. The number of genera varies widely from source to source, from about 30 to about 70. The situation has been described as being in a "state of flux".
Description.
The subfamily contains many popular spring-flowering garden bulbs, such as hyacinths ("Hyacinthus"), grape hyacinths ("Muscari"), bluebells ("Hyacinthoides") and squills ("Scilla"). Other members are summer- and autumn-flowering, including "Galtonia" and "Eucomis" ('pineapple lilies'). Most are native to Mediterranean climate zones and neighboring areas in the Mediterranean Basin and South Africa. Others are found in Central Asia, the Far East and South America.
Morphologically the subfamily is characterised by having 6 tepals and 6 stamens with a superior ovary, a characteristic which placed them within the older order of Liliales in many older classification systems, such as the Cronquist system, but they now separate from them within the Asparagales order. They have also been included in the family Liliaceae.
Roots: contractile and mucilaginous.
Leaves: fleshy and mucilaginous arranged in a basal rosette, alternate and spiral, simple, margin entire, with parallel venation, sheathing at the base, without stipules and hair simple.
Flowers: arranged in scapiflorous inflorescences (in racemes, in spikes, and in heads). The peduncles are articulated. The flowers are hermaphroditic, actinomorphic, often showy.
Perianths: six tepals divided into two whorls, free or joined (connate). When joined, the perianth forms a tubular bell. The tepals are imbricate and petaloid. The corolla may be white, yellow, violet, blue, brown and even black (see images).
Androecium: composed of 6 stamens (exceptionally 3, as in Albuca, for example), with the filaments free or adnate to the tube, often appendiculate. The anthers are dorsifixed and pollen dehiscence occurs by longitudinal openings. The pollen is monosulcate (having a linear furrow).
Gynoecium: superior ovary, tricarpelate, connate and trilocular. Single stigma, capitate to 3-lobed. May contain from one to several ovules in each locule. They have nectaries at the septa of the ovaries.
Fruit: dehiscence loculicidal.
Seed: Seed morphology is diverse, from globular to flattened, and occasionally aril. The seed coat usually contains phytomelan (phytomelanin), one of the defining characteristics of the order, a black pigment present in the seed coat, creating a dark crust.
Chromosomes: Chromosome size varies widely, from 1.2 to 18 µm in length, karyotype bimodal or trimodal. The basic chromosome number is also very variable (X = 2, 6, 7, 10, 15, 17, etc.).
Systematics.
When treated as a subfamily, the name Scilloideae is derived from the generic name of the type genus, "Scilla", and is attributed to Gilbert Thomas Burnett in 1835. When treated as a family, the name Hyacinthaceae is derived from the type genus "Hyacinthus", and is usually attributed to August Batsch from ("ex") a 1797 publication by Moritz Borkhausen.
Phylogeny.
The monophyly of Scilloideae is well supported by studies based on molecular data. These studies also give support to the exclusion of "Camassia", "Chlorogalum" and related genera, i.e. the former Hyacinthaceae subfamily Chlorogaloideae, now placed in the subfamily Agavoideae.
The exact position of the Scilloideae within the broadly defined Asparagaceae is less clear. One possible phylogeny for the seven subfamilies recognised within the family is shown below.
Although generally agreeing on the main division of the Asparagaceae into two clades, studies have produced slightly different relationships among the Agavoideae, Aphyllanthoideae, Brodiaeoideae and Scilloideae. For example, Seberg et al. (2012) present analyses based on parsimony and on maximum likelihood. In the first, the Scilloideae are sister to the Agavoideae; in the second, they are sister to the Brodiaeoideae.
Early classifications.
Detailed historical accounts of taxonomic issues relating to the modern subfamily Scilloideae have been provided by Pfosser & Speta (1999) and Chase et al. (2009). The lilioid monocots have long created classification problems. At one extreme, e.g. in the Cronquist system of 1968, they have been regarded as one large family (Liliaceae "sensu lato"). At the other extreme, e.g. in the Dahlgren system of 1985, they have been divided between orders and split into many often small families. Dahlgren divided the lilioid monocots in search of monophyly, but in practice he was unsuccessful. His major contribution was to split the Liliaceae into two families, the true Liliaceae, Liliaceae "sensu stricto", and the Hyacinthaceae (families which are now placed in separate orders, Liliales and Asparagales).
Splitting off the Hyacinthaceae from the Liliaceae was originally suggested by Batsch in 1786. Batsch's version of the family only superficially resembles the modern version, but did include "Hyacinthus" and "Lachenalia". The group was reduced to a tribe by Endlicher in 1836, and included "Camassia". In 1866 Salisbury redistributed the genera into several families.
In the 1870s, Baker used tribes to divide up the Liliaceae "s.l.". introducing the Hyacintheae, Scilleae, Massonieae, and Chlorogaleae. In 1887 Engler divided the Liliaceae "s.l." into two tribes, Lilieaoe and Scilleae. In the twentieth century, Fritsch proposed the division of Liliaceae "s.l." into smaller more homogeneous families. In the 1930s the Viennese school elevated Engler's tribes to subfamilies. They questioned the inclusion of such different groups as Lilioideae and Scilloideae within the same family, and even Scilloideae was considered to be composed of at least three groups. By 1969, Huber was recognizing the Scilloideae as the family Hyacinthaceae, and dividing it into tribes. How many tribes were recognised and how the genera were distributed within those tribes depended on the diagnostic characters chosen. Huber used seeds, while Schulze in 1980 used pollen. Morphology and chromosome analysis were supplemented by chemotaxonomy, due to the presence of cardiac steroids, such as the bufadienolids in the Urgineoideae and cardenolids in Ornithogaloideae. Even Linnaean genera such as "Hyacinthus", "Scilla" and "Ornithoglum" proved heterogeneous and characters useful in other families failed to define satisfactory taxa.
Modern classifications.
Modern classification systems for plants are largely derived from molecular phylogenetic analysis. The initial molecular analysis of the Liliaceae "s.l." was based on the Dahlgren system, as for example in the work by Chase et al. in 1995. When it was discovered that the Dahlgren families were not monophyletic, the tendency was to create new families out of each identified clade, as in the first Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system of 1998, the APG system. This placed many lilioid families and genera in the order Asparagales (a term derived from Dahlgren, and the largest monocot order). One of the 29 families into which the Asparagales were divided was the Hyacinthaceae.
With further work it was evident that these 29 families, some of which had few genera, could be grouped into larger clades. The APG II system of 2003 was a compromise. It divided the Asparagales into 14 broadly defined families, while allowing an alternative system in which some of the larger families could be replaced by smaller ones. The Hyacinthaceae was one of these optional smaller families, which could alternatively be sunk into a broadly defined Asparagaceae.
This compromise approach was abandoned in the APG III system of 2009, which allowed only the broader families. The paper presenting the system states "The area around Asparagaceae is difficult from the standpoint of circumscription. Although Asparagaceae s.l. are heterogeneous and poorly characterized, Asparagaceae s.s., Agavaceae, Laxmanniaceae, Ruscaceae and even Hyacinthaceae have few if any distinctive features." At the same time, Chase et al. provided subfamilies to replace the alternative narrowly defined families of APG II. The Hyacinthaceae became the subfamily Scilloideae of the family Asparagaceae.
Many sources have adopted the APG III system; for example, the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families places genera such as "Hyacinthus" only in the broadly defined Asparagaceae. Other sources prefer to retain the narrower families of APG II; for example, Seberg et al. say that it "remains a moot point whether the difficult-to-recognize bracketed families of APG II are a worse or a better choice than the equally difficult-to-recognize subfamilies of APG III", and in their analyses of the phylogeny of the Asparagales they continue to use families such as Hyacinthaceae.
Tribes.
In 1990, Pfosser and Speta stated that their earlier classification of the Hyacinthaceae into the subfamilies Hyacinthoideae, Ornithogaloideae, Oziroeoideae and Urgineoideae continued to be supported by ongoing studies. (They further divided the subfamilies Hyacinthoideae and Ornithogaloideae into tribes.) A part of reducing the Hyacinthaceae to the subfamily Scilloideae, Chase et al. (2009) suggested dividing it into four tribes, corresponding to Pfosser and Speta's four subfamilies: Hyacintheae , Ornithogaleae , Oziroëeae and Urgineeae . The possible relationship of the four tribes is represented in the following cladogram, which has, however, only "moderate" statistical support.
The exact boundaries between genera within these tribes remains controversial; the situation has been described as being in a "state of flux".
Oziroëeae.
Species are found only in western South America. They have flowers with stamens which are joined to the petals, rounded seeds and the embryo as long as the seed. The basic chromosome numbers are "n" = 15, 17. The tribe contains only the genus "Oziroë".
Ornithogaleae.
In terms of the number of species, this is the largest tribe. Its species are distributed in Europe, western Asia and Africa. They have flowers with three stamens which have flattened filaments. Their seeds are flattened and angular. The basic chromosome numbers range from "n" = 2 to "n" = 10. In the treatment by Manning et al. (2009) and Stevens at the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, the tribe contains four genera, "Albuca" (about 110–140 species), "Dipcadi", "Ornithogalum" (about 160 species, including "Galtonia" and "Neopatersonia") and "Pseudogaltonia". By contrast, Martínez-Azorín et al. (2011) divide the tribe into 19 genera.
Urgineeae.
Species within this tribe contain bufadienolides and are distributed mainly in Africa, Madagascar, and the Mediterranean through to India. The seeds are flattened and winged with the head barely attached to the endosperm. The basic chromosome numbers are "n" = 6, 7 and 10. Depending on the source, the tribe may include the genera "Bowiea", "Drimia" (including "Urginea"), "Schizobasis" (sometimes included in "Drimia") and "Fusifilum" (also sometimes included in "Drimia").
Hyacintheae.
In terms of the number of species, this is the second largest tribe. Its species have leaves with pustules or spots, rounded seeds and contain homoisoflavanones. The tribe can in turn be divided into three clades (subtribes):
Genera and species.
Some genera that were formerly placed within the Scillioideae (as Hyacinthaceae), e.g., "Chlorogalum" and "Camassia", are currently placed in the Agavoideae.
Both historically and , there has been "considerable disagreement over generic limits" in the remaining Scilloideae, with different sources listing from 15 to 45 genera for sub-Saharan Africa alone. The total number of genera has been given as anything between about 30 (with about 500–700 species) and 70 (with about 1000 species).
List of genera.
Unless otherwise noted, the list below is based on genera accepted by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families as in the family Asparagaceae (with synonyms from the same source), with assignments to the subfamily Scilloideae based on the Germplasm Resources Information Network. As noted above, other sources divide up some of these genera, creating a significantly larger number; thus the genus "Ornithogalum" as conceived by Manning et al. (2009) is divided by Martínez-Azorín et al. (2011) into a more narrowly circumscribed "Ornithogalum" plus an additional 11 genera.
Distribution and ecology.
Scilloideae are widely but discontinuously distributed. The genus "Oziroe" is found only in parts of western South America. Other genera occur in Africa south of the Sahara and parts of the Arabian Peninsula, on both sides of the Mediterranean, further north in Europe through the Middle East to India, and on the east coast of Asia, in China, Korea and Japan. Scilloideae are found in temperate to tropical habitats, but are more diverse in areas of Mediterranean climate (i.e., with a pronounced dry season during the summer).
Scilloideae reproduce both sexually and asexually. The showy flowers of many species of the subfamily are pollinated by a wide range of insects including bees, wasps, flies and moths, as well as birds. Both nectar and pollen act as incentives to pollinating species. Vegetative reproduction may be by bulbils or by seeds through apomixis. The dispersal of seeds may occur by water, wind, or by ants attracted by elaiosomes.
Uses.
Cultivation.
Many members of the subfamily are popular garden plants, such as "Hyacinthus", "Muscari", "Scilla", "Puschkinia", "Hyacinthoides", and "Ornithogalum" (including those formerly placed in "Galtonia").
In South Africa the species of "Eucomis", "Ornithogalum", "Veltheimia", among others, are grown as ornamentals. "Ornithogalum thyrsoides" and the different cultivars of hyacinths are important in the cut flower market.
Medicinal use.
"Drimia maritima", the sea squill, has been used as a medicinal plant since ancient times. Its use for treatment of edema is mentioned in a papyrus from 1554 BC, the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. Bufadienolides isolated from "Drimia maritima" and "Drimia indica" are used for the production of substances for the treatment of heart conditions.
Food.
The Scilloideae are only occasionally used as food plants for humans. In Italy the bulbs of "Leopoldia comosa" are grown for food and in Greece they are consumed as pickles. In France the inflorescence of "Ornithogalum pyrenaicum" is consumed as a vegetable. In Africa some tribes consume the bulbs of "Ledebouria apertiflora" and "Ledebouria revoluta".
Toxicity.
Many Scilloideae produce poisonous steroidal saponins such as bufadienolides and cardenolides, making them inedible.
Several species are toxic. In South Africa, for example, "Ornithogalum thyrsoides", and several "Ledebouria" species ("Ledebouria cooperi", "L. inguinata", "L. ovatifolia", "L. revoluta"), "Ornithogalum saundersiae" and several members of the tribe Urgineeae are poisonous to livestock. Scilliroside (a bufadienolide) is used to poison rats, traditionally by spreading dried chips of "Drimia maritima" bulbs.


