Friedrich Welwitsch

Friedrich Martin Josef Welwitsch (5 February 1806 – 20 October 1872) was an Austrian explorer and botanist who in Angola discovered the plant "Welwitschia mirabilis". His report received wide attention among the botanists and general public, comparable only to the discovery of two other plants in the 19th century, namely "Victoria amazonica" and "Rafflesia arnoldii".
In Angola, Welwitsch also discovered "Rhipsalis baccifera", the only cactus species naturally occurring outside the New World. It was found a few years later in Sri Lanka too, which reignited the now already one and a half century old debate on the origin of cacti in Africa and Asia. At the time, the debate concluded with the conviction of numerous authors that they were introduced and spread by migratory birds.
Among the botanists, Welwitsch is also known after his descriptions of numerous other plants, for example "Cyphostemma macropus", "Tavaresia angolense", "Dorstenia psilurus", "Sarcocaulon mossamedense", "Acanthosicyos horridus", "Pachypodium namaquanum" and "Pachypodium lealii". The earthstar fungus "Geastrum welwitschii", a species he collected in Spain, is named in his honor.
Biography.
Friedrich Welwitsch was born at Maria Saal (Slovene: Gospa Sveta), Duchy of Carinthia, Austrian Empire, to the wealthy family of Joseph Anton Welwich, a local judicial officer and town councillor of Salzburg, and Genovefa Mayr. The family name, which in today's Slovene spelling would be "Velbič", points at Slovene ethnicity. It is known that Welwitsch's mother was a German, while his father's family was probably of Slovene origin. However, this has not been definitely proven. It is not known whether Welwitsch spoke Slovene although he worked as a physician in a Slovene-speaking environment for two years. This was in Postojna, where he continued to develop his interest in cryptogamic flora.
Contrary to the wishes of his father, who wanted him to study law, Friedrich Welwitsch studied medicine and botany in Vienna and worked as a physician in the Austrian provinces of Carniola and Moravia, but his interest in the plant kingdom, where he discovered a number of plants hitherto unknown, was so great that in 1839 he abandoned the medical profession altogether.
With the financial aid of a Württemberg botanical association Welwitsch travelled to Portugal where he became the director of the botanical gardens. His claim to fame came when with the further support of the Portuguese agent of the Württemberg botanical society he did research on the Canary Islands, on Madeira, and, in the interest of the Portuguese government, from 1853 in Angola, then a Portuguese colony. There, in 1859, in the Namib Desert in the southern part of Angola he discovered "Welwitschia mirabilis", a unique member of the Gnetophyta, also known as "Tumboa", with a subterranean stem of 50 cm diameter that can grow up to 30 meters deep, and with only two leaves of up to 2 m long, the longest-lived leaves (1,500 to 2,000 years) in the plant kingdom. This plant, whose common name is "Tree tumbo", a single species of dioecious perennial, is considered a gymnosperm, however, the relationship with other species in this group is still not clear.
After eight strenuous years of exploring and collecting, Welwitsch returned to Portugal in 1861. Because of better working conditions, he went to London in 1863. There, he worked at first at the Natural History Museum and later at the Kew Gardens, categorising and cataloguing its enormous collection. Only in the publication "Sertum Angolense", he described 12 new categories and 48 new species. He left his precious collection to the London Natural History Museum. However, having financed his Angolan years, the Portuguese government claimed the estate. The case was settled only after a three-year suit: one series of his collection went to Lisbon, the second remained in London. Welwitsch was buried in the Kensal Green Cemetery where the slab over his grave reads: "Frederikus Welwitsch, M.D. - Florae angolensis investigatorum princeps - Nat. in Carinthia 5 Feb 1806 - Ob. Londini 20 Oct 1872".
Welwitsch is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of Angolan amphisbaenian, "Dalophia welwitschii", and a species of African olive, "Olea welwitschii".
See also.
 for plant species named for Welwitsch


Ceroxyloideae

The Ceroxyloideae are a subfamily of flowering plants in the palm family found mainly in the Americas with an outlying genus in each of Australia, Madagascar, and the Comoros. Recently revised, the former subfamily Phytelephantoideae was reduced to the tribal level and included, while the Hyophorbeae tribe was reassigned to Arecoideae; it now contains eight genera.
Description.
From small to moderate to the tallest in the family, the trunks may be solitary or clustering and lack armament. The reduplicate leaf is regularly or irregularly pinnate, bifid, or entire with pinnate ribs; crownshafts are present in some members and absent in others. Monoecious, dioecious, and hermaphroditic palms occur in the group; a protective prophyll accompanies the inflorescence, and all feature peduncular bracts. Any unisexual flowers are slightly dimorphic, solitary, or in rows; all have syncarpous, triovulate gynoecium.
Tribes.
Ceroxyleae.
Four widely spread genera occur in South America, Australia, and Madagascar, characterized by tall, rarely slender, trunks which lack crownshafts. The flowers are early-opening, solitary, spirally or subdistichously arranged, with small bracts.
Cyclospatheae.
A monotypic tribe from North and Central America, they have moderately sized, erect trunks, with crownshafts. The flowers are solitary, spirally arranged, hermaphroditic, and borne in the axils of small bracts.
Phytelepheae.
Three dioecious South American palms, with moderate to large, acaulescent or erect trunks, their staminate inflorescences are spike-like, while the pistillate are branched and spreading. The fruit is usually borne in dense clusters, each containing five to 10 seeds.


Allium montanum

The scientific name Allium montanum has been used for at least six different species of "Allium".
The following names are synonyms for other species:


Cycas pectinata

Cycas pectinata was the fourth species of "Cycas" to be named; it was described in 1826 by Scottish surgeon and botanist Francis Buchanan-Hamilton from Kamrup, Assam in northeast India. The species is one of the most widespread cycads. It is found in the northeastern part of India (Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Darjeeling), Nepal, Bhutan, northern Burma, southern China (Yunnan), Bangladesh, Burma, Malaysia, Cambodia, northern Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. "Cycas pectinata" usually grow at elevation 300 m to 1200 m and in difficult terrains. In China, it grows in dry, open thickets in limestone mountains, red soil in sparse monsoon forests. "Cycas pectinata" grows up to tall and has very large, ovoid male cones. The tallest "Cycas pectinata" is a female plant in North Kamrup, Assam which measures . The tree is the world's tallest "Cycas" plant. In Northeast India, the species is under severe threat due to clearing of forest and over collection of male cones for preparation of traditional medicines. The species is listed in CITES Appendix II and IUCN Redlist.
Historical information.
"Cycas pectinata" was described by Hamilton in 1826 from “"On the hills which bound Bengal to the east"” with its habitat at “"Camrupae sylvis"”. Kamrup ("Camrupae") is a district in Assam (Northeast India).
Morphology.
Tall evergreen trees with crown of leaves at the apex of trunk. Stems robust, glabrous at base and usually branched when mature. Leaves 1 to 2 m long, dark green. Male cones usually large, cylindrically ovoid and yellowish or orange in maturity. Megasporophylls deeply pectinate and densely covered with hairs. Seeds ovoid, glabrous and orange to red-yellow on maturity.
Uses.
Economic.
"Cycas pectinata" is popular ornamental plant grown in gardens and at public places. In Assam, green mature leaves are used to decorate large numbers of temporary shrines called “Pooja Pandals,” erected to worship deities during festivals. The leaves are used for decoration of the entrance of the marriage pandals and bouquets.
Traditional.
Young fronds are eaten as vegetables in Manipur and Sikkim. Seeds of "Cycas pectinata" are traditionally utilized as a source of starch by indigenous tribes and are eaten raw or roasted in Assam and the bordering region of Meghalaya. Microsporophylls are chewed raw to cure stomach-aches and ulcers. The young microsporophylls are eaten by young men in Meghalaya and Assam to enhance male sexual potency
Vietnam.
In Vietnam, cycas pactinata are called Hundred Year tree (Cây thiên tuế) and are considered as auspicious ornamental plants. Large cycads are often placed in front of mansions and corporate or government offices.
Conservation efforts.
In Northeast India, two conservation program are going on for the conservation of "Cycas pectinata" populations in the state of Assam and Manipur. In 2014, "Yendang": The Living Fossil, a cycad conservation program involving indigenous tribes and state forest department started in one of the cycad localities of Manipur ("Yendang" is local name of "Cycas pectinata" in Manipur).
From 2015 onwards, Cycadologists and cycad lovers are organising Cycad Volleyball Tournament in Manipur to create awareness among the locals and to encourage youths in safeguarding the cycad populations.


Dialium orientale

Dialium orientale is a species of plant in the family Fabaceae.It is found in Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania. The fruit of this tree is a popular snack in Kenya and known as "pepeta". It is threatened by habitat loss.
References.
JSTOR Global Plants


Eotrigonobalanus

Eotrigonobalanus is an extinct genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae. This genus is known in the fossil record from the Late Eocene to the Latest Oligocene.


Halophila stipulacea

Halophila stipulacea is a species of seagrass in the Hydrocharitaceae family. It is native to the Indian Ocean that spread into the Mediterranean after the opening of the Suez Canal. This seagrass is widespread through the Gulf of Aqaba. Recently it has arrived in the Caribbean where it is also spreading.


Ardisia urbanii

Ardisia urbanii is a species of plant in the family Primulaceae. It is endemic to Jamaica.


Actinocladum

Actinocladum is a South American species of bamboo in the grass family.
The only known species is Actinocladum verticillatum. The species is widespread across Bolivia and much of Brazil.


Colobanthus

Colobanthus is a large genus of small, cushion-like herbaceous plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, sometimes known as "pearlworts", a name they share with plants of the related genus "Sagina". "C. quitensis" is the world's southernmost dicot, and one of only two native extant flowering plants of Antarctica.


Galvezia lanceolata

Galvezia lanceolata is a species of plant in the family Plantaginaceae. It is endemic to Ecuador.


Clarkia epilobioides

Clarkia epilobioides is a species of flowering plant in the evening primrose family known by the common name canyon clarkia. It is native to California, Arizona, and Baja California, where it grows in shaded habitat in woodland and chaparral. It is an annual herb producing a slender, erect stem sometimes exceeding half a meter in height. The leaves are narrowly to widely lance-shaped and less than 3 centimeters long. The top of the stem is occupied by the inflorescence. Each hanging bud has four red sepals which remain fused all together or in pairs as the petals emerge during blooming. The petals are one half to one centimeter long, oval in shape, solid white or cream in color, often fading pink as they age. There are eight protruding stamens and one stigma.


