1.
Acer platanoides
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Acer platanoides is a species of maple native to eastern and central Europe and western Asia, from France east to Russia, north to southern Scandinavia and southeast to northern Iran. It is a member of the soapberry and lychee family, Acer platanoides is a deciduous tree, growing to 20–30 m tall with a trunk up to 1.5 m in diameter, and a broad, rounded crown. The bark is grey-brown and shallowly grooved, unlike many other maples, mature trees do not tend to develop a shaggy bark. The shoots are green at first, soon becoming pale brown, the winter buds are shiny red-brown. The leaves are opposite, palmately lobed with five lobes, 7–14 cm long and 8–20 cm or 3 1⁄4–7 3⁄4 in across, the leaf petiole is 8–20 cm long, and secretes a milky juice when broken. The autumn colour is yellow, occasionally orange-red. The flowers are in corymbs of 15–30 together, yellow to yellow-green with five sepals, the fruit is a double samara with two winged seeds. The seeds are disc-shaped, strongly flattened, 10–15 mm across and 3 mm thick, the wings are 3–5 cm long, widely spread, approaching a 180° angle. It typically produces a quantity of viable seeds. Under ideal conditions in its range, Norway maple may live up to 250 years. Especially when used on streets, it can have insufficient space for its network and is prone to the roots wrapping around themselves. Norway maples often cause significant damage and cleanup costs for municipalities and homeowners when branches break off in storms as it is fast-growing, the Norway maple is a member of the section Platanoidea Pax, characterised by flattened, disc-shaped seeds and the shoots and leaves containing milky sap. Other related species in section include Acer campestre, Acer cappadocicum, Acer lobelii. From the field maple, the Norway maple is distinguished by its leaves with pointed, not blunt, lobes. It is also confused with the more distantly related Acer saccharum. The sugar maple is easy to differentiate by clear sap in the petiole, the tips of the points on Norway maple leaves reduce to a fine hair, while the tips of the points on sugar maple leaves are, on close inspection, rounded. On mature trees, sugar maple bark is shaggy, while Norway maple bark has small. The fruits of Norway maple are paired samaras with widely diverging wings, distinguishing them from those of sycamore, Norway maple seeds are flattened, while those of sugar maple are globose
2.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
3.
Plant
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
4.
Flowering plant
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The flowering plants, also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approx. 13,164 known genera and a total of c.295,383 known species, etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant. The term angiosperm comes from the Greek composite word meaning enclosed seeds, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, during the range 245 to 202 million years ago, and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya. They diversified extensively during the Lower Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, the amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings, in the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium, the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases, the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species, the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf, occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. There are two kinds of cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which divide to become pollen grains, are the male cells and are borne in the stamens. The female cells called megaspores, which divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule. The flower may consist only of parts, as in willow. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls, the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals. The outer series is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators, attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower
5.
Eudicots
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The eudicots, Eudicotidae or eudicotyledons are a monophyletic clade of flowering plants that had been called tricolpates or non-magnoliid dicots by previous authors. The close relationships among flowering plants with tricolpate pollen grains was initially seen in studies of shared derived characters. These plants have a trait in their pollen grains of exhibiting three colpi or grooves paralleling the polar axis. Later molecular evidence confirmed the basis for the evolutionary relationships among flowering plants with tricolpate pollen grains. The term means true dicotyledons, as it contains the majority of plants that have been considered dicots and have characteristics of the dicots, the term eudicots has subsequently been widely adopted in botany to refer to one of the two largest clades of angiosperms, monocots being the other. The remaining angiosperms are sometimes referred to as basal angiosperms or paleodicots, the other name for the eudicots is tricolpates, a name which refers to the grooved structure of the pollen. Members of the group have tricolpate pollen, or forms derived from it and these pollens have three or more pores set in furrows called colpi. In contrast, most of the seed plants produce monosulcate pollen. The name tricolpates is preferred by some botanists to avoid confusion with the dicots, numerous familiar plants are eudicots, including many common food plants, trees, and ornamentals. Most leafy trees of midlatitudes also belong to eudicots, with exceptions being magnolias and tulip trees which belong to magnoliids, and Ginkgo biloba. The name eudicots is used in the APG system, of 1998 and it is applied to a clade, a monophyletic group, which includes most of the dicots. The eudicots can be divided into two groups, the basal eudicots and the core eudicots, basal eudicot is an informal name for a paraphyletic group. The core eudicots are a monophyletic group, a 2010 study suggested the core eudicots can be divided into two clades, Gunnerales and a clade called Pentapetalae, comprising all the remaining core eudicots
6.