Arnebia

Arnebia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae.
The generic name "Arnebia" originates from the Arabic name "shajaret el arneb".
Arnebia genus was first established by Pher Forsskal in 1775 mostly confined to Asia with a few
species occurring in the drier parts of North Africa


Gentianella hirculus

Gentianella hirculus is a species of plant in the Gentianaceae family. It is endemic to Ecuador. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland and subtropical or tropical high-altitude grassland.


Glyptopetalum quadrangulare

Glyptopetalum quadrangulare is a plant in the family Celastraceae. The specific epithet "" is from the Latin meaning "four-angled", referring to the winged twigs.
Description.
"Glyptopetalum quadrangulare" grows as a shrub or tree up to tall with a diameter of up to . The flowers are greenish-yellow. The roundish fruits measure up to in diameter.
Distribution and habitat.
"Glyptopetalum quadrangulare" grows naturally in Burma, Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo. Its habitat is lowland forests.


Drosera finlaysoniana

Drosera finlaysoniana is a carnivorous herb found in Australia and south east Asia. More commonly found in the north of Australia. In southern Australian sites it has been recorded at inland areas, in eucalyptus woodlands subject to flooding. Also found in Hainan, Taiwan, the Indo-China region and the Philippines.


Halodule pinifolia

Halodule pinifolia is a seagrass species in the genus "Halodule". It is found in shallow sea waters.
Distribution and habitat.
This is a common seagrass in Asian tropical coasts. Halodule pinifolia forms homogenous patches in intertidal places or occasionally intermixed with other seagrasses (Skelton and South 2006). Halodule pinifolia grows in sandy or muddy sand substrates from upper littoral to subtidal areas. It is ephemeral with rapid turn-over and high seed set, and is well adapted to high levels of disturbance. This species is can grow rapidly and is a fast coloniser. Often heavily epiphytised. [2]
Ecology.
This species is known to be hybridized to "Halodule" "uninervis" in Okinawa, Japan.


Morinda tinctoria

Morinda tinctoria, commonly known as aal or Indian mulberry (though these common names also refer to "Morinda citrifolia"), is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae, native to southern Asia.
It is an evergreen shrub or small tree growing to 5–10 m tall. The leaves are 15–25 cm long, oblong to lanceolate. The flowers are tubular, white, scented, about 2 cm long. The fruit is a green syncarp, 2-2.5 cm diameter.
The plant is extensively cultivated in India in order to make the morindone dye sold under the trade name "Suranji". Morindone is used for the dyeing of cotton, silk and wool in shades of red, chocolate or purple. The colouring matter is found principally in the root bark and is collected when the plants reach three to four years of age. If the trees are allowed to mature then hardly any colouring substance remains. The small roots yield the most dye and those above about 1 cm diameter are discarded. The active substance is extracted as the glucoside known as morindin that upon hydrolysis produces the dye. Morindone is a mordant dye giving a yellowish-red colour with an aluminium mordant, chocolate with a chromium mordant, and dull purple to black with an iron mordant.
Morindin is also present in "Morinda umbellata" but not in "Morinda longiflora", a native of West Africa. Although imported into Britain and applied to wool and cotton, the dye did not find commercial success.


Plant growth analysis

Plant growth analysis refers to a set of concepts and equations by which changes in size of plants over time can be summarised and dissected in component variables. It is often applied in the analysis of growth of individual plants, but can also be used in a situation where crop growth is followed over time.
Absolute size.
In comparing different treatments, genotypes or species, the simplest type of growth analysis is to evaluate size of plants after a certain period of growth, typically from the time of germination. In plant biology, size is often measured as dry mass of whole plants (M), or the above-ground part of it. In high-throughput phenotyping platforms, the amount of green pixels as derived from photographs taken from plants from various directions is often the variable that is used to estimate plant size.
Absolute growth rate (AGR).
In the case that plant size was determined at more than one occasion, the increase in size over a given time period can be determined. This is the Absolute Growth Rate (AGR), given by:
formula_1
where M2 and M1 are the mass of the plant at time t2 and t1, respectively.

Absolute size at the end of an experiment then depends on seed mass, germination time, and the integration of AGR over all time steps measured.
Relative growth rate (RGR).
AGR is not constant, especially not in the first phases of plant growth. When there are enough resources available (light, nutrients, water), the increase of biomass after germination will be more or less proportional to the mass of the plant already present: small right after germination, larger when plants become bigger. Blackman (1919) was the first to recognize that this was similar to money accumulating in a bank account, with the increase determined by compounding interest. He applied the same mathematical formula to describe plant size over time:
formula_2
where M0 and Mt are plant mass at time 0 and t, and RGR is the relative growth rate of a plant.
Mathematically, RGR can then be written as:
formula_3
In the case of two harvests, RGR can be simply calculated as
formula_4
In the case of more harvests, a linear equation can be fitted through the ln-transformed size data. The slope of this line gives an estimate of the average RGR for the period under investigation, with units of g.g−1.day−1. A time-course of RGR can be estimated by fitting a non-linear equation through the ln-transformed size data, and calculating the derivative with respect to time.
For plants RGR values are typically (much) smaller than 1 g.g−1.day−1. Therefore, values are often reported in mg.g−1.day−1, with normal ranges for young, herbaceous species between 50–350 mg.g−1.day−1, and values for tree seedlings of 10–100 mg.g−1.day−1.
RGR components (LAR and ULR).
Soon after its inception, the RGR concept was expanded by a simple extension of the RGR equation:
formula_5
where A is the total leaf area of a plant. The first component is called the 'Leaf Area Ratio' (LAR) and indicates how much leaf area there is per unit total plant mass. For young plants, values are often in the range of 1–20 m2 kg−1, for tree seedlings they are generally less. The second component is the 'Unit Leaf Rate' (ULR), which is also termed 'Net Assimilation Rate' (NAR). This variable indicates the rate of biomass increase per unit leaf area, with typical values ranging from 5-15 g.m−2.day−1 for herbaceous species and 1-5 g.m−2.day−1 for woody seedlings.
Although the ULR is not equal to the rate of photosynthesis per unit leaf area, both values are often well correlated.

The LAR can be further subdivided into two other variables that are relevant for plant biology: Specific leaf area (SLA) and Leaf Mass Fraction (LMF). SLA is the leaf area of a plant (or a given leaf) divided by leaf mass. LMF characterizes the fraction of total plant biomass that is allocated to leaves. In formula:
formula_6
where ML is the mass of the leaves.