Anomobryum

Anomobryum is a genus of mosses belonging to the family Bryaceae.
The genus was first described by Wilhelm Philippe Schimper.
The genus has cosmopolitan distribution.
Species:


Lomandra montana

Lomandra montana is a perennial, rhizomatous herb found in eastern Australia.


Gymnocarpos kuriensis

Gymnocarpos kuriensis is a species of plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. It is endemic to Yemen. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests, subtropical or tropical dry shrubland, and rocky areas.


Acer palaeorufinerve

Acer palaeorufinerve is an extinct maple species in the family Sapindaceae described from series of isolated fossil samaras and leaves. The species was described from Miocene to Pliocene aged fossils found in Japan and is known from Korean fossils and Miocene sediments exposed in the state of Alaska, USA. It is one of several extinct species placed in the living section "Macrantha".
History and classification.
"Acer palaeorufinerve" is represented by a group of fossil specimens from a number of different geologic formations. The first fossils described were recovered from the Pliocene Ningyo-toge Formation in the Tomata District of Japan. Fossils have subsequently been recovered from the Late Miocene Tatsumitoge Formation in the Tomata District and the Early Miocene Ito-o Formation in the Fukui Prefecture. Other fossils have been included in the species from North Korea and Kamchatka, Russia. A single isolated fossil fruit possibly belonging to "A. palaeorufinerve" is known from North America. The specimen was recovered from the latest Early to early Middle Miocene Seldovia Point flora in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska.
Description.
Leaves of "A. palaeorufinerve" are simple in structure with a palmate actinodromous vein structure in which the primary veins originate at the base of the lamina and run out towards the margin. The leaves range between three and five-lobed with a length to width ratio of 1:2, giving an overall pentagonal outline. The leaves have three or five primary veins, and at least one specimen is estimated to have been long by wide in overall dimensions. The samaras of "A. palaeorufinerve" have a nutlet which is flattened asymmetrically and a high attachment angle. The morphology of "A. palaeorufinerve" suggests placement into the "Acer" section "Macrantha". This is based on the overall leaf shape and long pointed shape of the lobe tips. The combination of morphological characters is noted to be most similar to leaves of the living maple species "Acer rufinerve", commonly called the redvein or Honshū maple. The fossil species "A. latahense" from Washington state and Oregon is distinguishable from "A. palaeorufinerve" by the narrower medial lobe. Paleobotanists Jack A. Wolfe and Toshimasa Tanai suggest "A latahense" may be a descendant species of "A. palaeorufinerve".


Weberocereus rosei

Weberocereus rosei is a species of cactus from Ecuador.


Dactyladenia johnstonei

Dactyladenia johnstonei is a species of plant in the family Chrysobalanaceae. It is endemic to Cameroon. Its natural habitats are forested valley slopes, at altitudes of 950–1,600 m. It is threatened by habitat loss due to logging and clearance for agricultural land.


Jean Marie Bosser

Jean Marie Bosser (23 December 1922 – 6 December 2013), sometimes listed as Jean-Michel Bosser was a French botanist and agricultural engineer who worked extensively in Madagascar and Mauritius.
Bosser was a researcher at the Laboratoire de Phanérogamie at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. From 1962 to 1963 he was the director of ORSTOM (Office de la recherche scientifique et technique outre-mer, now Institut de recherche pour le développement) in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Together with Thérésien Cadet and Joseph Guého he contributed to the series "Flore des Mascareignes" published by the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute (MSIRI), and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew since 1976 and is a comprehensive work on the flora of Mauritius, Réunion, and Rodrigues. Bosser described numerous new species from Madagascar and the Mascarenes, such as "Bulbophyllum labatii", "Cynanchum staubii" and "Cynanchum guehoi". As of June 2014 the International Plant Names Index (IPNI) lists 318 taxa (including many orchids) described by Bosser either as sole author or as a co-author.


Dryopteris erythrosora

Dryopteris erythrosora, the autumn fern or Japanese shield fern, is a species of fern in the family Dryopteridaceae, native to east Asia from China and Japan south to the Philippines, growing in light woodland shade on low mountains or hills.
Etymology.
The specific epithet "erythrosora" comes from ancient Greek, meaning "having red spore cases", which refers to the color of the spore cases.
Description.
It is semi-evergreen (in cooler climates), with bipinnate fronds tall by broad, with 8–20 pairs of pinnae. The fronds have a coppery tint when young, but mature to dark green. It has an upright to down-lying rhizome which is thick and branched, so that it forms several crowns.
The leaves are funnel-shaped with the top ones being leathery shiny, divided twice, triangular in shape and pointy. The individual leaflets are narrow lanceolate. Its edge is almost completely sown up.
The leaf stalks are about a third as long as the leaf, striated, yellow to red, with linear to lancet-shaped brown scales, containing two large and several small vascular bundles in a cross-sectional drawing.
When budding, the young fronds are coppery red and later green. There can also be several leaf outlets per year. The spores, which are kidney-shaped, become ripe between summer and autumn.
Cultivation.
"Dryopteris erythrosora" can tolerate a drier soil than many ferns, but is most successful in moist, humus-rich soil, with a pH range of 6.1 to 7.5, with morning or late afternoon sunshine but not during the middle of the day. It is hardy zones 5 to 11. Numerous cultivars have been selected, including 'Prolifica' and 'Viridosora'. Propagation is by division in spring, separating the small crowns from the larger crowns, or by spores. It is raised as an ornamental plant in gardens because of its color change in the foliage, which change from dark red to dark green, but not very often.
"Dryopteris erythrosora" has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


Rhodokrambe laingioides

Rhodokrambe laingioides is a species of Antarctic marine red alga.


Eucalyptus glomerosa

Eucalyptus glomerosa, commonly known as jinjulu, is a species of mallee that is endemic to inland Australia. It has rough, fibrous and flaky bark near the base, smooth bark above, egg-shaped to lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds usually in groups of seven, cream-coloured flowers and conical to hemispherical fruit. It is mainly found in the Great Victoria Desert of South Australia but also grows in eastern parts of Western Australia.
Description.
"Eucalyptus glomerosa" is a mallee that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has rough, fibrous to flaky bark near the base of the trunk, smooth coppery coloured bark above and on the branches. Young plants and coppice regrowth have petiolate, elliptic to lance-shaped leaves that are long and wide. Adult leaves are the same dull bluish to light green colour on both sides, lance-shaped to elliptical, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of seven, rarely nine or eleven, on an unbranched peduncle long, the individual buds on pedicels long. Mature buds are more or less spherical, long and wide with a rounded operculum with a small point on the top. Flowering is spasmodic, depending on rainfall and the flowers are cream-coloured.
Taxonomy and naming.
"Eucalyptus glomerosa" was first formally described in 1993 by Ian Brooker and Stephen Hopper from a specimen they collected north-east of Cosmo Newbery (Yilka) in 1984. The specific epithet is derived from the Latin word "glomus, glomeris" meaning "a ball of yarn" with the ending "-osus" meaning "abounding in", referring to the spherical buds.
Distribution and habitat.
Jinjulu grows on sandplains and sand dunes and is often associated with other eucalypts including "E. eremicola", "E. gongylocarpa", "E. gypsophila" and "E. mannensis". It is mainly found in the Great Victoria Desert but occurs within of the Northern Territory border and in the central eastern areas of the Western Australia. The range includes the Central Ranges, Great Victoria Desert and Murchison biogeographic regions.
Conservation status.
This mallee is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.


Chaetobromus

Chaetobromus is a genus of African plants in the grass family.
There is only one known species, Chaetobromus involucratus, native to Namibia and Cape Province.
Three subspecies are accepted
taxa once considered part of "Chaetobromus" but now regarded as better suited to "Tenaxia" :


Darley Oak

The Darley Oak is a Pedunculate oak tree ("Quercus robur") which grows near Darleyford in the parish of Linkinhorne on the edge of Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, England, UK. This ancient tree is thought to be at least 1,000 years old, and a considerable number of legends take it as their core. Folk tradition attributes healing properties to the tree, and it is said that any wish made to it will eventually come true. Its acorns are also used as amulets, and were once used by pregnant women during pregnancy, to bring them luck. It was chosen one of the 50 Great British Trees by The Tree Council in 2002.


Solanum fortunense

Solanum fortunense is a species of plant in the family Solanaceae. It is found in Costa Rica and Panama.


Piceoideae


Chascolytrum brizoides

Chascolytrum brizoides is a species of grass in the family Poaceae. It is found in Buenos Aires, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul and Biobio.


Aristida capillacea

Aristida capillacea is a species of plants in the grass family (Poaceae). It is found in South America.
Note: "Aristida capillacea" Cav. is a synonyms for "Aristida cumingiana" Trin. & Rupr.


Stagonosporopsis trachelii

Stagonosporopsis trachelii (syn. "Ascochyta bohemica") is a fungal plant pathogen that causes Ascochyta leaf spot in "Campanula" species.


Aeonium urbicum

Aeonium urbicum is a succulent species of flowering plant in the family Crassulaceae. It is endemic to Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, where it frows on the north of the island from Teno point to the Anaga peninsula. Until 1999, it was also considered a resident of La Gomera, another Canary Island, but that year the populations on that island were considered a new species and named "Aeonium appendiculatum".
"Aeonium urbicum" was also divided into varieties, var. "urbicum" and var. "meridionale".