Rosids
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The rosids are members of a large clade of flowering plants, containing about 70,000 species, more than a quarter of all angiosperms. The clade is divided into 16 to 20 orders, depending upon circumscription and classification and these orders, in turn, together comprise about 140 families. Fossil rosids are known from the Cretaceous period, molecular clock estimates indicate that the rosids originated in the Aptian or Albian stages of the Cretaceous, between 125 and 99.6 million years ago. The name is based upon the name Rosidae, which had usually been understood to be a subclass, in 1967, Armen Takhtajan showed that the correct basis for the name Rosidae is a description of a group of plants published in 1830 by Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling. The clade was later renamed Rosidae and has been variously delimited by different authors, the name rosids is informal and not assumed to have any particular taxonomic rank like the names authorized by the ICBN. The rosids are monophyletic based upon evidence found by molecular phylogenetic analysis, three different definitions of the rosids were used. Some authors included the orders Saxifragales and Vitales in the rosids, others excluded both of these orders. The circumscription used in this article is that of the APG IV classification, which includes Vitales, the rosids and Saxifragales form the superrosids clade. This is one of three groups compose the Pentapetalae, the others being Dilleniales and the superasterids. The rosids consist of two groups, the order Vitales and the eurosids, the eurosids, in turn, are divided into two groups, fabids and malvids. The rosids consist of 17 orders, in addition to Vitales, there are 8 orders in fabids and 8 orders in malvids. Some of the orders have only recently been recognized and these are Vitales, Zygophyllales, Crossosomatales, Picramniales, and Huerteales. The phylogeny of Rosids shown below is adapted from the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group website, the nitrogen-fixing clade contains a high number of actinorhizal plants. Not all plants in this clade are actinorhizal, however, media related to Rosids at Wikimedia Commons
7.
Sapindaceae
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The Sapindaceae are a family of flowering plants in the order Sapindales known as the soapberry family. It contains 138 genera and 1858 accepted species, including maple, ackee, horse chestnut, the Sapindaceae occur in temperate to tropical regions, many in laurel forest habitat, throughout the world. Many are laticiferous, i. e. they contain latex, a milky sap, the largest genera are Serjania, Paullinia, Acer and Allophylus. The largely temperate genera formerly separated in the families Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae were included within a broadly circumscribed Sapindaceae by the APG. Recent research has confirmed the inclusion of genera in Sapindaceae. Plants of this family have a variety of habits, from trees to herbaceous plants or lianas and their leaves usually spirally alternate, sometimes opposite. They are most often pinnately compound, sometimes palmately compound as in Aesculus, the petiole has a swollen base and lacks stipules. Some genera and species have laurel forest foliage due to convergent evolution, flowers are small and unisexual, or functionally unisexual, though plants may be either dioecious or monoecious. They are usually grouped in cymes grouped in panicles and they most often have four or five petals and sepals. The stamens range from four to ten, usually on a disc between the petals and stamen, their filaments are often hairy. The most frequent number is eight, in two rings of four, the gynoecium contains two or three carpels, sometimes up to six. There is usually only one style with a lobed stigma, most often pollinated by birds or insects, with a few species pollinated by wind. The fruits are fleshy or dry and they may be nuts, berries, drupes, schizocarps, capsules, or samaras. The embryos are bent or coiled, without endosperm in the seed, Sapindaceae are related to Rutaceae, and both are usually placed in an order Sapindales or Rutales, depending on whether they are kept separate and which name is used for the order. The most basal member appears to be Xanthoceras, some authors maintain some or all of Hippocastanaceae and Aceraceae, although this may result in paraphyly. The former Ptaeroxylaceae, now placed in Rutaceae, were placed in Sapindaceae. The family is divided into 4 subfamilies, Sapindaceae includes many species of economically valuable tropical fruit, including the lychee, longan, pitomba, guinip/mamoncillo, korlan, rambutan, pulasan and ackee. Other products include guarana, soapberries and maple syrup, some species of Maple and Buckeye are valued for their wood, while several other genera, such as Koelreuteria, Cardiospermum and Ungnadia, are popular ornamentals
8.