Thus, by sequentially harvesting leaf, stem, and root biomass as well as determining leaf area, deeper insight can be achieved in the various components of a plant and how they together determine whole plant growth.
Alternative ways to decompose RGR.
As much as RGR can be seen from the perspective of C-economy, by calculating leaf area and photosynthesis, it could equally well be approached from the perspective of organic N concentration, and the rate of biomass increase per unit organic N:
formula_7
where N is total plant organic Nitrogen, PNC is the plant organic nitrogen concentration, and NP, the nitrogen productivity, the increase in biomass per unit organic N present.
Another way to break down RGR is to consider biomass increase from the perspective of a nutrient (element) and its uptake rate by the roots. RGR can then be rewritten as a function of the Root Mass Fraction (RMF), the concentration of that element in the plant and the specific uptake rate of roots for the element of interest. Under the condition that the concentration of the element of interest remains constant (i.e. dE/dM = E/M), RGR can be also written as:
formula_8,
which can be expanded to:
formula_9
where MR is the mass of the roots, SAR the specific uptake rate of the roots (moles of E taken up per unit root mass and per time), and [E] the concentration of element E in the plant.
Size-dependence of RGR.
Although the increase in plant size is more or less proportional to plant mass already present, plants do not grow strictly exponential. In a period of several days, plant growth rate will vary because of diurnal changes in light intensity, and day-to-day differences in the daily light integral. At night, plants will respire and even lose biomass. Over a longer period (weeks to months), RGR will generally decrease because of several reasons. First, the newly formed leaves at the top of the plant will begin to shade lower leaves, and therefore, average photosynthesis per unit area will go down, and so will ULR. Second, non-photosynthetic biomass, especially stems, will increase with plant size. The RGR of trees in particular decreases with increasing size due in part to the large allocation to structural material in the trunk required to hold the leaves up in the canopy. Overall, respiration scales with total biomass, but photosynthesis only scales with photosynthetically active leaf area and as a result growth rate slows down as total biomass increases and LAR decreases. And thirdly, depending on the growth conditions applied, shoot and/or root space may become confined with plant age, or water and/or nutrient supply do not keep pace with plant size and become more and more limiting. One way to 'correct' for these differences is by plotting RGR and their growth components directly against plant size. If RGR specifically is of interest, another approach is to separate size effects from intrinsic growth differences mathematically.
Growth analysis in agronomy.
Plant growth analysis is often applied at the individual level to young well-spaced plants grown individually in pots. However, plant growth is also highly relevant in agronomy, where plants are generally grown at high density and to seed maturity. After canopy closure, plant growth is not proportional to size anymore, but changes to linear, with in the end saturation to a maximum value when crops mature. Equations used to describe plant size over time are then often expolinear or sigmoidal.
Agronomic studies often focus on the above-ground part of plant biomass, and consider crop growth rates rather than individual plant growth rates. Nonetheless there is a strong corollary between the two approaches. More specifically, the ULR as discussed above shows up in crop growth analysis as well, as:
formula_10
where CGR is the Crop Growth Rate, the increase in (shoot) biomass per unit ground area, Ag the ground area occupied by a crop, A the total amount of leaf area on that ground area, and LAI the Leaf Area Index, the amount of leaf area per unit ground area.


Hippuris vulgaris

Hippuris vulgaris (from Greek: ἵππος — "horse" and οὐρά — "tail"), known as mare's-tail or common mare's-tail, is a common aquatic plant of Eurasia and North America ranging from Greenland to the Tibetan Plateau to Arizona. It prefers non-acidic waters.
Description.
The common mare's tail is a creeping, perennial herb, found in shallow waters and mud flats. It roots underwater, but most of its leaves are above the water surface. The leaves occur in whorls of 6-12; those above water are 0.5 to 2.5 cm long and up to 3 mm wide, whereas those under water are thinner and limper, and longer than those above water, especially in deeper streams. The stems are solid and unbranched but often curve, and can be up to 60 cm long. In shallow water they project 20–30 cm out of the water. It grows from stout rhizomes. The flowers are inconspicuous, and not all plants produce them. Studies of "H. vulgaris" in the Tibetan Plateau have shown that it is a prolific methane emitter. "H. vulgaris's" roots extend into the anoxic zone of wetland soils and create a conduit for methane produced in the anoxic zone to travel to the atmosphere.
Uses.
It can also be a troublesome weed, obstructing the flow of water in rivers and ditches.


Clarkia xantiana

Clarkia xantiana is a species of flowering plant in the evening primrose family known by the common name gunsight clarkia. It is endemic to California, where it is known from the southern Sierra Nevada and its foothills and the adjacent Transverse Ranges. This is an erect annual herb with linear to lance-shaped leaves each up to 6 centimeters long. The inflorescence produces opening flowers and closed buds. The sepals stay fused as the petals bloom from one side. Each petal is up to 2 centimeters long and generally light to medium purple in color, sometimes with a dark, ringed spot on the petals of the upper whorl. The petal has a narrow claw and a wider blade which has two lobes at the tip with a small tooth between.


Rytidosperma pumilum

Rytidosperma pumilum, also known as feldmark grass, is a species of grass in the family Poaceae. It is found in Australia and New Zealand.
Description.
Feldmark grass is a small and inconspicuous tufted bunchgrass, with its leaves growing to about 3 cm in height, and its flowering stems to about 7 cm. The leaves have broad, papery sheaths which are often curved or twisted spirally. The two to four spikelets are held against the flowering stem, with each containing two to four flowers.
Distribution and habitat.
In Australia feldmark grass has a very restricted occurrence, being limited to about 3 ha of the Main Range of Kosciuszko National Park between Mount Lee and Mount Northcote. It also occurs in alpine parts of New Zealand. It is found only in feldmark communities, which are subject to freezing conditions and severe winds.
Conservation status.
Feldmark grass is listed as being Vulnerable under Australia's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.


Bauhinia haughtii

Bauhinia haughtii is a species of plant in the family Fabaceae. It is found only in Ecuador. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.


Schumacheria alnifolia

Schumacheria alnifolia is a species of plant in the Dilleniaceae family. It is endemic to Sri Lanka.


Black plum

Black plum is a common name for several plants and may refer to:


Cylindropuntia wolfii

Cylindropuntia wolfii is a species of cactus known by the common name Wolf's cholla.
Distribution.
"Cylindropuntia wolfii" is native to Sonoran Desert, in the Colorado Desert of Southern California, and in Baja California, Mexico. It grows in dry, rocky desert habitat.
Description.
"Cylindropuntia wolfii" is an erect cactus which can approach 2 meters in maximum height. It has many narrow branches made up of woolly, yellowish green, cylindrical segments, the surface divided into wide tubercles bearing many brownish spines up to 3 centimeters in length.
The flower is brownish purple outside to yellowish green in the center. The bumpy, spiny, dry fruit is up to 3 centimeters long.


Isophyllaria

Isophyllaria is a genus of liverworts belonging to the family Pseudolepicoleaceae.
The species of this genus are found in Australia and New Zealand.
Species:


Selaginella bryopteris

Selaginella bryopteris (Devanagari:संजीवनी) is a lithophytic plant that is native to India. It is used medicinally in India and is one of the plants that is considered as a candidate to be the "sanjeevani" (also called "sanjeevini"or "sanjivini booti") plant.
The popular name "sanjeevani" translates as "one that infuses life," and derives from a plant that appears in the Ramayana. Other medicinal plants are also called sanjeevani. The botanical identity of the plant described in the Ramayana is unclear, although "Selaginella bryopteris" has been suggested as a candidate.
Sanjeevani grows on the hills of tropical areas, particularly in the Aravalli Range of mountains in India. Traditional uses include relief from heat stroke, dysuria, irregular menstruation, and jaundice, but the effectiveness has not been scientifically validated. It is also useful for coma patient by way of inhalation.


Blite

Blite could refer to any one of the following plants:
Not to be confused with blight, a plant disease.


Glomeremus orchidophilus

Glomeremus orchidophilus is a recently (2010) discovered species of raspy cricket found in the island of Réunion in the Mascarene Islands. It is the only known pollinator of the orchid "Angraecum cadetii". It is also the only cricket known to pollinate a flower.


Anogeissus latifolia

Anogeissus latifolia is a species of small to medium-sized tree native to the India, Nepal, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. Its common names are axlewood (English), "bakli, dhau, dhawa, dhawra", or "dhaora" (Hindi), "takhian-nu" (Thai), and "raam" (Vietnamese).
It is one of the most useful trees in India. Its leaves contain large amounts of gallotannins, and are used in India for tanning and firewood. The tree is the source of Indian gum, also known as ghatti gum, which is used for calico printing among other uses. The leaves are also fed on by the "Antheraea paphia" moth which produces the tassar silk (Tussah), a form of wild silk of commercial importance.


Danthonia unispicata

Danthonia unispicata is a species of grass known by the common name onespike oatgrass, or onespike danthonia.
It is sometimes treated as a variety of "Danthonia californica", to which it is similar. It is native to western North America, where it grows in several types of habitat, including grassland and open areas in mountain forests.
It is a perennial bunchgrass growing in clumps 10 to 30 centimeters tall, with very hairy, rolled leaves. The inflorescence bears a single spikelet, or sometimes up to four spikelets.


Kohekohe

Kohekohe (Dysoxylum spectabile) is a medium-sized tree native to New Zealand. It is found in lowland and coastal forests throughout most of the North Island and also occurs in the Marlborough Sounds in the north of the South Island. Mature trees grow up to 15m in height, with a trunk up to a metre in diameter.
Kohekohe forest used to be common in damp coastal and lowland areas in the North Island, but these forests have mostly disappeared because the land was used for settlement or they were browsed by possums. A fairly close relative of true mahogany ("Swietenia"), it is also called New Zealand mahogany, because its wood is light, strong and polishes to a fine red colour. Kohekohe is notable for having characteristics normally associated with trees growing in the tropics, for example, its white flowers and red fruit grow directly from the trunk or branches (known as cauliflory), and it has large, glossy, pinnate leaves up to 40mm in length.
Māori boiled the bark in water and drank it as a tonic. The wood was used for building canoes but is soft and not as durable as other woods and tends to rot quickly. It is valued for carving. Kohekohe was probably the dominant vegetation cover on Kapiti Island before it was cleared in the early 19th century for cultivation and farming. The kohekohe forest on Kapiti is recovering after possums were eradicated in 1986.


Munroa squarrosa

Munroa squarrosa is a species of grass known by the common name false buffalograss. It is native to North America from central Canada to Chihuahua in Mexico. It can be found in many types of dry, open habitat, including disturbed areas.
Description.
It is an annual bunchgrass producing a stem with many branches forming a tangled mat no more than 20 centimeters wide. The short, narrow, spiky leaves are 1 to 2 centimeters long and have hair-lined edges. The inflorescence is short and sometimes located within a crowded cluster of leaves toward the ends of the stems. The hairy spikelets are just under a centimeter in length.


Elaeocarpus ferrugineus

Elaeocarpus ferrugineus is a species of flowering plant in the Elaeocarpaceae family. It is a tree endemic to Peninsular Malaysia.


Saxegothaea conspicua


Paeonia ostii

Paeonia ostii is a hardy shrub in the peony family, Paeoniaceae. It can be found in the Gansu, Anhui, Shaanxi and Henan provinces of China. It can reach heights of 1.5 m with grey-brown bark and lance shaped leaflets. Flowers are produced in mid-spring, up to 15 cm across, and pure white without basal blotches. The flowers can sometimes be faintly tinged with pink.
This species is the parent of two medicinal varieties of tree peonies. 'Feng Dan Bai' (Phoenix White) and 'Feng Dan Fen' (Phoenix Pink) are grown for the bark of their roots which is used as an antispasmodic throughout Asia.