Asterella californica

Asterella californica is a complex thallic liverwort in the phylum Marchantiophyta. "A. californica" often grows as colonies of flat rosettes of light green, rigid thalli, with undersides dark wine-red to nearly black. The receptacles are rounded, with four lobes each bearing a single sporangium sheathed by a white tattered skirt. "A. californica" is dioecious with separate male plants often intermingled with female plants. This species is found throughout California from San Francisco southward to San Diego and Guadalupe Island. "Asterella californica" is the commonest species of the three species of "Asterella" occurring in California; the other two species are "A. bolanderi" and "A. palmeri".
Description.
Plants are pale green dorsally with purple ascending margins and dark purple undersides, thallus edges tending to curl upward exposing the dark underside when dry. Thalli are simple or somewhat sparingly dichotomous, 8–25 mm long, usually 1-3 times dichotomous, the ultimate segments emarginated, obovate, obcordate, or broadly oblong, indistinctly areolate, 4–12 mm in maximum width. The plants dry up during the long rainless summers, but the ends of the branches remain alive, so that each growing tip becomes the beginnings of a new plant. It was found that a surprisingly large amount of the thallus remains alive, and within a few hours after the dried plants are supplied with water, the forward part of the thallus has assumed its active condition and begins to grow. In "Asterella" the first antheridia were mature in about two weeks. This early development of the reproductive organs raised the question whether they might not begin their development before the close of the growing period in the spring.
Reproduction.
Male plants.
Antheridia are clearly circumscribed, slightly elevated, strongly papillate, oval to linear-oblong, sometimes forked discs, situated in the median line of the thallus at some distance back from the apex. While working on male individuals in his laboratory George Pierce observed, then measured, antherozoids–packets of ciliated sperm cells and encasing slime–being "forceably ejected" from the thallus. One may say, then, that "Asterella" can throw its antherozoids, under favorable conditions, to a vertical height of 14–20 cm.
Female plants.
Each "umbrella", or archegoniophore, is clearly visible raised above the thallus of mature female plants is not itself a sporophyte but is in fact gametophyte tissue. The part of the "umbrella" at the top of the stem is called the female receptacle or carpocephalum. The receptacle is initially on the thallus surface and the stalk grows to raise it. The archegonia are found on the female receptacle and initially they are in the upper surface and face upward. They are fertilized when the stem is still fairly short. The stem continues to grow and the receptacle continues to grow by centrally added tissue. This moves the fertilized archegonia outward and the receptacle eventually folds over to orient the developing sporophytes so that they face down.
Peduncle straw-colored sometimes with a brown or purplish pigmentation, 1–3 cm high. Disk of receptacle green, about 5 mm across, low-hemispherical, deeply lobed, almost smooth, the lobes mostly 4 (sometimes 5).
Sporophyte.
Capsule circumscissile at the middle or above by an irregular line, the operculum breaking up into fragments. Spores yellow, mostly 100 to 120 µm in diameter, with wavy wings 12-20 µm wide along the edges, the surface covered over more or less completely with a fine and often irregular reticulum with meshes 3-4 µm across. Elaters yellow variously curved, mostly 240-450 µm long and 12-16 µm wide. The yellow spores with their distinct marginal wings, fine surface reticulation, and sparesly developed ridges on the faces are also very distinctive of the species.
Taxonomy.
In 1810 Palisot de Beauvais established the genus "Asterella", but in 1820 Nees established the genus "Fimbriaria" in error. The genus name "Fimbriaria" was used by Bolander in his catalogue of plants growing in the vicinity of San Francisco in 1870, but it is antedated by "Asterella". The genus name means "little star" in reference to the star-like appearance of pores in the thallus of some species as viewed from above.
Distribution and habitat.
"Asterella californica" is widespread and common on lightly shaded slopes and banks and around rock outcrops, mostly in oak forest, chaparral on desert scrub, mostly below 3000 feet (but to 7000 feet in San Bernardino County). "A. californica" occurs throughout the Coast Ranges, western Klamath Ranges, Sacramento Valley, west slope of the Sierra Nevada, coastal Southern California and the Channel Islands, Transverse and Peninsular Ranges, western Colorado Desert; east to Arizona, north to southwestern Oregon, and south to northern Baja California. Growing on mineral soil or among rocks on mineral soil on open or lightly shaded banks.


Ferocactus fordii

Ferocactus fordii (ford barrel cactus) is a species of flowering plant in the family Cactaceae, native to Baja California in Mexico. It is spherical, growing to in diameter, with whitish-grey radial spines and solitary flowers of a deep rose pink, in diameter.
In cultivation it requires the protection of glass.


Fissidens adianthoides

Fissidens adianthoides, the maidenhair pocketmoss, is a moss in the family of Fissidentaceaea. It was first collected by Hedwig in 1801.
It is found all over North America and even in Greenland and Alaska.
The Nitinaht First Nations of Vancouver Island used maidenhair moss to bandage wounds. It was named by the Anglo-Saxons because it resembles pubic hair.
Geographic distribution.
Habitat.
It is found in shady sites such as nearby moving water, near waterfalls, soil, open fields of grass, around the forest floor, decaying wood, on dripping limestone and stone rocks. This moss can be commonly found on damp or wet soil and peat. It is scarcely found on decaying wood.
Distribution.
Worldwide distribution: It is vastly distributed in the forests of the Northern Hemisphere, extending from the arctic, alpine and prairie regions, often in more sheltered locations. It is widely distributed across North America.
In context of the national and state/provincial distribution of "Fissidens adianthoides" are in the following:
Canada: AB, BC, LB, NB, NF, NS, NT, NU, ON, QC, SK, YT
United States:  AK, AL, AR, CA, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, NJ, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, TN, TX, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY
Morphology.
The plant itself is about 85 x 5mm. It is dioicous. Dioicous is defined as a plant having the male (antheridia) and female (archegonia) reproductive organs in separate individuals. An archegonium is a multicellular reproductive organ that produces female gametes. The antheridium is the male structure that holds, creates and releases sperm. It is a very robust plant and forms dark green to brown-green turfs.
Gametophyte.
Stem.
The stem is extremely branched. "Fissidens adianthoides" have a central strand. The central strand contains thin-walled cells called hydroids that conduct water and sterids which provide structural support.
Leaf.
There are about 60 pairs of leaves that are slightly undulate (wavy) in texture. The shape is oblong to lanceolate (narrow oval) and tapered to an acute point. Sometimes the leaf can be obtuse in shape. The lamina also known as the leaf blade, is round and then narrows towards the apex. The leaf margin is crenulate (finely scalloped) to regular serrulate (sawlike). The marginal cells are often thinner with thicker cell walls. There are about 2-3 cells in the costa. The leaf cells are very turgid and irregularly round-like hexagons. These leaf cells are unistratose which means they are single layered. They are also smooth and firm-walled.
Reproductive structures.
Perigonium.
The perigonium is the reproductive structure which holds the male organs. It is made up of an antheridia, paraphyses and perigonial leaves. Paraphyses are upright sterile filament-like structures that support the reproductive apparatus of bryophytes.
Perichaetium.
The perichaetium is reproductive structure which holds the female organs. It is made up of an archegonia, paraphyses, and perichaetial leaves. The perichaetium is located on short axillary branches.
Sporophyte.
A sporophyte is the diploid multicellular stage in the life cycle of a moss which produces spores. They are commonly observed in this species. There is one sporophyte produced per perichaetium. The seta, which is a stalk that supports capsule, is relatively short and is 25 mm in length. It is red-brown in colour and inserted laterally. The operculum (lid) is about the same length as the rest of the sporangium. The capsule of the sporophyte is inclined, curved, bilaterally symmetric and about 1.5 mm. As for the calyptra, it is cucullate, smooth and about 2.5 mm. The spores are about 3-22 µm.
Since it is a member of the Bryopsida class it also has arthrodontous peristome teeth which aid in spore dispersal. "Fissidens adianthoides" have 16 red teeth. Arthrodontous teeth are made up of cell wall fragments. They are also hygroscopic, meaning they move according to changes in humidity. They are about 85–120 μm wide at the base of the teeth and the upper part of the teeth are finely papillose.
Life cycle.
Like all bryophytes, "Fissidens adianthoides" have sporic meiosis as well as asexual reproduction.
Sexual reproduction.
Sporic meiosis is the alternation of heteromorphic generations and is characterized by each phase having a different free-living phase: one is the gametophyte which is usually haploid while the other is a sporophyte which is often diploid. Additionally, sporic meiosis is a type of life cycle where meiosis results in spores not gametes. The haploid gametophyte makes gametes from mitosis and the two gametes combine to form a zygote (2n), which then develops into a sporophyte. The sporophyte creates spores via meiosis which are haploid and then develops into the gametophyte.
Asexual reproduction.
There are two forms of asexual reproduction in this species. The first is fragmentation where the bryophyte is broken into completely separate pieces and grows to become a new individual from the parent plant. The second method is regeneration from caducous organs. This is when the organs of the plant such as leaves, shoots, leaf apices, and branches detach from the parent shoot. As a result, the moss is able to regenerate from these detached areas and continues to survive.
Uses.
"F. adianthoides" was used in the past for bandaging wounds. It was noted that the First Natives of Nitinaht in Vancouver Island, Canada used this moss as well.
The family "Fissidens" was used in several Asian countries like Bolivia as an antibacterial remedy for sore throats or other bacterial infections. Other usages included burning "Fissidens" to promote hair growth in China.
Currently, however, it serves no important economic or commercial usage.
Taxonomy.
Closely related species.
"Fissidens adianthoides" is often confused with many similar species such as "F. osmundioides". They both have similar laminal cells. Also they have a serrate leaf apex. The only feature that differentiates the two is that "F. osmundioides"has terminal perichaetia and rhizoids papillose in nature.
Another species that it often gets confused with is "Fissidens dubius". They both have short perichaetial stems in the top of the proximal leaves and a lighter marginal laminal cell band. The difference between the two is that "F. adianthoides" is a lot tinier and have more obscure laminal cells that are usually double stratose and irregular. According to molecular studies by L.E. Anderson and V. S. Bryan (1956), they are not closely related.
"F. serrulatus" is a very similar species as well. However, it has longer leaves and grows on damp soil or gravel nearby very shady streams.
The features that distinguish "Fissidens adianthoides" from other similar species are by its "unistratose, smooth laminal cells, a lighter band of marginal laminal cells, and its short perichaetial stems." Other distinguishing features are the pronounced teeth on the leaf margins and the tendency for this species to be soft with leaf points that curl downward when dry.
Family: Fissidentaceae.
Fissidentaceae is a morphologically homogeneous group that is defined by its distinct leaf structure. The leaf is made of two laminae; a dorsal lamina and an apical lamina. They are also arranged in double vertical rows on the stem in the same plane and attachment.
A molecular phylogenetic study states that the families Fissidentaceae and Dicranaceae are closely related.
Genus: "Fissidens".
Fissidentaceae is an acrocarpous family that is made up of haplolepideous mosses and consists of one genus called "Fissidens". "Fissidens" comprises about 440 species. However, this genus is rather poorly studied phylogenetically compared to other mosses in Bryophyta. Most of the species can be found in humid, warm and tropical areas of the globe and the number of species decreases proportionally to the decrease in latitude.
The peristome teeth of "Fissidens" are morphologically identical to the members of the family Dicranaceae.
In the study,”Molecular phylogeny of the genus "Fissidens" (Fissidentaceae, Bryophyta) and a refinement of the infrageneric classification”, they have constructed a phylogenetic tree of 50 "Fissidens" species using DNA sequence of the rbcL and rps4 gene. It was based on the ancestral similarities between the peristomal teeth, limbidium and chromosome number. Based on their findings, three subgenera were created: "Pachyfissidens", "Neoamblyothallia", and "Fissidens". The subgenus "Fissidens" was made up of five sections: "Fissidens, Polypodiopsis, Aloma, Areofissidens," and "Semilimbidium."
Conservation.
Its conservation status is G5 which means its secure and not endangered by any means.