Maple
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Acer /ˈeɪsər/ is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple. There are approximately 128 species, most of which are native to Asia, with a number appearing in Europe, northern Africa. Only one species, Acer laurinum, extends to the Southern Hemisphere, the type species of the genus is the sycamore maple, Acer pseudoplatanus, the most common maple species in Europe. Most maples are trees growing to 10–45 m height, others are shrubs less than 10 meters tall with a number of small trunks originating at ground level. Most species are deciduous, and many are renowned for their autumn colour, but a few in southern Asia. Most are shade-tolerant when young and are often riparian, understory, many of the root systems are typically dense and fibrous, inhibiting the growth of other vegetation underneath them. A few species, notably Acer cappadocicum, frequently produce root sprouts, maples are distinguished by opposite leaf arrangement. The leaves in most species are palmate veined and lobed, with 3 to 9 veins each leading to a lobe, a small number of species differ in having palmate compound, pinnate compound, pinnate veined or unlobed leaves. Several species, including Acer griseum, Acer mandshuricum, Acer maximowiczianum, one species, Acer negundo, has pinnately compound leaves that may be simply trifoliate or may have five, seven, or rarely nine leaflets. A few, such as Acer laevigatum and Acer carpinifolium, have pinnately veined simple leaves, the flowers are regular, pentamerous, and borne in racemes, corymbs, or umbels. They have four or five sepals, four or five petals about 1 –6 mm long, four to ten stamens about 6 –10 mm long, and two pistils or a pistil with two styles. The ovary is superior and has two carpels, whose wings elongate the flowers, making it easy to tell which flowers are female. Maples flower in winter or early spring, in most species with or just after the appearance of the leaves. Maple flowers are green, yellow, orange or red, though individually small, the effect of an entire tree in flower can be striking in several species. Some maples are a spring source of pollen and nectar for bees. The distinctive fruits are called samaras, maple keys, helicopters and these seeds occur in distinctive pairs each containing one seed enclosed in a nutlet attached to a flattened wing of fibrous, papery tissue. They are shaped to spin as they fall and to carry the seeds a considerable distance on the wind, people often call them helicopters due to the way that they spin as they fall. During World War II, the US Army developed an air drop supply carrier that could carry up to 65 pounds of supplies and was based on the Maple seed
9.
Binomial nomenclature
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Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
10.
Carl Linnaeus
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Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
11.
Synonym (taxonomy)
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For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies. This name is no longer in use, it is now a synonym of the current scientific name which is Picea abies, unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms are not equals, but have a different status, for any taxon with a particular circumscription, position, and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation, it is always an alternative to a different scientific name, given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name that is one taxonomists synonym may be another taxonomists correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is described and named more than once, independently. They may also arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to one, a species is moved to a different genus. To the general user of scientific names, in such as agriculture, horticulture, ecology, general science. A synonym is a name that was used as the correct scientific name but which has been displaced by another scientific name. Thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as a name which has the same application as another. In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have mentioned as such after the current scientific name. Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the synonym in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes, they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural, a name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature, the earliest such name is called the senior synonym, while the later name is the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest correctly published name, synonyms are important because if the earliest name cannot be used, then the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. Objective synonyms refer to taxa with the type and same rank. For example, John Edward Gray published the name Antilocapra anteflexa in 1855 for a species of pronghorn, however, it is now commonly accepted that his specimen was an unusual individual of the species Antilocapra americana published by George Ord in 1815. Ords name thus takes precedence, with Antilocapra anteflexa being a subjective synonym. Objective synonyms are common at the level of genera, because for various reasons two genera may contain the type species, these are objective synonyms
12.
Sapindus
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Sapindus is a genus of about five to twelve species of shrubs and small trees in the Lychee family, Sapindaceae, native to warm temperate to tropical regions in both the Old World and New World. The genus includes both deciduous and evergreen species, members of the genus are commonly known as soapberries or soapnuts because the fruit pulp is used to make soap. The generic name is derived from the Latin words sapo, meaning soap, the leaves are alternate, 15–40 cm long, pinnate, with 14-30 leaflets, the terminal leaflet often absent. The flowers form in panicles, each flower small, creamy white. The fruit is a small leathery-skinned drupe 1–2 cm in diameter, yellow ripening blackish, the drupes contain saponins which are a natural surfactant. They have been used for washing by ancient people in Asia as well as Native Americans, Sapindus species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Endoclita malabaricus. Kernel extracts of soapnut disrupt the activity of enzymes of larvae and pupae and inhibits the growth of the mosquito Aedes aegypti, the number of species is disputed between different authors, particularly in North America where between one and three species are accepted. Sapindus delavayi Sapindus detergens Sapindus emarginatus Vahl Sapindus laurifolius Vahl – Ritha Sapindus marginatus Willd, – Florida Soapberry, included in S. saponaria by some authors. – Indian Soapberry Sapindus oahuensis Hillebr, Sapindus saponaria L. S. s. var. drummondii L. D. Benson – Western Soapberry S. s. var. saponaria – Wingleaf Soapberry Sapindus tomentosus Sapindus trifoliatus L. – South India Soapnut or Three-leaf Soapberry Sapindus vitiensis A. Gray Lepisanthes fruticosa Leenh, Flora of India, Sapindus Flora of Pakistan, Sapindus Flora of China, Sapindus species list
13.