Topiary

Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants which have been shaped in this way. As an art form it is a type of living sculpture. The word derives from the Latin word for an ornamental landscape gardener, "topiarius", a creator of "topia" or "places", a Greek word that Romans also applied to fictive indoor landscapes executed in fresco.
The plants used in topiary are evergreen, mostly woody, have small leaves or needles, produce dense foliage, and have compact and/or columnar (e.g., fastigiate) growth habits. Common species chosen for topiary include cultivars of European box ("Buxus sempervirens"), arborvitae ("Thuja" species), bay laurel ("Laurus nobilis"), holly ("Ilex" species), myrtle ("Eugenia" or "Myrtus" species), yew ("Taxus" species), and privet ("Ligustrum" species). Shaped wire cages are sometimes employed in modern topiary to guide untutored shears, but traditional topiary depends on patience and a steady hand; small-leaved ivy can be used to cover a cage and give the look of topiary in a few months. The hedge is a simple form of topiary used to create boundaries, walls or screens.
History.
Origin.
European topiary dates from Roman times. Pliny's "Natural History" and the epigram writer Martial both credit Gaius Matius Calvinus, in the circle of Julius Caesar, with introducing the first topiary to Roman gardens, and Pliny the Younger describes in a letter the elaborate figures of animals, inscriptions, cyphers and obelisks in clipped greens at his Tuscan villa (Epistle v.6, to Apollinaris). Within the atrium of a Roman house or villa, a place that had formerly been quite plain, the art of the "topiarius" produced a miniature landscape ("topos") which might employ the art of stunting trees, also mentioned, disapprovingly, by Pliny ("Historia Naturalis" xii.6).
Far Eastern topiary.
The clipping and shaping of shrubs and trees in China and Japan have been practised with equal rigor, but for different reasons. The goal is to achieve an artful expression of the "natural" form of venerably aged pines, given character by the forces of wind and weather. Their most concentrated expressions are in the related arts of Chinese penjing and Japanese bonsai.
Japanese cloud-pruning is closest to the European art: the cloud-like forms of clipped growth are designed to be best appreciated after a fall of snow. Japanese Zen gardens ("karesansui", dry rock gardens) make extensive use of "Karikomi" (a topiary technique of clipping shrubs and trees into large curved shapes or sculptures) and "Hako-zukuri" (shrubs clipped into boxes and straight lines).
Renaissance topiary.
Since its European revival in the 16th century, topiary has been seen on the parterres and terraces of gardens of the European elite, as well as in simple cottage gardens; Barnabe Googe, about 1578, found that "women" (a signifier of a less than gentle class) were clipping rosemary "as in the fashion of a cart, a peacock, or such things as they fancy." In 1618 William Lawson suggested
Traditional topiary forms use foliage pruned and/or trained into geometric shapes such as balls or cubes, obelisks, pyramids, cones, or tiered plates and tapering spirals. Representational forms depicting people, animals, and man-made objects have also been popular. The royal botanist John Parkinson found privet "so apt that no other can be like unto it, to be cut, lead, and drawn into what forme one will, either of beasts, birds, or men armed or otherwise." Evergreens have usually been the first choice for Early Modern topiary, however, with yew and boxwood leading other plants.
Topiary at Versailles and its imitators was never complicated: low hedges punctuated by potted trees trimmed as balls on standards, interrupted by obelisks at corners, provided the vertical features of flat-patterned parterre gardens. Sculptural forms were provided by stone and lead sculptures. In Holland, however, the fashion was established for more complicated topiary designs; this Franco-Dutch garden style spread to England after 1660, but by 1708-09 one searches in vain for fanciful topiary among the clipped hedges and edgings, and the standing cones and obelisks of the aristocratic and gentry English parterre gardens in Kip and Knyff's "Britannia Illustrata".
Decline in the 18th century.
In England topiary was all but killed as a fashion by the famous satiric essay on "Verdant Sculpture" that Alexander Pope published in the short-lived newspaper "The Guardian", 29 September 1713, with its mock catalogue descriptions of
In the 1720s and 1730s, the generation of Charles Bridgeman and William Kent swept the English garden clean of its hedges, mazes, and topiary. Although topiary fell from grace in aristocratic gardens, it continued to be featured in cottagers' gardens, where a single example of traditional forms, a ball, a tree trimmed to a cone in several cleanly separated tiers, meticulously clipped and perhaps topped with a topiary peacock, might be passed on as an heirloom. Such an heirloom, but on heroic scale, was the ancient churchward yew of Harlington, west of London, immortalized in an engraved broadsheet of 1729 bearing an illustration with an enthusiastic verse encomium by its dedicated parish clerk and topiarist. formerly shaped as an obelisk on square plinth topped with a ten-foot ball surmounted by a cockerel, the Harlington Yew survives today, untonsured for the last two centuries.
Revival.
[[File:Beckley Park topiary garden.jpg|thumb|[[Beckley Park]], Oxfordshire: [[cottage garden]] topiary formulas taken up in an early 20th-century elite English garden in a historic house setting]]
The revival of topiary in English gardening parallels the revived "[[Jacobethan]]" taste in architecture; [[John Claudius Loudon|John Loudon]] in the 1840s was the first garden writer to express a sense of loss due to the topiary that had been removed from English gardens. The art of topiary, with enclosed garden "rooms", burst upon the English gardening public with the mature examples at [[Elvaston Castle]], Derbyshire, which opened to public viewing in the 1850s and created a sensation: "within a few years architectural topiary was springing up all over the country (it took another 25 years before sculptural topiary began to become popular as well)". The following generation, represented by [[James Shirley Hibberd]], rediscovered the charm of topiary specimens as part of the mystique of the "English [[cottage garden]]", which was as much invented as revived from the 1870s:
The classic statement of the British [[Arts and Crafts movement|Arts and Crafts]] revival of topiary among roses and mixed [[herbaceous border]]s, characterised generally as "the old-fashioned garden" or the "Dutch garden" was to be found in "Topiary: Garden Craftsmanship in Yew and Box" by [[Nathaniel Lloyd]] (1867–1933), who had retired in middle age and taken up architectural design with the encouragement of Sir [[Edwin Lutyens]]. Lloyd's own timber-framed manor house, [[Great Dixter]], Sussex, remains an epitome of this stylised mix of topiary with "cottagey" plantings that was practised by [[Gertrude Jekyll]] and Edwin Lutyens in a fruitful partnership. The new gardening vocabulary incorporating topiary required little expensive restructuring: "At [[Lyme Park]], Cheshire, the garden went from being an Italian garden to being a Dutch garden without any change actually taking place on the ground," Brent Elliot noted in 2000.
Americans in England were sensitive to the renewed charms of topiary. When [[William Waldorf Astor]] bought [[Hever Castle]], Kent, around 1906, the moat surrounding the house precluded the addition of wings for servants, guests and the servants of guests that the Astor manner required. He accordingly built an authentically styled Tudor village to accommodate the overflow, with an "Old English Garden" including [[buttress]]ed hedges and free-standing topiary. In the preceding decade, expatriate Americans led by [[Edwin Austin Abbey]] created an Anglo-American society at [[Broadway, Worcestershire]], where topiary was one of the elements of a "Cotswold" house-and-garden style soon naturalised among upper-class Americans at home. Topiary, which had featured in very few 18th-century American gardens, came into favour with the [[Colonial Revival garden]]s and the grand manner of the [[American Renaissance]], 1880–1920. Interest in the revival and maintenance of historic gardens in the 20th century led to the replanting of the topiary [[maze]] at the Governor's Palace, [[Colonial Williamsburg]], in the 1930s.
20th century.
American portable style topiary was introduced to [[Disneyland]] around 1962. [[Walt Disney]] helped bring this new medium into being - wishing to recreate his cartoon characters throughout his theme park in the form of landscape shrubbery. This style of topiary is based on a suitably shaped steel wire frame through which the plants eventually extend as they grow. The frame, which remains as a permanent trimming guide, may be either stuffed with sphagnum moss and then planted, or placed around shrubbery. The sculpture slowly transforms into a permanent topiary as the plants fill in the frame.
This style has led to imaginative displays and festivals throughout the [[Walt Disney Parks and Resorts|Disney resorts and parks]], and [[mosaiculture]] (multiple types and styles of plants creating a mosaic, [[living sculpture]]) worldwide includes the impressive display at the [[2008 Summer Olympics]] in China. Living corporate logos along roadsides, [[green roof]] softscapes and [[Green wall|living walls]] that biofilter air are offshoots of this technology.
Artificial topiary is another offshoot similar to the concept of [[artificial Christmas tree]]s. This topiary mimics the style of living versions and is often used to supply indoor greenery for home or office decoration. Patents are issued for the style, design, and construction methodology of different types of topiary trees.
Notable topiary displays.
North America.
[[File:Topiary Château de Hautefort 10.jpg|thumb|Topiary [[Château de Hautefort]] ]]
External links.
[[Category:Horticulture and gardening]]
[[Category:Trees]]


Petenaeaceae


Geniostoma confertiflorum

Geniostoma confertiflorum is a species of plant in the Loganiaceae family endemic to Fiji.


Oxalis caerulea

Oxalis caerulea, the blue woodsorrel, is a perennial plant and herb in the family Oxalidaceae. It is native to the southwestern United States.
A similar species is the tenleaf pink-sorrel ("Oxalis decaphylla").


Oxalis melanosticta

Oxalis melanosticta, the black-spotted wood sorrel, is a species of flowering plant in the family Oxalidaceae, native to the southwestern Cape Provinces of South Africa. Its cultivar 'Ken Aslet' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


Primula sect. Dodecatheon

Primula" sect. "Dodecatheon is a section of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. "Primula" species in this section were formerly considered in a separate genus, Dodecatheon. The species have basal clumps of leaves and nodding flowers that are produced at the top of tall stems rising from where the leaves join the crown. The genus is largely confined to North America and part of northeastern Siberia. Common names include shooting star, American cowslip, mosquito bills, mad violets, and sailor caps. A few species are grown in gardens for their showy and unique flower display.
The stamens are thrust out with the sepals bent back. The flowers are pollinated by bees, which grab hold of the petals, and gather pollen by vibrating the flowers by buzzing their wings (buzz pollination). The vibration releases pollen from the anthers.
Classification.
"Dodecatheon" is related to the genus "Primula" (primroses and related plants); in fact, "Primula" without "Dodecatheon" is paraphyletic. One way of avoiding this is to move the "Dodecatheon" species into "Primula". If this is done, the former genus "Dodecatheon" becomes a monophyletic section, "Primula" subg. "Auriculastrum" sect. "Dodecatheon" (L.) A.R.Mast & Reveal.
Cultivation.
Several species are found in cultivation, including "Dodecatheon dentatum", "Dodecathon hendersonii" and "Dodecathon meadia".
"Dodecathon" need good drainage and often dry soils in summer and winter when plants are dormant, in the spring plants like moist soils for best growth. Plants grown in dry soils tend to be smaller and lower growing. Since plants typically go summer dormant, seed raised plants need three or more years of growth before they are large enough to bloom. For some "Dodecatheon", if given frequent light fertilization and kept moist, dormancy can be delayed resulting in larger plants after germination and the interval between germination and flowering decreased by a year or two. Another technique to shorten the interval between seed germination and flowering is to place the plants in a cooler after dormancy has set in, in late spring, and after a number of weeks move the plants to a shadehouse in midsummer where new growth will start. The flowers need buzz pollination to produce seeds.
"Dodecatheon" can be propagated by division in winter.
Species.
There are 17 species. Several varieties of the Pacific Northwest are edible.