The Carnivorous Plants

The Carnivorous Plants is a major work on carnivorous plants by American botanist Francis Ernest Lloyd. It was first published in 1942 by the Chronica Botanica Company as the ninth volume of "A New Series of Plant Science Books". It was reprinted in 1976 by Dover Publications of New York and Constable of London. Although primarily dealing with plants, the book also briefly covers carnivorous fungi. The chapter describing the structure and functioning of "Utricularia" traps is particularly detailed. Lloyd's book was the most important scientific work on carnivorous plants since Charles Darwin's "Insectivorous Plants" of 1875.
Reviews.
A contemporaneous review by Edwin B. Matzke of Columbia University reads:
Professor Lloyd has written a scholarly, complete, authoritative volume—one that will take its place fittingly on the library shelf beside Charles Darwin's "Insectivorous Plants," published in 1873. The author writes with clarity, with conviction and on occasion with a touch of humor. And if, at times, his presentation seems intricate and involved, as in the "Utricularia" trap, so is the subject.
B. E. Juniper, R. J. Robins and D. M. Joel, who chose the same title for their 1989 book, wrote: "Lloyd's book is intense, detailed and virtually comprehensive; he combined wit, wisdom and a polished literary style with an insatiable curiosity and a voluminous knowledge."
Peter D'Amato wrote of the book's importance—and limitations—in the June 2010 issue of the "Carnivorous Plant Newsletter":
For nearly forty years, "The Carnivorous Plants" remained the only popular scientific book on the subject, and it remains vivid, engrossing and very well written. Published as World War II was exploding, photographs were unfortunately reduced to small black and white pictures confined to the back of the book due to constraints in costs. Lloyd’s own line drawings clearly illustrate details of cell structure and other things scientific, for this is a science book, not one on horticulture. Each chapter gives a brief introduction to the genus in question, then proceeds to review various scientific papers published by researchers over the previous decades, many by Lloyd himself and other well known botanists. From this he draws conclusions, and often raises many questions.


Lemna minuta

Lemna minuta is a species of duckweed known by the common name least duckweed. It is the smallest "Lemna" species. It is native to parts of the Americas, and naturalized in others; the exact native range is not known. It is found on other continents as a non-native introduction as well. The plant's distribution is ever-expanding; it has been spreading in Europe and it was described from Poland for the first time in 2007. In many areas it is a noxious weed, such as in Belgium.
This tiny plant varies in shape depending on growth conditions. In the shade it is a single green translucent oval body no more than 2.5 millimeters long, and in full sunlight it generally grows in pairs. There is a central vein usually visible under magnification and microscopy. The plant produces an ephemeral membrane-bound flower.
This duckweed grows in slow-moving, calm, and stagnant freshwater habitats. It affects the ecology of its habitat by forming mats on the water surface, reducing sunlight penetration and oxygen exchange.


Pilosella officinarum

Pilosella officinarum (synonym Hieracium pilosella), known as mouse-ear hawkweed, is a yellow-flowered species of flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae, native to Europe and northern Asia. It produces single, lemon-coloured inflorescences. Like most hawkweed species, it is highly variable and is a member of a species complex of several dozens of subspecies and hundreds of varieties and forms. It is an allelopathic plant.
Description.
It is a hispid (hairy) perennial plant, with a basal rosette of leaves. The whole plant, with the exception of the flower parts, is covered in glandular hairs, usually whitish, sometimes reddish on the stem. The rosette leaves are entire, acute to blunt, and range from long and broad. Their underside is tomentose (covered with hair). The flowering stem (scape) is generally between tall, and sprouts from the centre of the basal rosette. The flowerheads are borne singly on the scape and are a pale lemon-yellow colour, with the outermost ligules having a reddish underside. It flowers from May until August and the flowers are visited by various groups of insects, especially flies.
The plant favours dry, sunny areas. It grows well on sandy and similarly less fertile ground types. It produces stolons which generate a new rosette at their extremity, each rosette has the possibility of developing into a new clone forming dense mats in open space. It also propagates by seeds.
Ecology.
It is a known allelopathic plant, whose roots secrete several substances inhibiting root growth, including its own. It can be controlled through rotation with clover and grasses where possible.
Recent research claims that "Pilosella officinarum" exhibits an atavism by the reemergence of sexual reproduction.
Similar species.
Shetland mouse-ear hawkweed ("Pilosella flagellaris" subsp. "bicapitata") is similar, but has two flowers per leaf stalk. It is found in the Shetland Islands only, on rocky coastal grassland. It flowers from May to August.
Cultivation and uses.
Mouse-ear hawkweed has become a common introduced invasive species in North America (where it is found in southern Canada and both north-east and north-west United States), and New Zealand. It is a level C noxious weed in the United States (with higher levels in the states of Washington and Oregon), and a weed in Quebec. It does not have special designations in other locations of Canada. It is known to be strongly invasive in New Zealand's tussock fields, where there are no native species of hawkweed, and biological control measures are being undertaken to control it and other similar species. In Victoria and NSW, Australia, Hawkweed Sp. are declared as State Prohibited Weeds and are controlled under The Bio Security Act 2015. Currently there are several eradication programs operating (often employing volunteers) to locate, prevent the spread of and eradicate any Pilosella (Hieracium) sp. plants.
Joseph Pitton de Tournefort mentions that blades covered in this plant's juices were believed to cut through stone as easily as through wood.
Medicinal uses.
The mouse-ear hawkweed contains umbelliferone, a compound similar to coumarin and a known antibiotic against brucellosis, as well as a frequent active compound in sunscreen lotions. The plant is also a potent diuretic.


Ordo naturalis

In botany, the phrase ordo naturalis, 'natural order', was once used for what today is a family. Its origins lie with Carl Linnaeus who used the phrase when he referred to natural groups of plants in his lesser-known work, particularly "Philosophia Botanica". In his more famous works the "Systema Naturae" and the "Species Plantarum", plants were arranged according to his artificial "Sexual system", and Linnaeus used the word for an artificial unit. In those works, only genera and species (sometimes varieties) were "real" taxa.
In nineteenth-century works such as the "Prodromus" of and the "Genera Plantarum" of Bentham & Hooker, the word did indicate taxa that are now given the rank of family. Contemporary French works used the word for these same taxa. In the first international "Rules" of botanical nomenclature of 1906 the word "family" () was assigned to this rank, while the term "order" () was reserved for a higher rank, for what in the nineteenth century had often been named a (plural ).
The "International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants" provides for names published in the rank of in Art 18.2: normally, these are to be accepted as family names.
Some plant families retain the name they were given by pre-Linnaean authors, recognised by Linnaeus as "natural orders" (e.g. "Palmae" or "Labiatae"). Such names are known as descriptive family names.


Sciaphila

Sciaphila is a genus of mycoheterotrophic plants in the family Triuridaceae. These plants receive nutrition from fungi and neighboring trees and have less need for photosynthesis. It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, found in Africa, China, Japan, the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Latin America (from southern Mexico to Brazil) and on various islands Pacific Islands.
Species.
Many species names have been proposed, including some for taxa now transferred to other genera. The following are accepted as member of "Sciaphila":


Shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system

This article gives an overview of the shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system.
Introduction.
The shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities of the NVC were described in Volume 5 of "British Plant Communities", first published in 2000, along with the other maritime communities (those of saltmarshes and maritime cliffs) and vegetation of open habitats.
In total, 19 shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities have been identified.
The shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities consist of a single community found on coastal shingle (SD1), two communities associated with strandlines (SD2 and SD3), and sixteen sand-dune communities.
The sand-dune communities fall into the following four groups:
Other communities occurring on sand-dunes.
There are a number of other communities which occur on sand-dunes, but are not classified as sand-dune communities within the NVC. Those listed in "British Plant Communities" are as follows:
List of shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities.
The following is a list of the communities that make up this category:


Lithocarpus daphnoideus

Lithocarpus daphnoideus is a tree in the beech family Fagaceae. The specific epithet "" is from the Greek meaning "like Daphne", referring to the genus "Daphne" and its leaves.
Description.
"Lithocarpus daphnoideus" grows as a tree up to tall with a trunk diameter of up to . The greyish brown bark is smooth or fissured. The coriaceous leaves measure up to long. Its dark brownish or red-brown acorns are conical or ovoid and measure up to across.
Distribution and habitat.
"Lithocarpus daphnoideus" grows naturally in Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, Java and Borneo. Its habitat is hill dipterocarp to lower montane forests up to altitude.


Adiantum myriosorum

Adiantum myriosorum is a fern species very similar to "Adiantum pedatum". It was once included in that species but now is recognized as being genetically distinct. It is native to Asia, from central China to northern India.


Gonocarpus

Gonocarpus (raspwort) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Haloragaceae. The species, which are native to Australia, New Zealand and Malesia, include:


Eucryphia milliganii

Eucryphia milliganii, also known as the dwarf leatherwood, is a shrub or small tree endemic to areas of Tasmania. It grows in western and southern Tasmania where it is most commonly found in alpine and sub-alpine heath areas. It is the sister species of the popular horticulture plant Eucryphia lucida also known as Leatherwood..
Description.
Eucryphia milliganii, is an evergreen, normally small shrub growing a few meters high but in the right conditions can form a tree habit growing up to 14m. It is densely branched and is normally slender with branches being blackish-brown with a terete and hairless form. Stipules present and interpetiolar, ovate, brown in colour and never longer than 1mm. Leaves are simple, opposite and densely packed especially at the ends of branches. They are elliptic and length rarely exceeding twice the breadth, upper surface dark green, shining while under surface is very glaucous and reticulate. Both surfaces have venation; 0.4-1.4 cm long and 0.2-0.6 cm broad.
Flowers are solitary, axillary; pedicel bracteate ar the base, ~0.7 cm long and peduncle not visible. Four bracts that are brown, imbricate, rigid and the external ones are ovate, acute and 1–1.5 mm long. While internal ones are linear-ovate and ~2mm long. Sepals 4, broadly ovate to oblong, obtuse, rigid, brown, margins on the upper and under surfaces slightly hairy and up to 4mm long. Four petals that are white ovate and about 8mm long. Many stamens but rarely less more than 20, filaments up to 4m long and surrounded by short tubular ciliate effigurations. Ovary ovoid-oblong, densely adpressedly villose and up to 2mm long. Flowers February–May.
Fruit septicidally 4-5 valved, dark brown with valves pubescent on the back and glabrous at the sides. Epicarp mature fruits splits off from endocarp, which splits ~1/4 of its length. Seeds in each valve up to 3mm long and winged dark brown, glabrous.
Distribution.
Interior of Tasmania towards the south and west coast. It is most common in alpine and sub-alpine areas where it grows in relatively undisturbed heath, but it extends virtually to sea level in scrubby vegetation. There are two subspecies of E. milliganii. E. milliganii ssp. milliganii, grows north of a line running from Macquarie Harbour to Bruny Island. The leaves of this subspecies are oblong. The southern subspecies, E. milliganii ssp. pubescens, grows south of this line and has ovate leaves.