Lychee
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The lychee is the sole member of the genus Litchi in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae. It is a fruit tree native to the Guangdong and Fujian provinces of China. China is the producer of lychees, followed by India, other countries in Southeast Asia. A tall evergreen tree, the lychee bears fleshy fruits. The outside of the fruit is pink-red, roughly textured and inedible, since the perfume-like flavor is lost in the process of canning, the fruit is usually eaten fresh. It was described and named by French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat in his account Voyage aux Indes orientales et à la Chine, fait depuis 1774 jusquà1781, there are three subspecies, determined by flower arrangement, twig thickness, fruit, and number of stamens. Chinensis is the only commercialized lychee and it grows wild in southern China, northern Vietnam, and Cambodia. It has thin twigs, flowers typically have six stamens, fruit are smooth or with protuberances up to 2 mm. Litchi chinensis subsp and it is common in the wild in the Philippines and rarely cultivated. It has thin twigs, six to seven stamens, long oval fruit with spiky protuberances up to 3 mm. Litchi chinensis subsp and it is only known in cultivation, in Malaysia and Indonesia. The bark is grey-black, the branches a brownish-red, leaves are 10 to 25 cm or longer, with leaflets in 2-4 pairs. Litchee have a similar foliage to the Lauraceae family likely due to convergent evolution and they are adapted by developing leaves that repel water, and are called laurophyll or lauroid leaves. Flowers grow on an inflorescence with many panicles on the current seasons growth. The panicles grow in clusters of ten or more, reaching 10 to 40 cm or longer, holding hundreds of white, yellow. The lychee bears fleshy fruits that mature in 80–112 days, depending on climate, location, Fruits vary in shape from round to ovoid to heart-shaped, up to 5 cm long and 4 cm wide, weighing approximately 20g. The thin, tough skin is green when immature, ripening to red or pink-red, the rind is inedible but easily removed to expose a layer of translucent white flesh with a floral smell and a fragrant, sweet flavor. The skin turns brown and dry when left out after harvesting, the fleshy, edible portion of the fruit is an aril, surrounding one dark brown inedible seed that is 1 to 3.3 cm long and 0.6 to 1.2 cm wide. Some cultivars produce a percentage of fruits with shriveled aborted seeds known as chicken tongues. These fruit typically have a price, due to having more edible flesh
14.
Deciduous
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In a more general sense, deciduous means the dropping of a part that is no longer needed or falling away after its purpose is finished. In plants it is the result of natural processes, in botany and horticulture, deciduous plants, including trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials, are those that lose all of their leaves for part of the year. In some cases leaf loss coincides with winter—namely in temperate or polar climates, in other parts of the world, including tropical, subtropical, and arid regions, plants lose their leaves during the dry season or other seasons, depending on variations in rainfall. The converse of deciduous is coniferous, where foliage is shed on a different schedule from deciduous trees, plants that are intermediate may be called semi-deciduous, they lose old foliage as new growth begins. Other plants are semi-evergreen and lose their leaves before the growing season. Many deciduous plants flower during the period when they are leafless, the absence of leaves improves wind transmission of pollen for wind-pollinated plants and increases the visibility of the flowers to insects in insect-pollinated plants. This strategy is not without risks, as the flowers can be damaged by frost or, in dry season regions, leaf drop or abscission involves complex physiological signals and changes within plants. The process of photosynthesis steadily degrades the supply of chlorophylls in foliage, the brightest leaf colors are produced when days grow short and nights are cool, but remain above freezing. These other pigments include carotenoids that are yellow, brown, anthocyanin pigments produce red and purple colors, though they are not always present in the leaves. Rather, they are produced in the foliage in late summer, parts of the world that have showy displays of bright autumn colors are limited to locations where days become short and nights are cool. In other parts of the world, the leaves of deciduous trees simply fall off without turning the bright colors produced from the accumulation of anthocyanin pigments, the beginnings of leaf drop starts when an abscission layer is formed between the leaf petiole and the stem. This layer is formed in the spring during active new growth of the leaf, the cells are sensitive to a plant hormone called auxin that is produced by the leaf and other parts of the plant. The elongation of cells break the connection between the different cell layers, allowing the leaf to break away from the plant. It also forms a layer that seals the break, so the plant does not lose sap, in the spring, these proteins are used as a nitrogen source during the growth of new leaves or flowers. Plants with deciduous foliage have advantages and disadvantages compared to plants with evergreen foliage, evergreens suffer greater water loss during the winter and they also can experience greater predation pressure, especially when small. Losing leaves in winter may reduce damage from insects, repairing leaves, removing leaves also reduces cavitation which can damage xylem vessels in plants. This then allows deciduous plants to have xylem vessels with larger diameters, the deciduous characteristic has developed repeatedly among woody plants. Trees include maple, many oaks and nothofagus, elm, aspen, Deciduous shrubs include honeysuckle, viburnum, and many others