Nepenthes ventricosa

Nepenthes ventricosa (; from New Latin "ventricosus" "having a swelling on one side") is a tropical pitcher plant endemic to the Philippines, where it is a highland species, growing at an elevation of above sea level. It has been recorded from the islands of Luzon, Panay, and Sibuyan. The pitchers are numerous, growing up to tall and ranging in colour from ivory white to red.
"Nepenthes ventricosa" is very closely related to both "N. burkei" and "N. sibuyanensis", but can be distinguished by a more waisted middle to the pitchers, a smaller mouth, and, generally, a thinner peristome.


Eriogonum intrafractum

Eriogonum intrafractum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names jointed buckwheat and napkinring. This plant is endemic to Inyo County, California, where it is known only from the mountain ranges surrounding Death Valley. It is an uncommon, distinctive perennial herb which grows in scattered patches on rocky limestone soils in these desert mountains.
Description.
It forms a basal clump of woolly leaves up to seven centimeters long and bolts an erect, naked stem. The brown to reddish or tan stem branches very little or not at all. It is brittle and breaks into hollow, thin segments which are said to resemble napkin rings, hence its common name, the napkinring buckwheat.
Clusters of flowers appear at nodes along this stem, which is actually part of the inflorescence. The clusters are densely packed with tiny yellow or red flowers.


Conicosia

Conicosia is a genus of succulent plants in the ice plant family native to southern Africa. They are known commonly as narrow-leafed ice plants. These are relatively short-lived perennials with underground stems and tentacle-shaped, dull-pointed triangular leaves. They bear large tubular flowers often exceeding 10 centimeters in width, with up to 250 fringelike petals arranged in a ring around a center with hundreds of stamens. The fruit is a capsule which opens when it gets wet, slowly releasing the hundreds of tiny seeds as they fall out of its drying flesh.
Species include:


Acacia planifrons

The umbrella thorn, (Acacia planifrons), is a species of "Acacia" of the family Fabaceae. It is native to India and Sri Lanka. It is about 7m high thorny shrub. Greyish-brown bark is thick with horizontal markings. Leaves are bipinnate, alternate; apex obtuse; margin entire. Flowers are white in color. Fruit is a pod.


Eriodictyon altissimum

Eriodictyon altissimum is a rare species of flowering plant in the borage family known by the common name Indian Knob mountainbalm. It is endemic to San Luis Obispo County, California, where it is known from only about six occurrences in the Irish Hills on the coast and nearby Indian Knob.
Description.
This is a shrub growing erect to a maximum height near 4 meters. It has shreddy bark on its larger branches and stems and a sticky exudate on its smaller twigs. The very narrow, linear leaves are up to 9 centimeters long, white-hairy on the undersides and hairless and sticky on top. The inflorescence is a curled cluster of bell-shaped lavender flowers each just over a centimeter long. The fruit is a small capsule containing many tiny seeds.
Conservation.
It grows in scrub, oak woodland, and chaparral habitat on sandstone soils. When the plant was federally listed as an endangered species in 1994, there were fewer than 600 individuals known to remain. This plant sometimes occurs with the also threatened endemic Morro manzanita ("Arctostaphylos morroensis"). There are occurrences on protected land within Montaña de Oro State Park and the Morro Dunes Ecological Reserve. When the plant was listed as an endangered species the main threat to its survival was habitat destruction; by 2009 enough of the plants were located on protected land that this is no longer considered a major threat. For this reason, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has recommended that the species be downlisted to threatened status.


Pratylenchus reniformia

Pratylenchus reniformia is a plant pathogenic nematode.


Oak at the Gate of the Dead

The Oak at the Gate of the Dead (in Welsh: "Derwen Adwy'r Meirwon"), or Crogen Oak is a veteran tree in
 Wrexham County Borough, Wales. Located near the 8th-century Offa's Dyke, the tree is thought to be more than 1,000 years old. The tree is located near the site of the 1165 Battle of Crogen, and is named for a supposed burial site of battle dead nearby.
Location.
The oak, a "Quercus robur", is situated near Wrexham in modern Wales. It lies on Offa's Dyke Path which runs near to Offa's Dyke, a circa 8th-century Anglo-Saxon border earthwork between Mercia and the Welsh Kingdoms. It is located around from Chirk Castle, at the entrance to the Ceiriog Valley and next to a public road (the B4500).
History.
The oak is estimated to be more than 1,000 years old and it has been associated with the reign of King Ecgberht of Wessex (802–839). If the estimated age is correct, the oak was standing in 1165 when the Battle of Crogen was fought at the location and has therefore been described as the "only living witness to this battle". A Welsh army under Owain Gwynedd inflicted a defeat upon the English king Henry II and forced him to retreat. The battle's dead were said to have been buried in the ditch of the dyke at that point: in the 19th century this was known as "Adwy'r Beddau", the pass, or gap, of the graves, with some of the graves still being visible as late as 1697 according to one account. Two or three parcels of land on either side of the dyke were also known as "Tir y Beddau", land of the graves, although one early 19th century account suggested that the place was also known as "Adwy'r Bedwen", the gap of the birch tree. The tree has in recent years been promoted as a symbol of the Battle of Crogen, under the name "Oak at the Gate of the Dead", and in March 2009 a plaque was unveiled honouring this link. In cold weather in February 2010 the tree split into two and was subsequently afforded the protection of a tree preservation order by Wrexham County Borough Council.
The oak is a well-known and valued local landmark and was one of the first trees in the world to have its own Facebook page. Since being identified and named in 2007 by Woodland Trust recorder Rob McBride it has been featured in such programs as Countryfile, BBC Midlands news, BBC Wales TV, BBC Radio Wales, and BBC Radio Shropshire; and, its story was told in a film made by Take 27 Ltd and shown at the Wrexham Histories Festival on 4 February 2011. The Woodland Trust entered the tree into the European Tree of the Year awards in 2014, the first time a Welsh tree had been nominated.


Dendrobium cunninghamii

Dendrobium cunninghamii, commonly known as winika, pekapeka, Christmas orchid, bamboo orchid or ladies slipper orchid, is a species of epiphytic orchids that is endemic to New Zealand. It is commonly found growing in rainforest in the North, South, Stewart and Chatham Islands and normally flowers in summer and early autumn.
Description.
"Dendrobium cunninghamii" is an epiphytic or lithophytic orchid herb that forms tufts up wide with wiry, cane-like stems up to long and in diameter. The rhizomes are similar to the stems and produce many roots. The leaves are narrow linear, long and about wide. Up to eight flowers white are borne on a short lateral flowering stem. The petals and sepals are white but some parts of the labellum are rose pink, purplish and green. The labellum has three lobes. The side lobes are erect, relatively small and pink or purple and the middle lobe has four or five greenish or yellowish ridges along its midline. Flowering occurs from December to January.
Taxonomy and naming.
"Dendrobium cunninghamii" was first formally discovered in 1835 by John Lindley and the description was published in "Edwards's Botanical Register". The specific epithet ("cunninghamii") honours Allan Cunningham.
David Jones, Mark Clements and Brian Molloy proposed changing the name of this species to "Winika cunninghamii" but the change has not been accepted by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families.
Distribution and habitat.
Winika is usually an epiphyte on forest trees but sometimes also on fallen logs. It sometimes grows on rocks and cliff faces, even on brick or concrete walls. It is found on both the North and South Islands of New Zealand but also on Stewart and Chatham Islands.
Cultural references.
In 1990, New Zealand Post released a New Zealand native orchid miniature sheet to support the New Zealand 1990 World Stamp Exhibition held in Auckland. "Winika" was one of the stamps (40c) on the miniature sheet. The others were the sun orchid ("Thelymitra pulchella"), spider orchid ("Corybas macranthus") and greenhood orchid ("Pterostylis banksii").


Adiantum tenerum

Adiantum tenerum, common name brittle maidenhair fern, is a species of maidenhair fern belonging to the family Pteridaceae.
Distribution.
This fern species is native to Florida (United States), Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela.
It is restricted to moist, shaded, limestone ledges and grottoes.
Description.
"Adiantum tenerum" grows in a creeping position. Leaves are light green, pinnate, fan-shaped, glabrous, arching or pendent, about as long as broad.


Ilex cerasifolia

Ilex cerasifolia is a species of the genus "Ilex" in the family Aquifoliaceae. It is native to Brazil, typically in Cerrado vegetation.


Erycibe

Erycibe is a genus of plants in the family Convolvulaceae, found in the Andaman Islands, Sri Lanka, India including Assam, Bangladesh, Myanmar, east Himalaya, southern and southeastern China including Hainan and Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Malesia, Papuasia, Australia, and Japan including the Ryukyu Islands.
Species.
Currently accepted species include:


Phacelia sericea

Phacelia sericea, the silky phacelia or blue alpine phacelia, is a showy perennial species of "Phacelia" endemic to western North America. Uncommon, it grows mainly at subalpine to alpine elevations in forest openings or above treeline among rocks and sand. "Sericea" comes from the Latin "sericeus", or silky, referring to the fine hairs on the leaves and stem.
Description.
"Phacelia sericea" consists of several upright or ascending stems to 0.6 m (2 ft) from a tap-rooted, branched woody base. Its leaves are pinnatifid with cleft or entire segments. The basal leaves are somewhat larger than the upper cauline leaves and are more persistent and petiolate. The leaves and stems are generally covered with silvery silky hairs but are scarcely glandular.
The inflorescence consists of several short panicles, tightly packed, at the end of the stem, resembling a bottle-brush. The dark blue to purple bell-shaped corolla is 4–6 mm across. It is hairy inside and out but not glandular. The filaments are two to three times as long as the corolla and give the inflorescence a fuzzy appearance. The anthers are bright yellow or orange and the style is shortly cleft. The fruit consists of two-chambered capsules with 8 to 18 seeds.
A subalpine to alpine species of open well-drained slopes, usually above 1500 m elevation, it is found in the mountains of Vancouver Island, the southern British Columbia Pacific Ranges, the Rocky Mountains from Banff National Park to southern Colorado, Olympic National Park, the Cascade Range of Washington, the mountains of eastern Oregon and the northernmost counties of California, and the mountains of Idaho, Nevada and Utah. It generally blooms from near the end of May through the end of August.
Subspecies.
Two subspecies are recognized.
Where the ranges overlap, "P. sericea" ssp. "ciliosa" occurs at a lower elevation than ssp. "sericea". These are listed as subspecies by the USDA PLANTS database and ITIS, and as varieties by Jepson and Hitchcock.
Uses.
"Phacelia sericea" is listed by the Federal Highway Administration as a native species suitable for landscaping along roadsides in Colorado. It should be handled with care as the long flower hairs have been reported to irritate skin.