Geissoloma

Geissoloma is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Geissolomataceae, native to the Cape Province of South Africa. The plants are xerophytic evergreen shrubs and are known to accumulate aluminum. It is sometimes called guyalone in English.
Description.
"Geissoloma marginatum" is a low evergreen shrub of ½-1¼ m high, covered in overlapping large, leathery, simple, scale-like, opposite leaves in four rows along the stems. It has very small stipules on the petioles. Flowers are bisexual, subtended by bracts, and have four red to pinkish petaloid sepals, four petals partially united, eight stamens, and four carpels. The fruit is a capsule with four seeds.
Geissoloma marginatum is the only species in the family.
Phylogeny.
Recent phylogenetic analysis resulted in the following tree.


Iresine pedicellata

Iresine pedicellata is a species of plant in the family Amaranthaceae. It is endemic to Ecuador. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forests. It is threatened by habitat loss.


Symphyodontaceae

Symphyodontaceae is a moss family in the order Hypnales.
Genera.
The family Symphyodontaceae contains the following genera:


Acantholimon goeksunicum

Acantholimon goeksunicum is a species of plant belonging to the family Plumbaginaceae. It is only found on calcareous steppes in southeastern Anatolia (Turkey).
This is a very small, low shrublet with scapes of up to 8 cm bearing two-branched spikes of pink flowers in July.


Hunga guillauminii

Hunga guillauminii is a species of plant in the family Chrysobalanaceae. It is endemic to New Caledonia.


Cirrhopetalum elegans

Cirrhopetalum elegans is an epiphyte orchid species in the genus "Cirrhopetalum" found in Malaya.


Diplacus pulchellus

Diplacus pulchellus is an uncommon species of monkeyflower known by the common name yellowlip pansy monkeyflower. It was formerly known as "Mimulus pulchellus".
Description.
"Diplacus pulchellus" is a petite annual herb growing in small tufts or patches on the ground with hardly any stem. The oppositely arranged leaves are linear in shape and up to 3.5 centimeters long. The flower is 2 to 4 centimeters long and funnel-shaped, with a very narrow tubular base and very wide mouth. The flower is divided into an upper lip with two lobes and a lower with three. It is bicolored, the upper lip lavender to purple and the lower lip golden yellow; sometimes only the wide middle lobe of the lower lip is yellow. The hairy mouth of the flower is usually spotted and speckled with purple.
Distribution.
"Diplacus pulchellus" is endemic to the Sierra Nevada foothills of California, where it can be found at vernal pools, meadows, and other wet, open habitat.


Monsteroideae

Monsteroideae is a subfamily of flowering plants in the family Araceae. It contains genera including: "Alloschemone", "Amydrium", "Anadendrum", "Epipremnum", "Heteropsis", "Holochlamys", "Monstera", "Rhaphidophora", "Rhodospatha", "Scindapsus", "Spathiphyllum", and "Stenospermation". The subfamily is notable for having many trichosclereids in the vegetative and floral parts of the plants, but rarely in the roots.


Eriogonum argillosum

Eriogonum argillosum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names clay buckwheat, clay-loving buckwheat, and Coast Range wild buckwheat. It is endemic to California, where it is known only from San Benito and Monterey Counties. It grows on clay substrates, often of serpentine origin. This is an annual herb up to 30 to 60 centimeters tall with a basal patch of oval-shaped, woolly leaves and a naked stem. The top of the stem is occupied by the inflorescence, a cyme with several clusters of tiny white or pink flowers.


Dactylocladus

Dactylocladus is a monotypic genus of trees in the family Crypteroniaceae. It contains the single species Dactylocladus stenostachys. The generic name means "finger twigs", referring to the branching of the twigs. The specific epithet "stenostachys" means "small spike", referring to the inflorescence.
Description.
"Dactylocladus stenostachys" grows as a tree up to tall, with a trunk diameter of up to . Its bark is brown to grey initially, turning reddish brown and scaly in the mature tree. The elliptic leaves measure up to long. The timber is used for flooring and furniture.
Distribution and habitat.
"Dactylocladus stenostachys" is endemic to Borneo. Its habitat is in peat swamp forest, occasionally in "kerangas" forest.


Isothecium

Isothecium is a genus of mosses belonging to the family Lembophyllaceae.
The genus has cosmopolitan distribution.
Species:


Actinostrobus

Actinostrobus is a genus of coniferous trees in the Cupressaceae (cypress family). Common names include cypress, sandplain-cypress and cypress-pine, the last of these shared by the closely related genus "Callitris".
Species.
There are three species in the genus, all endemic to southwestern Western Australia:
A 2010 study of "Actinostrobus" and "Callitris" has placed all three species of "Actinostrobus" within an expanded "Callitris" based on analysis of 42 morphological and anatomical characters.
They are shrubs or small trees, reaching tall. The leaves are evergreen, of two forms; juvenile needle-like leaves long on young seedlings (but occasional into adulthood in "A. acuminatus"), and scale-like adult leaves, long with only the apex free. The leaves are arranged in six rows along the twigs, in alternating whorls of three.
The male cones are small, long, and are located at the tips of the twigs. The female cones start out similarly inconspicuous, maturing in eighteen to twenty months to long and wide, globular to acute-ovoid, with six thick, woody scales, arranged in two whorls of three, and a further nine to fifteen thin, sterile basal scales. The cones remain closed on the trees for many years, opening only after being scorched by a bushfire; this then releases the seeds to grow on the newly cleared burnt ground.
The closest relative of "Actinostrobus" is "Callitris", which is much more widespread, occurring in most of Australia, and differs in its cones lacking the basal whorls of small sterile scales.
The wood of "Actinostrobus" is light, soft and aromatic, but the plants are too small for any significant use. They are occasionally planted as ornamental shrubs, but their use is restricted by the high risks imposed by their very high flammability in bushfires.


Parnassiaceae

Parnassiaceae Gray were a family of flowering plants in the eudicot order Celastrales. The family is not recognized in the APG III system of plant classification. When that system was published in 2009, Parnassiaceae were treated as subfamily Parnassioideae of an expanded family Celastraceae.
Parnassiaceae have only two genera, "Lepuropetalon" and "Parnassia". "Lepuropetalon" has only one species, "Lepuropetalon spathulatum", a winter annual that usually prefers sandy soil. It is one of the smallest of flowering plants, up to 2 cm tall. "Lepuropetalon" has a disjunct distribution, being known from the southeastern United States and central Chile, but is probably far more common than has been reported.
"Parnassia" is a genus of perennial herbs, up to 60 cm tall, that grow in bogs, marshes, and other wet areas, mostly in cool to cold climates of the north temperate zone. There are at least 70 species. Sixty-three species occur in China and 49 of these occur nowhere else. A second area of diversity for "Parnassia" is North America and about 9 species occur there. "Parnassia palustris" is the most well known and widely distributed species. It ranges through most of northern Eurasia, Canada, and the western United States. "Parnassia palustris" is widely cultivated. About 10 species are known in cultivation, all as ornamentals.
Description.
Parnassiaceae are rhizomatous perennial herbs ("Parnassia") or winter annuals without a rhizome ("Lepuropetalon"). The youngest part of the stem has three collateral vascular bundles. On the stems, leaves, and flowers, the epidermis has sacs filled with tannin. The leaves are alternate or subopposite, without stipules, and the margins are entire. The leaf blade is wide compared to its length and the secondary venation is subpalmate.
In "Parnassia", the leaves are crowded into a basal rosette with a few cauline leaves above. The leaves are all cauline in "Lepuropetalon".
In both genera, the lower cauline leaves are pseudosessile, which means that the petioles are adnate to the stems. The upper cauline leaves, if present, are truly sessile.
The inflorescence consists of one, or rarely two, flowers that face upward and are at the end of a peduncle that has few or no leaves. The flowers are perfect and slightly zygomorphic. The five sepals are shortly connate at their bases, and persistent through maturity of the fruit. The petals are either absent, or five and free from each other. In "Parnassia", the petals are showy and white or cream, with conspicuous veins that are usually green or gray. The margins are entire, toothed, or fimbriate. In "Lepuropetalon", the petals are rudimentary or absent.
In both genera, the five stamens are free from each other. They are placed opposite the sepals and therefore alternate with the petals. The anthers open in sequence above the gynoecium (see next section). The five staminodes are free and placed opposite the petals. They mature after the stamens. Each consists of a nectariferous pad with filamentous rays arising from its edge. Each ray is terminated by a large globular gland.
The ovary is superior or half inferior and consists of 3 or 4, rarely 5, fused carpels. The walls of the carpels are incomplete so that the ovary is unilocular in its upper part. The placentation is parietal. The ovules are attached to T-shaped placentas in "Parnassia", and directly to the ovary wall in "Lepuropetalon". The style is absent or very short. The stigmas are decurrent along the commissures of the ovary and sometimes extended above, to form false styles called stylodia. The stigmatic areas are dry. The megagametophyte is of the "Polygonum" type.
The fruit is an erect, membranous capsule, which opens at the apex only. The seeds are small, light, and numerous.
Oddities.
Parnassias are often grown as curiosities for their unique and prominent staminodes. Further examination reveals additional oddities.
The lowest leaves on the stem appear to be sessile, but in fact the petiole is adnate to the stem and embedded in it. The conductive vessels that enervate the leaf depart from those of the stem far below where the leaf is attached.
As soon as the flower opens, the stamens begin to elongate. One of them bends inward, opens the thecae of its anther, and dumps its pollen on the ovary. It then bends away from the ovary to the outside of the flower. Another stamen then repeats this process. It takes about one day for a stamen to complete its motions, and the order in which they do so varies from one flower to another.
The area that is receptive to pollen, the stigmatic area, is not confined to the apex of the ovary or mounted on a style as in most flowers, but extends in bands down the sides of the ovary along the commissures, the seams where the carpels that compose the ovary are joined together. Such commissural stigmas have been discovered in Celastraceae, but as late as 1972, they were known only from Parnassiaceae and from the basal eudicot family Papaveraceae.
"Lepuropetalon" shares with "Parnassia" the pseudosessile leaves and the commissural stigmas. It also dumps its pollen on the ovary, but without the elaborate dance of the stamens. Unlike "Parnassia", however, its staminodes are small and lack glands.
Relationships.
The genus "Parnassia" was named by Linnaeus in 1753 for Mount Parnassus in Greece. In 1821, Samuel Frederick Gray put "Parnassia" in its own family, Parnassiaceae. In that same year, Stephen Elliott gave "Lepuropetalon" its name and published a description of it. The name is from two Greek words, "lepyron", "husk, rind, or shell", and "petalon", "leaf or petal".
In 1930, botanist Adolf Engler published descriptions of "Lepuropetalon" and "Parnassia" with detailed illustrations. He did not consider them to be closely related and placed each in its own subfamily among the 15 subfamilies that he recognized in Saxifragaceae. Others thought that they were closely related. One of these was Steven Spongberg, who did a detailed study of "Lepuropetalon" and placed it in Saxifragaceae in the same subfamily with "Parnassia". Most authors have followed Engler or Spongberg in their treatment of these two genera, but often with considerable doubt. Several other possible relationships have been proposed.
In 2001, a DNA study showed that "Lepuropetalon" and "Parnassia" were much closer to each other than to any others. This was the first DNA study to give strong statistical support (98% bootstrap support) for this relationship.
In 2005, a study of flower structure concluded that the family Parnassiaceae belonged in the order Celastrales with Lepidobotryaceae, and a broadly defined Celastraceae, including "Mortonia" and "Pottingeria".
In 2006, a study of DNA sequences confirmed that "Lepuropetalon" and "Parnassia" form a strongly supported clade. This study also showed strong support for a pentatomy consisting of "Pottingeria", "Mortonia", Parnassiaceae, and two clades of genera from Celastraceae as that family had been circumscribed in APG II. The relationships between these five clades remain unresolved.
In 2009, the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group expanded the family Celastraceae to consist of the five clades of the pentatomy mentioned above. A phylogenetic infrafamilial classification of Celastraceae sensu APG III has not yet been published.


Nepenthes erucoides

Nepenthes erucoides is an ultramaficolous tropical pitcher plant endemic to Mount Redondo, the highest peak on the Philippine island of Dinagat, where it occurs from 800 m to the summit at 929 m. It grows on a very thin substrate consisting of "lateritic nickel ore and decomposed chromite rubble, through to a clay derived thereof", which has been described as the most extreme ultramafic substrate known to host "Nepenthes". Its taxonomic affinities are unclear, though it has been noted for its (apparently superficial) similarities to "N. mantalingajanensis" from Palawan. The species' ultramaficolous ecological setting has permitted the radiation of a peculiar set of associated traits, those being: "reduced leaf morphologies, sclerophyllous characteristics, hirsuteness and small stature", which have been associated similarly with the diminutive "Nepenthes argentii" of the windswept, ultramafic peak of Mount Guiting-Guiting, Sibuyan. The authors suggest that morphological analogues in the aforementioned species do not entail genetic association, and as such these may be considered as instances of morphological convergence- derived from associated conditions in ultramaficolous ecology- until further genetic analysis occurs. "Nepenthes erucoides" co-localizes with "N. mindanaoensis" (with which it hybridizes) and "N. bellii" (in zones of dense, protective vegetation). "Nepenthes truncata" occurs within the extent of the elfin forest below the 800 meter elevation band, "N. merrilliana" occurring regionally at elevations below 600 meters.
The specific epithet "erucoides", formed from the Latin "eruca" (caterpillar) and Greek "-oides" (resembling), refers to the densely hairy developing leaves, but particularly the tendrils, which are said to resemble the "exuberantly hairy caterpillars of certain erebid macromoths from the subfamily Arctiinae, such as those of the genus "Arctia"". The description describes this species as having perhaps the densest indumentum of any "Nepenthes" in its emerging foliage, but notes that this hair is rapidly dropped as the leaves develop.
"Nepenthes erucoides" has been informally assessed by the authors as Critically Endangered under IUCN Red List (2012) criteria B1ab (ii, iii) + 2ab (i, ii, iii), as the species occurs within a reduced area and is threatened by declining habitat integrity.


Glyptostrobus pensilis

Glyptostrobus pensilis, known in Chinese as 水松 (Shuǐ sōng), and also Chinese swamp cypress, is the sole living species in the genus "Glyptostrobus". It is native to subtropical southeastern China, from Fujian west to southeast Yunnan, and also very locally in northern Vietnam and Laos.
Description.
It is a medium-sized to large tree, reaching tall and with a trunk diameter of up to , possibly more. The leaves are deciduous, spirally arranged but twisted at the base to lie in two horizontal ranks, long and broad, but long and scale-like on shoots in the upper crown. The cones are green maturing yellow-brown, pear-shaped, long and diameter, broadest near the apex. They open when mature to release the small, long, winged seeds.
It typically grows in river banks, ponds and swamps, growing in water up to deep. Like the related genus "Taxodium", it produces 'cypress knees', or pneumatophores, when growing in water, thought to help transport oxygen to the roots.
The species is nearly extinct in the wild due to overcutting for its valuable decay-resistant, scented wood, but it is also fairly widely planted along the banks of rice paddies where its roots help to stabilise the banks by reducing soil erosion. There appear to be no remaining wild plants in China and few of those in Vietnam are seed-bearing. A population of Chinese swamp cypress was recently discovered in central Laos. The species is found in several botanical gardens around the world. It was previously reported that there were four specimens of this tree growing in Bank Hall Gardens, Lancashire, United Kingdom, but it has now been confirmed that they are in fact the Swamp or Bald Cypress from south-eastern USA, "Taxodium distichum".


Eriogonum gossypinum

Eriogonum gossypinum is an uncommon species of wild buckwheat known by the common name cottony buckwheat. It is endemic to California, where it is known from the southern Central Valley and some of the adjacent foothills. It is often found on clay soils. It is an annual herb producing a gray or reddish branched stem no more than about 20 centimeters tall. The leaves are oblong in shape and woolly in texture. The scattered inflorescences are small clusters of white to pink glandular flowers buried in a layer of cottony fibers.


Staminode

In botany, a staminode is an often rudimentary, sterile or abortive stamen, which means that it does not produce pollen. Staminodes are frequently inconspicuous and stamen-like, usually occurring at the inner whorl of the flower, but are also sometimes long enough to protrude from the corolla.
Sometimes, the staminodes are modified to produce nectar, as in the Witch Hazel "(Hamamelis)".
Staminodes can be a critical characteristic for differentiating between species, for instance in the orchid genus "Paphiopedilum", and among the penstemons.
In the case of Cannas, the petals are inconsequential and the staminodes are refined into eye-catching petal-like replacements.
A spectacular example of staminode is given by "Couroupita guianensis", a tropical tree growing in South America also known as cannonball tree.


Datura kymatocarpa

Datura kymatocarpa is a species of "Datura". It is native to Mexico and is an annual plant.
Contemporary experts classify this plant not as a separate species, but as a variety of "Datura discolor".


Polygala cymosa

Polygala cymosa, the tall pinebarren milkwort, is a species of flowering plant in the family Polygalaceae. It is endemic to the United States.


Tillandsia balbisiana

Tillandsia balbisiana, common name northern needleleaf, is a species of bromeliad in the genus "Tillandsia". This species in native to Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, the West Indies, and Florida.


Campsis grandiflora

Campsis grandiflora, commonly known as the Chinese trumpet vine, is a fast-growing, deciduous creeper with large, orange, trumpet-shaped flowers in summer. It can grow to a height of 10 meters. A native of East Asia, it is less hardy than its relative "Campsis radicans".
"Campsis grandiflora" prefers moist, nutrient-rich soil and a position with full sun and support to climb. The dark green leaves have serrated edges.


Micranthes petiolaris

Micranthes petiolaris, commonly known as cliff saxifrage, is a species of flowering plant in the saxifrage family. It is native to the Southern Appalachian Mountains where it is found on exposed boulders and rocky seeps, often at high elevation. It is a perennial that produces small white flowers with yellow spots in the summer.
Recent genetic studies have shown is more closely related to arctic species of "Micranthes" than to the other species of the Southern Appalachians. This indicates that it did not evolve within the other southern "Micranthes", but migrated to the southern Appalachians from the north, possibly during glacial periods.