Alsophila decrescens

Alsophila decrescens, synonym Cyathea decrescens, is a species of tree fern endemic to Madagascar. The trunk is erect, 2–3 m tall and 10–12 cm in diameter. It usually has characteristic elliptical scars caused by fallen stipe bases. Fronds are bipinnate and 1–1.5 m long. The fronds may be densely pubescent and the lower pinnules are sometimes separated from the others as well as being reduced. The rachis and stipe are brown in colouration and bear narrow, dark brown scales. Sori are large, round and covered by fragile, brown indusia.


Pellia epiphylla

Pellia epiphylla (sometimes known as overleaf pellia or common pellia) is a species of thallose liverwort. It occurs in North America, Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia. It grows in patches in damp, sheltered places on neutral or acidic substrates. It is common on the banks of rivers, streams and ditches and also grows in wet woodland, marshes and on wet rocks.
Description.
The thalli are irregularly branched and are fairly large, growing to over 1 cm wide and several centimetres long. They are green, sometimes with a red or purple tinge. They are fairly featureless with an ill-defined midrib and no visible network of cells on the surface. There are many long rhizoids on the underside of the thallus but no ventral scales.
"Pellia epiphylla" is monoicous, with both male and female sex organs on the same thallus. The small male organs are scattered along the midrib while the female organs grow near the tip of the thallus and are surrounded by a flap. The plant produces spherical, greenish-black capsules which are borne on stalks known as setae. These are pale green and up to 5 cm long.
Reproduction.
Fertilisation takes place when the thallus is wet. The male sex organs (antheridia) absorb moisture and burst, releasing sperm. The sperm swim towards the female sex organs (archegonia) and fertilise the ova. The fertilised ovum develops into a small sporophyte plant which remains attached to the larger gametophyte plant. The sporophyte contains spores inside a capsule which are released when the capsule becomes mature and splits. The spores germinate to produce new gametophytes.


Xanthophyllum adenotus var. arsatii

Xanthophyllum adenotus" var. "arsatii is a plant in the family Polygalaceae. It grows as a tree or shrub.
Distribution and habitat.
"Xanthophyllum adenotus" var. "arsatii" is endemic to Borneo. Its habitat is mixed dipterocarp forests from sea-level to altitude.


Austromyrtus tenuifolia

Austromyrtus tenuifolia or the narrow-leaf myrtle is a species of plant belonging to the Myrtaceae family that is native to the Sydney area in eastern Australia. The habitat that it prefers is sheltered, damp situations, often found growing near streams.
"Austromyrtus tenuifolia" has thin leaves; 1.5 to 4 cm long, and 1 to 3 mm wide. Flowers have 5 petals and short stalks and flower in late spring and summer. The berries are edible, dark purple when immature which then turn white with dark spots when mature. The specific epithet "tenuifolia" is from Latin, meaning "thin leaved". This plant first appeared in scientific literature in 1797 as "Myrtus tenuifolia", published in the Transactions of the Linnean Society by the 18th century botanist James Edward Smith.


Microtropis fascicularis

Microtropis fascicularis is a species of plant in the family Celastraceae. It is endemic to Borneo where it is confined to Sarawak. It is a deciduous shrub normally ranging in height from 1–5 m, though sometimes it can scramble higher into the crowns of taller trees. Its stems are covered with small, sharp, hooked spines, which aid it in climbing. The leaves are pinnate, with 5-7 leaflets. The flowers are usually pale pink, but can vary between a deep pink and white. They are 4–6 cm diameter with five petals, and mature into an oval 1.5–2 cm red-orange fruit.


Narcissus mosaic virus

Narcissus mosaic virus (NMV) is a plant pathogenic virus in the genus "Potexvirus" and family "Alphaflexiviridae", which infects "Narcissus".
Description.
Isolated in the Netherlands and the UK from "Narcissus pseudonarcissus" in 1946, it is generally symptomless.


Gentiana pannonica

Gentiana pannonica, the brown gentian or Hungarian gentian (, "Pannonischer Enzian", "Ungarischer Enzian" or "Ungarn-Enzian"), is a species of flowering plant of the genus "Gentiana" in the family of Gentianaceae.
Description.
Description.
The Hungarian gentian is a perennial, herbaceous plant, which grows to a height of 20 to 60 centimetres. All the above-ground parts of the plant are hairless. Its stem is upright and strong.
The five to seven-veined leaves are decussate. The lower leaves are petiolate and elliptic in shape; the upper ones are sessile and lanceolate.
The Hungarian gentian flowers from July to September. Its flowers are located in the upper leaf axils or grouped at the end of the stem.
The hermaphroditic flowers are radially symmetrical with double perianths. The green sepals are fused. The calyx is bell-shaped and has five to eight outward curving teeth. The bell-shaped corolla is 25 to 50 millimetres long. It is wider at the top and, towards the middle, has five to nine petals. The corolla tip is ovate. On their outer side, the petals are red and violet with black and red spots, the inside is usually yellowish.
Its chromosome count is 2n = 40.
Taxonomy.
The first publication of "Gentiana pannonica" was by Giovanni Antonio Scopoli. The species epithet "pannonica" derives from the Roman province of Pannonia. Synonyms for "Gentiana pannonica" SCOP. are: "Gentiana semifida" HOFFMANSS. EX RCHB. and "Coilantha pannonica" G.DON.
Similar species.
The Hungarian gentian is very similar to the purple gentian ("Gentiana purpurea").
Distribution and habitat.
Range.
The Hungarian gentian is found in the Eastern Alps, Bergamasque Alps, Carpathians and Transylvania. The western boundary of the gentian (Allgäu, eastern Switzerland) is coincident with the eastern boundary of the purple gentian.
In Austria the Hungarian gentian is scattered to moderately common (e.g. on the Krippenstein/Dachstein). It does not occur in Vienna or the Burgenland. In Germany it occurs in the alms of the Bavarian Forest, including within the Bavarian Forest National Park.
Habitat.
The Hungarian gentian thrives best on calcareous soil, but also on soils poor in calcium. It occurs in Central Europe in perennial meadows and cirques, bogs and mountain pine bush. The Hungarian gentian is a character species of the Nardion community, but also occurs in plant communities of the sub-group rhododendro-vaccinienion.
Uses and conservation.
The Hungarian gentian is an old medicinal herb and is used like the yellow gentian. Because it was intensively used in former times, its stocks shrank to just small residual populations. As a result the IUCN placed it in the "near threatened" category. For the conservation of this species habitat management plans were created or adjusted.


Caulanthus major

Caulanthus major is a species of flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae known by the common name slender wild cabbage. It is native to the Great Basin and surrounding regions of the United States, where it grows on dry mountain slopes and similar habitat.
It is a perennial herb growing an erect, hollow stem from a woody caudex. It is most similar to its relative, "Caulanthus crassicaulis". Leaves appear in a basal rosette about the stem and along the body of the stem, and are smooth, toothed, or deeply cut along the edges. The largest leaves are lowest on the stem and may reach 9 centimeters long. The flower is enclosed in thick, sometimes hairy sepals which are very dark in color when new, usually a deep purple. The petals emerging from the tip are narrow and dark-veined. The fruit is a thin silique up to 13 centimeters long.


Halenia longicaulis

Halenia longicaulis is a species of plant in the Gentianaceae family. It is endemic to Ecuador. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland.


Kampochloa

Kampochloa is a genus of African plants in the grass family. The only known species is Kampochloa brachyphylla, native to Zambia and Angola.


Ilex puberula

Ilex puberula is a species of plant in the family Aquifoliaceae. It is endemic to Jamaica.


Littorella uniflora

Littorella uniflora (vernacular name: (American) shoreweed) is a species of aquatic flowering plant native to the Azores, Morocco, most of Europe excluding the dry southeast, Iceland, and the Faroes. It prefers to live mostly submerged in nutrient-poor freshwater habitats. When submerged, it draws CO2 mostly through its roots and uses a mix of crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) and C3 carbon fixation for photosynthesis. If the water level drops and exposes the roots, it ceases using CAM.


Draba sierrae

Draba sierrae is an uncommon species of flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae known by the common name Sierra draba. It is endemic to the central Sierra Nevada of California, where it is known from just a few occurrences in rocky alpine habitat. It is a perennial herb forming small, dense cushions of very hairy, oblong or lance-shaped grayish leaves each under centimeter long. The erect inflorescence bears several yellow flowers. The fruit is a flat, twisted, oval-shaped silique under a centimeter long containing a few unwinged seeds.


Max Fleischer (painter)

Richard Paul Max Fleischer (4 July 1861, Lipine in Oberschlesien – 3 April 1930, Menton, France) was a German painter and bryologist. As a botanist, he is remembered for his work with Javan mosses.
Biography.
He took art classes in Breslau, qualifying as an art teacher in 1881. He furthered his studies in Munich and Paris, where his interest in natural sciences grew. He subsequently moved to Zurich in 1892 in order to study geology. In the latter part of the 1890s, he was invited by botanist Melchior Treub to Java as an illustrator. On Java, along with his artistic duties, he collected regional botanical specimens and conducted investigations of the island's mosses. During his time spent in the Dutch East Indies, he also learned the technique of creating batik prints from vegetable dyes.
After several years on Java, he traveled to New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, Australia, New Zealand and South America, prior to returning to Germany in 1903. From 1908 to 1913, he revisited Maritime Southeast Asia, where he collected mostly bryophytes but also orchids and fungi on Java.
In 1914 he began work at the botanical museum in Berlin and three years later, he was appointed a professor of botany at the University of Berlin. In 1925 he traveled to the Canary Islands in order to paint and to study the regions' mosses. During the following year, he relocated to The Hague, and in 1927 he returned to the Canaries with his second wife, P.G. Haigton. After his death in 1930, his private collections and library were purchased by an antiquarian in Leipzig.


Polygonum glaucum

Polygonum glaucum, common names seabeach knotweed and seaside knotweed, is a North American species of plant in the buckwheat family. It grows on the Atlantic Coast of the United States, from Alabama to Massachusetts, including in salt-water inlets such as Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson River.
"Polygonum glaucum" is a branching herb up to tall. It appears silvery of bluish-green because of wax covering the leaves and stem. Flowers are pink or white, produced in groups of 1–3. It grows on beaches, sand dunes, and the edges of coastal marshes.


Nepenthes attenboroughii

Nepenthes attenboroughii (), or Attenborough's pitcher plant, is a montane species of carnivorous pitcher plant of the genus "Nepenthes". It is named after the celebrated broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough, who is a keen enthusiast of the genus. The species is characterised by its large and distinctive bell-shaped lower and upper pitchers and narrow, upright lid. The type specimen of "N. attenboroughii" was collected on the summit of Mount Victoria, an ultramafic mountain in central Palawan, the Philippines.
In May 2010, the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University selected "N. attenboroughii" as one of the "top 10 new species described in 2009". The species appeared on the 2012 list of the world's 100 most threatened species compiled by the IUCN Species Survival Commission in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London.
Botanical history.
"Nepenthes attenboroughii" was discovered by Alastair Robinson, Stewart R. McPherson and Volker B. Heinrich in June 2007, during a 2 month research expedition to catalogue the different species of pitcher plant found across the Philippine Archipelago. The expedition was initiated after missionaries reported seeing giant "Nepenthes" on the mountain in 2000.
The formal description of "N. attenboroughii" was published in February 2009 in the "Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society". The herbarium specimen "A. Robinson" AR001 is the designated holotype, and is deposited at the herbarium of Palawan State University (PPC), Puerto Princesa City.
Further accounts of this species appeared in McPherson's "Pitcher Plants of the Old World", published in May 2009, and in the December 2009 issue of the "Carnivorous Plant Newsletter".
Description.
"Nepenthes attenboroughii" is a terrestrial upright or scrambling shrub. The stem, which may be up to 3.5 cm thick, is circular in cross section and attains a height of up to 1.5 m.
Leaves and pitchers.
The leaves are coriaceous and sessile or sub-petiolate. The leaves of rosettes are up to 30 cm long and 10 cm wide, whereas those of the scrambling stem are up to 40 cm long and 15 cm wide. The leaves are oblong to elliptic, obtuse at the apex and shortly attenuate at the base, clasping the stem by approximately two-thirds of its circumference and becoming decurrent for 2–3 cm.
"Nepenthes attenboroughii" produces some of the largest pitchers in the genus, sometimes exceeding those of typical "N. rajah" in size, but is not known to have exceeded the size and volume records set by that species. The largest recorded pitcher of "N. attenboroughii" measured more than 1.5 litres in volume, and traps exceeding 2 litres are likely to be produced on occasion. The lower pitchers are brittle and campanulate (bell-shaped), up to 30 cm tall and 16 cm wide and emerge from tendrils that are 30–40 cm long and 4–9 mm in diameter. The tendrils are flattened towards the leaf, making them almost semi-circular in cross section.
The upper pitchers are similar to the lower pitchers, but generally infundibular, to 25 cm tall and 12 cm wide.
The pitchers show considerable variation in both shape and colouration, ranging from green or yellow to dark purple throughout.
Inflorescence.
"Nepenthes attenboroughii" has a racemose inflorescence up to 80 cm long. The male flower spike bears approximately 100 pedicellate flowers on a rachis up to 45 cm long and is recorded to bifurcate on occasion. The flowers lack bracts and produce red tepals that are broadly ovate with an obtuse apex.
The female inflorescence is shorter, to 65 cm long, never bifurcates, and bears up to 70 densely arranged flowers on a compact rachis up to 20 cm long. The tepals are brown to purple, ovate, and have an acute apex.
Distribution and habitat.
This species is endemic to the Victoria Massif in Palawan. There, it grows from 1450 m above sea level to the summit of Mount Victoria at 1726 m. Originally known only from Mount Victoria itself, it has since been found on the largest peak of the Victoria Massif, Mount Sagpaw, and along the connecting ridges from the site of first collection. The species is found among shrubs 0.8–1.8 m tall in relatively scattered populations of plants on rocky, ultramafic soil. It is not sympatric with other "Nepenthes" species and no natural hybrids have been recorded.
The summit flora of Mount Victoria includes "Leptospermum" sp., "Medinilla" spp., "Dracaena" sp., "Vaccinium" sp., various grasses, as well as the sundew "Drosera ultramafica", which grows at similar elevations to "N. attenboroughii".
Conservation.
"Nepenthes attenboroughii" is assessed as Critically Endangered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) on account of its restricted distribution and the threat posed by plant poachers.
Carnivory.
The pitchers of "N. attenboroughii" are open to the elements and thus often completely filled with fluid. This fluid is viscous in the lower part of the pitcher and watery above, forming two fractions that do not mix. The upper fraction supports populations of pitcher infauna, particularly mosquito larvae, and the pitchers of this species may benefit from both the usual capture of prey as well as the detritus produced by organisms living within the pitcher fluid.
In the latter half of 2009, this taxon received a great deal of publicity in the national press of various countries as a sensational new plant that catches and kills rats. Whilst certainly large enough to trap rodents, no rodents of any kind had, at that time, been observed within the pitchers of this species, as indicated in the type description and through subsequent clarification by the author, Alastair Robinson, who suggested that were rodents to be captured by the plant, it was likely to be through misadventure rather than by design, large bugs and flying insects appearing to be the usual prey.
In October 2012, however, a dead shrew was found in a pitcher of "Nepenthes attenboroughii" during a return expedition to Mount Victoria by Robinson and a group of naturalists. Yet another visit almost two months later, in December 2012, allowed the botanist to assess and document the rate of digestion on video. It was found that the corpse of the shrew had, in the intervening weeks, progressed from a wholly intact state to mere skeletal remains, with only scant viscera and a matte of hair at the bottom of the pitcher still apparent.
Related species.
"Nepenthes attenboroughii" is closely related to the Palawan species, "N. deaniana", "N. leonardoi", "N. mantalingajanensis", "N. mira", and "N. palawanensis" (which produces even larger pitchers), to "N. peltata" from Mindanao, and to "N. rajah" from Borneo.
The stated relationship of this taxon with species from Borneo and Mindanao agrees with observations made in the description of "N. mira", and is further supported in the type description of "N. attenboroughii" by previously overlooked paleogeographical evidence. Based on this evidence, the authors reason that these species, predominantly found growing on ultramafic soils on Palawan and Mindanao, are likely to have arisen as a result of the radiative speciation of a common ancestor in Borneo.


Polypodium glycyrrhiza

Polypodium glycyrrhiza, commonly known as licorice fern, many-footed fern, and sweet root, is a summer deciduous fern native to western North America, where it is found in shaded, damp locations.
Spores are located in rounded sori on the undersides of the fronds, and are released in cool weather and high humidity.
Description.
Licorice fern does not grow its fronds from a centralized location; this is in contrast to other ferns that grow their fronds from the same spot. The name "Polypodium" refers to this characteristic; it means "many-footed." The fronds are once-divided and triangular in shape, with finely-toothed margins and pointed leaflets. They are usually at least one foot in length, but may grow to be over two feet long. They also display parallel venation. The rhizome is creeping and the fronds appear to have random placement, originating at various points. The rhizome appears reddish-brown, and has a sweet licorice flavor. Since it is a fern, "P. glycyrrhiza" reproduces by spores; the spores grow in a pattern of spots on the undersides of the leaves. These sori may be oval in immaturity. Licorice fern may grow over the ground, rocks, or as an epiphyte.
The species is not closely related to the flowering plant from which the commercial product licorice is derived ("Glycyrrhiza glabra").
Etymology.
The specific epithet "glycyrrhiza" refers to the pronounced licorice flavor of the rhizome. "Glykys" in Greek means sweet, while "rhiza" means root.
Distribution.
It occurs primarily in a narrow strip in southern Alaska, southwestern Yukon Territory, western British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California, though two highly disjunct populations are known from Idaho and Arizona.
Habitat and ecology.
The plant prefers moist environments, so it is typically found on wet ground, rocks, and logs. Occasionally it can be seen on fallen trees. It is particularly associated with bigleaf maple ("Acer macrophyllum"). The fern is mycorrhizal, meaning it can form root associations with the hyphae of fungi. It takes advantage of the mild, wet winters and the substrate of deciduous trees to photosynthesize and grow during the cold season when most other temperate plants are dormant. Habitat elevation is lowlands below 600 meters.
Chemistry.
The sweet flavor of the rhizome was once attributed to the glycoside glycyrrhizin. However, a study has shown that the flavor may actually be due to polypodoside, which is 600 times sweeter than 6% sucrose solution.
Cultivation.
Licorice fern is cultivated as an ornamental garden plant. The cultivar 'Longicaudatum' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Uses.
Licorice fern was chewed for flavor by numerous Native American groups, including the Squamish, Shishalh, Comox, Nuxalk, Haida, and Kwakwaka'wakw. The rhizomes were also usually used medicinally as a treatment for the cold and sore throats.


Arctoscyphus

Arctoscyphus is a genus of liverworts belonging to the family Solenostomataceae.
The species of this genus are found in southermost America.
Species:


Mesophyllum expansum

Mesophyllum expansum is a species of red alga belonging to the family Hapalidiaceae.
Description.
"Mesophyllum expansum" can reach a diameter of about . Illuminated by artificial light they show a beautiful pink color, with hanging branches. These calcareous encrusting organisms can be observed occasionally near the surface and can reach a depth of .
Distribution.
This species is widespread in the Mediterranean Sea.


Echinopsis chamaecereus

Echinopsis chamaecereus is a species of cactus from Argentina. Synonyms include "Chamaecereus silvestrii" and "Lobivia silvestrii". It has been called the "peanut cactus", This plant should not be confused with "Echinopsis silvestrii", another species with a very different appearance.
"E. chamaecereus" has long stems about across. Orange flowers up to wide appear in late spring. In cultivation, "E. chamaecereus" is hardy to temperatures as low as if kept dry.
"E. chamaecereus" was first collected and described in 1896 as "Cereus silvestrii" by Italian-Argentinian botanist Carlo Luigi Spegazzini in the mountains between the provinces of Tucuman and Salta, Argentina. However, subsequent expeditions to the area failed to find the species Spegazzini had collected and it is unknown whether the species has gone extinct since the initial collection.
This plant is a recipient of the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


Juniperus formosana

Juniperus formosana, the Formosan juniper, is a species of conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is a shrub or tree to tall, found in China (from Tibet in the west to Zhejiang in the east) and in Taiwan.