Larch

Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south. Larches are among the dominant plants in the boreal forests of Siberia and Canada. Although they are conifers, larches are deciduous trees that lose their needles in the autumn.
Etymology.
The English name Larch ultimately derives from the Latin "larigna," named after the ancient settlement of Larignum. The story of its naming was preserved by Vitruvius:
It is worth while to know how this wood was discovered. The divine Caesar, being with his army in the neighbourhood of the Alps, and having ordered the towns to furnish supplies, the inhabitants of a fortified stronghold there, called Larignum, trusting in the natural strength of their defences, refused to obey his command. So the general ordered his forces to the assault. In front of the gate of this stronghold there was a tower, made of beams of this wood laid in alternating directions at right angles to each other, like a funeral pyre, and built high, so that they could drive off an attacking party by throwing stakes and stones from the top. When it was observed that they had no other missiles than stakes, and that these could not be hurled very far from the wall on account of the weight, orders were given to approach and to throw bundles of brushwood and lighted torches at this outwork. These the soldiers soon got together.
The flames soon kindled the brushwood which lay about that wooden structure and, rising towards heaven, made everybody think that the whole pile had fallen. But when the fire had burned itself out and subsided, and the tower appeared to view entirely uninjured, Caesar in amazement gave orders that they should be surrounded with a palisade, built beyond the range of missiles. So the townspeople were frightened into surrendering, and were then asked where that wood came from which was not harmed by fire. They pointed to trees of the kind under discussion, of which there are very great numbers in that vicinity. And so, as that stronghold was called Larignum, the wood was called larch.
Description and distribution.
The tallest species, Larix occidentalis, can reach . The larch's tree crown is sparse and the branches are brought horizontal to the stem, even if some species have them characteristically pendulous. Larch shoots are dimorphic, with leaves borne singly on long shoots typically long and bearing several buds, and in dense clusters of 20–50 needles on short shoots only long with only a single bud. The leaves (light green) are needle-like, long, slender (under wide). Larches are among the few deciduous conifers, which are usually evergreen. Other deciduous conifers include the golden larch "Pseudolarix amabilis", the dawn redwood "Metasequoia glyptostroboides", the Chinese swamp cypress "Glyptostrobus pensilis" and the bald cypresses in the genus "Taxodium".
The male flowers (small cones) are orange-yellowish and fall after pollination. The female flowers (or cones) of larches are erect, small, long, green or purple, brown in ripening and lignify (called now strobilus) 5–8 months after pollination; in about half the species the bract scales are long and visible, and in the others, short and hidden between the seed scales. Those native to northern regions have small cones () with short bracts, with more southerly species tending to have longer cones (), often with exserted bracts, with the longest cones and bracts produced by the southernmost species, in the Himalayas. The seeds are winged.
The larches are streamlined trees, the root system are broad and deep and the bark is finely cracked and wrinkled in irregular plaques. The wood is bicolor, with salmon pink heartwood and yellowish white sapwood.
The chromosome number is 2n = 24, similar to that of most of the other trees of the family Pinaceae.
The genus Larix is present in all the temperate-cold zones of the northern hemisphere, from North America to northern Siberia passing through Europe, mountainous China and Japan. The larches are important forest trees of Russia, Central Europe, United States and Canada. They require a cool and fairly humid climate and for this reason they are found in the mountains of the temperate zones, while in the northernmost boreal zones ones they are also found in the plain. At gen. Larix belong to the trees that go further north than all, reaching in the North America and Siberia the tundra and polar ice. The larches are pioneer species not very demanding towards the soil and they are very long-lived trees. They live in pure or mixed forests together with other conifers or more rarely broad-leaved trees.
Species and taxonomy.
In the past, the cone bract length was often used to divide the larches into two sections (sect. "Larix" with short bracts, and sect. "Multiserialis" with long bracts), but genetic evidence does not support this division, pointing instead to a genetic divide between Old World and New World species, with the cone and bract size being merely adaptations to climatic conditions. More recent genetic studies have proposed three groups within the genus, with a primary division into North American and Eurasian species, and a secondary division of the Eurasian into northern short-bracted species and southern long-bracted species; there is some dispute over the position of "Larix sibirica", a short-bracted species which is placed in the short-bracted group by some of the studies and the long-bracted group by others. The genus "Larix" belongs to the subfamily Laricoideae, which also includes the genera "Pseudotsuga" and "Cathaya".
There are eleven (or ten, see "L. czekanowskii") accepted species of larch subdivided on the basis of the most recent phylogenetic investigations:
Hybrids.
Most if not all of the species can be hybridised in cultivation.
Currently-accepted hybrids are:
A well-known hybrid, the Dunkeld larch "Larix" × "marschlinsii", arose more or less simultaneously in Switzerland and Scotland when "L. decidua" and "L. kaempferi" hybridised when planted together, is still treated as unresolved. "Larix" × "stenophylla" is another probable hybrid still unresolved.
Larch is used as a food plant by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species — see list of Lepidoptera that feed on larches.
Diseases.
Larches are prone to the fungal canker disease "Lachnellula ssp." (larch canker); this is particularly a problem on sites prone to late spring frosts, which cause minor injuries to the tree allowing entry to the fungal spores. In Canada, this disease was first detected in 1980 and is particularly harmful to an indigenous species larch, the tamarack, killing both young and mature trees.
Larches are also vulnerable to "Phytophthora ramorum". In late 2009 the disease was first found in Japanese larch trees in the English counties of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, and has since spread to the south-west of Scotland.
In August 2010 the disease was found in Japanese larch trees in counties Waterford and Tipperary in Ireland and in 2013 in the Afan Forest Park in south Wales.
"Laricifomes officinalis" is another mushroom found in Europe, North America and northern Asia that causes internal wood rot. It is almost exclusive guest of the "gen. Larix". Other diseases are given by mushrooms, fungal rusts, bacteria and insects.
Uses.
Larch wood is valued for its tough, waterproof and durable qualities. Top quality knot-free timber is in great demand for building yachts and other small boats, for exterior cladding of buildings, and interior paneling. The timber is resistant to rot when in contact with the ground, and is suitable for use as posts and in fencing. The hybrid Dunkeld larch is widely grown as a timber crop in Northern Europe, valued for its fast growth and disease resistance. (EN 350-2 lists larch as slightly to moderately durable; this would make it unsuitable for ground contact use without preservative in temperate climates, and would give it a limited life as external cladding without coatings.)
Larch on oak was the traditional construction method for Scottish fishing boats in the 19th century.
Larch has also been used in herbal medicine; see Bach flower remedies and Arabinogalactan for details.
In Central Europe larch is viewed as one of the best wood materials for the building of residences. Planted on borders with birch, both tree species were used in pagan cremations.
Larches are often used in bonsai culture, where their knobby bark, small needles, fresh spring foliage, and – especially – autumn colour are appreciated. European larch, Japanese larch, and Tamarack larch are the species most commonly trained as bonsai.
The edible larch boletes grow in symbiotic association with larch trees.
Often, in Eurasian shamanism, the "world tree" is depicted as specifically a larch tree.


Amauropelta semilunata

Amauropelta semilunata, synonym Thelypteris semilunata, is a species of fern in the family Thelypteridaceae. It is endemic to Ecuador. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.


Anisophyllea nitida

Anisophyllea nitida is a tree of Borneo in the family Anisophylleaceae. The specific epithet "" is from the Latin meaning "polished", referring to the shiny appearance of the upper leaf surface.
Description.
"Anisophyllea nitida" grows as a tree up to tall with a trunk diameter of up to . The bark is smooth to scaly. The ellipsoid fruits measure up to long.
Distribution and habitat.
"Anisophyllea nitida" is endemic to Borneo. Its habitat is dipterocarp forests.


Corispermum hyssopifolium

Corispermum hyssopifolium is a species in the genus "Corispermum" of the family Amaranthaceae. It is found in dunes and sandy spots along rivers in central and western Europe, and in western North America where it was exploited for its edible seeds prehistorically. An annual plant, it is between 10 and 60 centimeters (3.9–26.3 inches) high. It blooms in July and August. The fruits have narrow wings, of which the nontransparent edge becomes wider at the top, and on which spikes are mounted on a broad base each. The transparent half of the edge is narrow. The top stipules are ovate, with a peaked top.


Helical growth

Helical growth is the expansion of fungal, algal or higher plant cells or organs leading to a twisted (i.e. helical) cell or organ shape. Helical growth typically results in the breaking of (usually radial) symmetry (biology). Resulting shapes may be left-handed or right-handed. Helical growth can arise naturally (e.g. as seen in tendrils or in twining plants) or artificially by mutation ("Arabidopsis thaliana"). In many cases, a phenomenon known as tendril perversion is seen, in which a tendril curves in opposite directions at each end, with a transition in-between.
Helical growth of twining plants is based on a nutational movement of stems (circumnutation). When such stems find support this nutational movement may become fixed into a helical winding. Most twining plants show right-handed helices regardless of the hemisphere the plant is growing in.
A missense mutation in the conserved grip1 motif, called spiral3, caused a left-handed helical organization of cortical microtubule arrays, and severe right-handed helical growth. The spiral3 mutation compromises interaction between GCP2 and GCP3, another subunit of the complex, in yeast. In the spiral3 mutant, microtubule dynamics and nucleation efficiency were not markedly affected, but nucleating angles were wider and more divergently distributed. A spiral3 katanin double mutant had swollen and twisted epidermal cells, and showed that the microtubule minus ends were not released from the nucleation sites, although the nucleating angles distributed in a similar manner to those in spiral3. These results show that Arabidopsis GCP2 has an important role in precisely positioning the gamma-tubulin-containing complex on pre-existing microtubules and in the proper organization of cortical arrays.
Helical growth of single cells, as seen in "Phycomyces" (Fungi) and "Nitella" (Characeae), is believed to be caused by a helical arrangement of microfibrils in the cell wall. This was suggested by birefringence analyses of cell walls. In "Arabidopsis thaliana" mutants helical growth is exhibited at the organ level. Mutant analysis strongly supports the idea that cortical microtubules have an important role in controlling the direction of organ expansion in plants. It is not clear how helical growth mutants affect cell wall assembly of "Arabidopsis thaliana".
Helical growth is the expansion of fungal, algal or higher plant cells or organs that leads to twisted growth of plants


Phacotaceae

Phacotaceae is a family of green algae in the order Chlamydomonadales.


Shi Jiaonai

Shi Jiaonai (; 29 November 1920 – 24 November 2018) was a Chinese plant physiologist. He was a member of the China Democratic League ("Minmeng").
Biography.
Shi was born in Jinjiang, Fujian, on November 29, 1920 and moved to the Philippines when he was 10. He returned to China in 1940. In 1944 he graduated from Zhejiang University, where he majored in botany.
In 1991 he was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was a researcher at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences before his death in November 2018.


Bulnesia carrapo

Bulnesia carrapo is a species of plant in the family Zygophyllaceae. It is endemic to Colombia.


Carl Friedrich Warnstorf

Carl Friedrich Warnstorf (2 December 1837 in Sommerfeld – 28 February 1921 in Berlin-Friedenau) was a German educator and bryologist specializing in sphagnum studies.
He received his education at the teaching seminar in Neuzelle (1855-1858), afterwards working as a school teacher in Arnswalde (1859 to 1867) and Neuruppin (1867 to 1899). Following retirement from teaching he settled in Berlin. In 1917 he was awarded with the title of professor. During World War II his herbarium of 30,000 items was destroyed in the midst of the bombing of Berlin (1943).
The genus "Warnstorfia" was named in his honor by bryologist Leopold Loeske (1865-1935).
Published works.
He was editor of the section on Sphagnales-Sphagnaceae in Adolf Engler's "Das Pflanzenreich". The following are some of Warnstorf's principal works:


Lucien Marcus Underwood

Lucien Marcus Underwood (October 26, 1853 – November 16, 1907) was an American botanist and mycologist of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Early life and career.
He was born in New Woodstock, New York, and graduated from Syracuse University. In 1880 he was appointed professor of geology and botany in Illinois Wesleyan University, in 1883 professor of biology in his alma mater, and in 1891 he became professor of botany in De Pauw University. In 1896, after a short stint as a biology professor at Auburn University, Underwood became a professor of botany at Columbia University and joined the staff of the New York Botanical Garden.
Works.
Underwood published numerous papers in botanical journals, and was the author of "Our Native Ferns and how to study them" (Bloomington, Ill., 1881; 4th ed., 1893), "Descriptive Catalogue of North American Hepaticae" (New York, 1884) and “Hepaticae” in Gray's "Manual of Botany". He also prepared "An Illustrated Century of Fungi" with 100 specimens (1889), and "Hepaticae Americanae" with 160 specimens (1887–93).
Personal life.
After losing large amounts of money on Wall Street, Underwood attempted to murder his wife and daughter before committing suicide at the family's home in Redding, Connecticut.


Euonymus paniculatus

Euonymus paniculatus is a species of plant in the family Celastraceae. It is endemic to Tamil Nadu in India.


Frailea schilinzkyana

Frailea schilinzkyana is a species of Frailea from Brazil to Argentina.


Amaranthus californicus

Amaranthus californicus is a species of flowering plant in the amaranth family known as California amaranth. It is a glabrous monoecious annual that is native to most of the western United States and Canada. The plant grows from in length. It is found in moist flats or near bodies of water, and it blooms from summer to fall.


Gymnocalycium gibbosum

Gymnocalycium gibbosum is a species of Gymnocalycium from Argentina.


Echinochloa muricata

Echinochloa muricata is a species of grass known by the common names rough barnyard grass and American barnyard grass. It is native to Eurasia and much of North America.
It is an annual grass growing one half to one meter in height.


Centropogon trichodes

Centropogon trichodes is a species of plant in the family Campanulaceae. It is endemic to Ecuador. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.


Trichodiadema gracile

Trichodiadema gracile is succulent plant of the genus "Trichodiadema", native to the Western Cape Province, South Africa, where it is common on dry, rocky hillsides in the Overberg region.
It occurs in the regions of Caledon, Bredasdorp, Potberg and Swellendam.
Description.
A small shrub, with several trailing stems (20 cm). The branches are gracile and spindly, with long, slender internodes (10–15 mm).
The leaves are papillate, and the orange leaf-tips have several slightly elongated bladder cells, extending at various levels. Therefore, although it has several elongated orange papillae at the leaf tip, this species is without the normal diadem that is typical for the genus.
The solitary flowers are pink to apricot, with a low central cone surrounded by purple filamentous staminodes that are as long as the stamens.


Hymenophyllum brachypus

Hymenophyllum brachypus is a species of fern in the family Hymenophyllaceae. It is endemic to Ecuador. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It is threatened by habitat loss.


Albany banksia

Albany banksia refers to two shrubs endemic to southwestern Australia, named after the town of Albany.
Plants named Albany banksia


Agropyron fragile

Agropyron fragile (Siberian wheatgrass; syn. "Agropyron cristatum" subsp. "fragile" (Roth) A. Löve, "Agropyron cristatum" var. "fragile" (Roth) Dorn, "Agropyron fragile" var. "sibiricum" (Willd.) Tzvelev, "Agropyron fragile" ssp. "sibiricum" (Willd.) Melderis, "Agropyron sibiricum" (Willd.) Beauv.) is a plant species in the family Poaceae.


Ardisia oligantha

Ardisia oligantha is a name which has been given to several species of plants:


Bornetella nitida

Bornetella nitida is a species of marine algae in the Dasycladaceae family. It is found in throughout the Pacific Ocean, including Mauritius, Indonesia, Australia, and Japan.


Salopella

Salopella is a form genus for small fossil plants of Late Silurian to Early Devonian age. The diagnostic characters are naked axes branching isotomously, terminating in fusiform sporangia. The sporangia are unbranched, but in at least the type species the axes seem to branch just under the sporangia. It differs from the similar form genus "Tortilicaulis" in that the sporangia do not have spirally arranged cells, and from other similar form genera such as "Cooksonia", "Uskiella" and "Tarrantia" in the shape of the sporangia.
Species have been reported from Wales, Xinjiang, Brazil and Australia. Most species are based on very small fragments of the tips of plants, the exceptions being the two Australian species which preserve rather more of the plant. The relationships of the genus are not clear because many anatomical details remain unknown. A useful summary table of what data is known was given by Edwards et al. It has been considered to be a member of the rhyniophytes.


Peronospora hyoscyami


Asparagus pea

Asparagus pea is a common name for several plants and may refer to:


Jacquinia keyensis

Jacquinia keyensis, commonly called Joewood, is a woody plant in the primrose family. It is native to the West Indies, where it is widespread on many islands. Its natural habitat is coastal strand, often on coral exposures with salt spray.
It is a shrub or small tree with thick, saponaceous, evergreen leaves. It produces white flowers, primarily in the summer and fall.
"Jacquinia keyensis" is listed as "Threatened" in the state of Florida.


Dendrobium nobile

Dendrobium nobile, commonly known as the noble dendrobium, is a member of the family Orchidaceae. It has become a popular cultivated decorative house plant, because it produces colourful blooms in winter and spring, at a time when little else is in flower. It is also one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine, known as "shí hú" () or "shí hú lán" (). "Dendrobium nobile" is one of the most widespread ornamental members of the orchid family. Its blooms are variegated in colour, shading from white through pink and purple, and the many different cultivated varieties produce different sized and coloured blooms.
"Dendrobium nobile" is an epiphytic or lithophytic plant native to southern China (including Tibet), the Himalayas (India, Bangladesh, Assam, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan), and Indochina (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam). The species is also reportedly naturalized in Hawaii. It is the state flower of Sikkim respectively.
"Dendrobium nobile" occurs in lowland and mountain forests, often on mossy limestone rocks. It has strap-shaped, persistent leaves, and blooms mostly in winter and spring. It produces short, 2 to 4 flowered racemes, fragrant, waxy, and highly variable in color, arising from the upper nodes of leafed and leafless canes.
Examples of the species are grown in Kew Gardens Tropical Nursery in London and seeds are stored in the Millennium Seed Bank there.
Characteristics.
"Dendrobium nobile" is a sympodial orchid which forms pseudobulbs. When the life cycle of the mother plant ends it produces offsets, continuing the life of the plant. The new plant then goes through the same cycle. The inflorescence is erect; during the flowering period blooms form along the length of the flowering stem. This seedling is monocot that is it forms only a single initial leaf, and the plant has thin white roots which attach themselves to another plant or object, making it an epiphytic plant.
Chemical constituents.
Extract of the stems of "Dendrobium nobile" yielded 17 phenanthrenes (including 3,4,8-trimethoxyphenanthrene-2,5-diol, 2,8-dihydroxy-3,4,7-trimethoxyphenanthrene, 3-hydroxy-2,4,7-trimethoxy-9,10-dihydrophenanthrene, 2,8-dihydroxy-3,4,7-trimethoxy-9,10-dihydrophenanthrene, 2-hydroxy-4,7-dimethoxy-9,10-dihydrophenanthrene, 2,2'-dihydroxy-3,3',4,4',7,7'-hexamethoxy-9,9',10,10'-tetrahydro-1,1'-biphenanthrene and 2,3,5-trihydroxy-4,9-dimethoxyphenanthrene). There have been many studies on the complex chemistry of the plant.
Toxicity.
"Dendrobium nobile" has been added to the EU novel foods catalogue as it is deemed unsafe for human consumption within food supplements without a safety assessment.


Lindsaea

Lindsaea, common name necklace fern, is a genus of around 180 species of fern, 15 of which reach Australia. The name is in honour of surgeon John Lindsay of Jamaica. The genus is sometimes spelt "Lindsaya".
Species.
, the "Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World" recognized the following species:


Valeriana californica

Valeriana californica is a species of flowering plant in the honeysuckle family known by the common name California valerian. It is native to Oregon, northeastern California, and Nevada, where it occurs in moist, forested mountain habitat. It is an erect herb up to half a meter tall with whorls or opposite pairs of deeply lobed leaves at intervals along stem. The inflorescence is a cyme of many funnel-shaped white or pink-tinged flowers each about half a centimeter long with three long, protruding stamens. The fruit is a ribbed achene about half a centimeter long which may be tipped with the featherlike remains of the flower sepals.


Leptofauchea coralligena

Leptofauchea coralligena is a species of red algae that was first discovered in the Mediterranean Sea in 2007. Molecular analysis determined that "Rhodymenia ardissonei" was in fact two distinct species. "Rhodymenia ardissonei" lives in relatively shallow water whereas "Leptofauchea coralligena" lives in deeper waters.


Vietorchis

Vietorchis is a genus of myco-heterotrophic flowering plants in the orchid family, Orchidaceae. It contains only one known species, Vietorchis aurea, endemic to northern Vietnam.


Marchantia berteroana

Marchantia berteroana is a liverwort species in the genus "Marchantia".
Description.
"Marchantia berteroana" is a flat, thalloid liverwort, with thallus up to 2cm long and 1.2cm wide. The thallus colour can range from dark green to yellow with a glossy surface, and is attached to the ground via rhizoids. Under a lens, pores can be seen on the upper surface. The gametangia (sex organs) grow vertically from the thallus, the plant is dioicous so individual plants produce male or female gametangia. The male gametangia are called an antheridiophores, they are short with a flat disc-like structure which is approximately 1cm wide. The female gametangia are called archegoniophores, they have a taller stem and an umbrella-like structure at the top, approximately 1cm wide, from which the common name is derived. They also reproduce asexually via gemma cups which form on the surface of the thallus, they are approx. 4mm wide and 3mm high. Gemma cups appear on the thallus more commonly in winter when rainfall is higher, as raindrops are required to disperse the gemmules.
"M. berteroana" contains the flavones isoscutellarein and hypolaetin 8-glucuronides. The composition and amount of these chemicals changes seasonally depending on the reproductive state of the plant, when gametangia are present there is an absence of acacetin and its glycosides.
Similar Species.
"Marchantia polymorpha" is a similar in appearance, it can be distinguished from "M.berteroana" by the colour of the thallus, "M. polymorpha" is a dull green and often has a dark streak in the middle of the upper surface. "M. berteroana" has brighter green thallus and usually no streaks on the upper surface. "M. beteroana" also has transparent scales on the underside of the thallus which help distinguish it from "Marchantia foliacea" which has dark purple/brown scales.
Ecology.
Distribution.
"Marchantia berteroana" can be found in Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa, South America, Antarctica and, non-continental locations such as Papua New Guinea, Java, New Caledonia and various smaller islands.
Habitat.
"M berteroana" prefers moist environments such as near fresh water sources, waterfall splash zones and, forest floors.
It is also known to be one of the first colonising species after bushfire in Tasmanian mixed forests.
Reproduction.
See Marchantia