Alyogyne

Alyogyne is a genus of flowering plants in the family Malvaceae which are endemic to Australia. Its species were formerly in the genus Hibiscus but were split off starting in 1863 with "H. hakaeifolius". In 1915 Lewton transferred "H. cuneiformis" and in Fryxell (1968) "H. pinonianus" and "H. huegelii" followed. A recent revision has created many new species.
The name Alyogyne comes from the Greek words "alytos" (undivided) and "gyne" (female). "Gyne" referers to the styles which are female parts of a flower. In Hibiscus, the style is branched below the stigmas but in Alyogyne it is undivided.
Species include:


Cerastium alpinum

Cerastium alpinum, commonly called alpine mouse-ear or alpine chickweed, is a mat-forming perennial plant. The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. It is native to Greenland, Canada and northern Europe. It is grown as a rock garden subject for its many small white flowers and silver haired stems and foliage. There are three subspecies.


Cyathula

Cyathula is a genus of medicinal and ornamental plants in the family Amaranthaceae. They are distributed in Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
Species include:


Alsophila excavata

Alsophila excavata, synonym Cyathea excavata, is a species of tree fern endemic to the Cameron Highlands in Peninsular Malaysia, where it grows in habitats ranging from forest, streamsides, clearings and open grassy areas at an altitude of approximately 1800 m. The trunk is erect and up to 2 m tall or more. It forms lateral shoots. Fronds are bi- or tripinnate and about 2 m long. They are persistent and may be retained forming a characteristic skirt around the trunk. The stipe is smooth, green and covered with dull, thin basal scales. Sori occur near the fertile pinnule midvein and are covered by pale, thin indusia that are saucer-like in appearance.


Ilex yuiana

Ilex yuiana is a species of plant in the family Aquifoliaceae. It is endemic to China.


Escalloniaceae

Escalloniaceae is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 130 species in seven genera. In the APG II system it is one of eight families in the euasterids II clade (campanulids) that are unplaced as to order. More recent research has provided evidence that two of those families, Eremosynaceae and Tribelaceae, arose from within Escalloniaceae; the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website therefore merges these two families into Escalloniaceae, and also places the family alone in order Escalloniales.
Genera:
A new genus, "Rayenia", has recently been described. It is closely related to "Tribeles" and consists of a single species ("Rayenia malalcurensis") native to central Chile.


Minquartia

Minquartia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the Olacaceae family containing the single species Minquartia guianensis (also called Black Manwood or Huambula). It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.


Epifagus

Epifagus virginiana, commonly called beech drops (or beech-drops, or beechdrops), is an obligate parasitic plant which grows and subsists on the roots of American beech. It is a member of the family Orobanchaceae. The genus Epifagus is monotypic—containing only "E. virginiana". The name "Epifagus" derives from Greek "epi" meaning "on" or "upon", and "Fagus" which is the genus name of beech.
Description.
Beechdrops is an annual plant native to eastern North America. It entirely lacks chlorophyll and produces many brown stems up to 30 cm tall on which it bears small white and purple flowers that appear in July through October. The flowers have tubular, zygomorphic, corollas ~8mm long containing a single style and four stamens. The dried flower stalks will persist throughout the winter. The flowers on the lower parts of the plant are cleistogamous (self-pollinating) while the tops of the stems have chasmogamous (cross-pollinating) flowers which may be sterile.
Beechdrops contain very small alternate, scale like leaves, which are a vestigial structure from an ancestor which was photosynthetic.
Host and symptoms.
"Epifagus virginiana," also known as beechdrops, is an obligate parasite to "Fagus grandifolia", beech trees. It has been found on maple trees but it is believed this is a case of mistaken identity.  "E. virginiana" grows off of the roots of its host but is not known to cause significant harm to the beech tree. Beechdrops grows on shallow roots at varying distances from the trunk of "F. grandifolia". The roots of the host release a chemical that trigger the germination of "E. virginiana". It is believed that the older the host tree, the more this chemical is released. The parasite develops a haustorium that grows into beech roots to draw nutrients from its host, as beechdrops does not photosynthesize. "E. virginiana" does not tolerate disturbances in its connection to "F. grandifolia". As "E. virginiana" develops a tuber the haustorium diminishes to the point that when "E. virginiana" has reached maturity there is no visible haustorium, instead the parasite and host are connected through their roots and the beechdrops’ tuber.
Life cycle.
"Epifagus virginiana" germinates when a chemical signal is released from the beech tree’s roots. During early stages of development, beechdrops lives independently from its host, instead relying on nutrients from the seed. It may take several years for an above ground structure to form. These early stages "E. virginiana" are a few millimeters in size and butter yellow. Beechdrops then develops a haustorium that grows into the host’s roots. At maturity the haustorium degrades and a tuber develops. During late summer and early fall "E. virginiana" flowers. Beechdrops produces two types of flowers: chasmogamous and cleistogamous. Chasmogamous flowers are cross pollinated flowers that grow at the top of the plant and are sometimes sterile. Cleistogamous flowers are self-fertile, these flowers grow at the base of the plant. Seeds from "E. virginiana" are small and are dispersed by rainwater. Between dispersal and germination, seeds experience a cellular change, the embryo changes colors and its cells develop granules.
Environment.
"Epifagus virginiana’s" host environment is mainly temperate forests in the Midwest of the U.S. Beechdrops are found in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan in significant numbers. They have been documented along the East Coast from Maine to South Carolina. In these environments "E. virginiana" are pollinated by "P. imparis", the winter ant. This insect pollination is required for pollination in the chasmogamous flowers. "E. virginiana" relies upon ant pollination to produce cross pollinated seeds along with self-fertilized seed. It is not believed that ants pollinate the self-fertile cleistogamous flowers. Beechdrops are used to monitor forest health because of their dependence on their host and the sensitivity to its environment. "E. virginiana’s" host, beech trees, can advance in a forest faster than "E. virginiana" is able to. The presence of "F. grandifolia" is used to predict when "E. virginiana" will arrive in an area. "E. virginiana" is not a tree health concern but the lack of its presence is a sign that forest health is declining.


Orthodontopsis

Orthodontopsis is a genus of moss in the family Orthodontiaceae. It contains two species:


Acaena alpina

Acaena alpina is a perennial shrub of the genus "Acaena" known for its hardiness and durability. "A. alpina" is found throughout central Chile and Argentina. It can withstand a wide range of climates, including that of the Andes, where it is commonly found. "A." "alpina" can withstand both hot and cold temperatures as well as wet and dry seasons, though it preferentially grows at high altitudes. "A. alpina" was originally typified by Eduard Friedrich Poeppig and Wilhelm Gerhard Walpers in 1843.
Habitat and distribution.
"Acaena alpina" is a shrub found along the mountain ranges of South America. "A. alpina" is mainly distributed throughout Chile and Argentina, specifically along the Andes mountain range. This organism is also found along vegetation belts in South America, specifically along the 33rd parallel south and most commonly at an elevation of 2100 m to 2500 m.
In Chile, the range of "A. alpina" spans Regions Five through Nine, from north Valparaíso to south La Araucanía. The geographical area covered by these regions experiences temperatures from 8 °C, in the winter months, to 23 °C, in the summer months. Annual precipitation across these regions ranges from 0 mm rainfall per month to 239 mm rainfall per month. "A. alpina" is found at high elevations within the alpine tundra biome of the Andes Mountains, which is characterized by the absence of trees and a monthly mean temperature that does not exceed 10 °C, according to the Köppen climate classification. In addition to harsh climate conditions, "A. alpina" inhabits inceptisolic soils that have a stony composition and little organic matter in the Andes highlands.
Decription.
"Acaena alpina" grows vertically from an underground rhizome root structure. Outgrowths can reach heights of 8 cm to 30 cm. Suberect stems of "A. alpina" extend from the rhizome, separated by short internodal regions, and produce numerous petioles which bear 2 to 3 pairs of terminal leaflets. The rachis of the petioles are very small and the 1st and 2nd pairs of leaflets are separated by less than 2 mm, giving the leaflets a pseudo-palmate appearance. The leaflets of "A. alpina" grow to be 2 cm to 7 cm long and adopt an obovate-lanceolate shape. "A. alpina" contains leaf sheaths extending the length of the petiole that have sericeous outer surfaces and glabrous inner surfaces. Stipular outgrowths at the base of the leaflets are absent.
Flowers.
Stems of "Acaena alpina" may extend a peduncle up to 27 cm long. The length of the peduncle is covered in fine white trichomes and supports between 6-10 globose inflorescences, which can bear fruit from November to April. The inflorescences have basal bracts which are linear-lanceolate in shape. The ovoid-oblong burr of the inflorescence grows to be 7 mm to 15 mm in length. The burr is covered in fine white trichomes and is decorated with soft red-brown spines 2 m to 7 mm long. These spines may catch passing animals to increase the dispersal range of "A. alpina". The sepals of the inflorescence are ovate-oblong and grow to be 4 mm to 5 mm long. The inner surface of the sepal is glabrous while the outer surface is sericeous.
Uses.
"Acaena alpina" and various other species belonging to the genus "Acaena" are known as "cepacaballo" or "cadillo" in Chile. "A. alpina" is edible. Furthermore, many species of the "Acaena" genus are purported to have medicinal properties. For example, "Acaena splendens" is often used to treat fever and inflammation.


Datura quercifolia

Datura quercifolia, commonly known as the oak-leaved thorn-apple is a small shrub in the genus "Datura". It will grow equally well in dry or moist soils, provided that its need for high light levels is met, the plant only thriving in full sun.
The species was first described in 1818 by Alexander von Humboldt. Its leaves resemble oak leaves, hence the name "quercifolia". It grows in Mexico and the Southwestern United States and can assume both a prostrate and an upright bushy habit, bushier forms reaching up to 3 ft. in height. It produces green seed capsules armed with long sharp spines, which, like those of some (but not all) "Datura" species open by four equal valves. The pale violet, funnel-shaped flowers are less than 2 in. long.
Toxicity.
All parts of "Datura" plants contain dangerous levels of poison and may be fatal if ingested by humans or other animals, including livestock and pets. In some places it is prohibited to buy, sell or cultivate "Datura" plants.