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Central Europe
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Central Europe lies between Eastern Europe and Western Europe. The concept of Central Europe is based on a historical, social and cultural identity. Central Europe is going through a phase of strategic awakening, with such as the CEI, Centrope. While the regions economy shows high disparities with regard to income, elements of unity for Western and Central Europe were Roman Catholicism and Latin. According to Hungarian historian Jenő Szűcs, foundations of Central European history at the first millennium were in connection with Western European development. The keyword of Western social development after millennium was the spread of liberties and autonomies in Western Europe and these phenomena appeared in the middle of the 13th century in Central European countries. There were self-governments of towns, counties and parliaments, in 1335 under the rule of the King Charles I of Hungary, the castle of Visegrád, the seat of the Hungarian monarchs was the scene of the royal summit of the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary. They agreed to cooperate closely in the field of politics and commerce, in the Middle Ages, countries in Central Europe adopted Magdeburg rights. Before 1870, the industrialization that had developed in Western and Central Europe, even in Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind. Russia, for example, remained rural and agricultural. The concept of Central Europe was already known at the beginning of the 19th century, an example of that-time vision of Central Europe may be seen in J. Partsch’s book of 1903. On 21 January 1904, Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftsverein was established in Berlin with economic integration of Germany, another time, the term Central Europe became connected to the German plans of political, economic and cultural domination. The bible of the concept was Friedrich Naumann’s book Mitteleuropa in which he called for a federation to be established after the war. The concept failed after the German defeat in World War I, the revival of the idea may be observed during the Hitler era. According to Emmanuel de Martonne, in 1927 the Central European countries included, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, italy and Yugoslavia are not considered by the author to be Central European because they are located mostly outside Central Europe. The author use both Human and Physical Geographical features to define Central Europe, the interwar period brought new geopolitical system and economic and political problems, and the concept of Central Europe took a different character. The centre of interest was moved to its eastern part – the countries that have appeared on the map of Europe, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, however, the conflict of interests was too big and neither Little Entente nor Intermarium ideas succeeded. The interwar period brought new elements to the concept of Central Europe, after the war, the Eastern part of Central Europe was placed at the centre of the concept
16.
Western Asia
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Western Asia, West Asia, Southwestern Asia or Southwest Asia is the westernmost subregion of Asia. The concept is in limited use, as it overlaps with the Middle East. The term is used for the purposes of grouping countries in statistics. The total population of Western Asia is an estimated 300 million as of 2015, in an unrelated context, the term is also used in ancient history and archaeology to divide the Fertile Crescent into the Asiatic or Western Asian cultures as opposed to ancient Egypt. As a geographic concept, Western Asia almost always includes the Levant, Mesopotamia, the term is used pragmatically and has no correct or generally agreed-upon definition. In contrast to this definition, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in its 2015 yearbook also includes Armenia and Azerbaijan, unlike the UNIDO, the United Nations Statistics Division excludes Iran from Western Asia and include Turkey, Georgia, and Cyprus in the region. These four countries are listed in the European category of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, the Olympic Council of Asias multi-sport event West Asian Games are contested by athletes representing these thirteen countries. Among the regions sports organisations are the West Asia Basketball Association, West Asian Billiards and Snooker Federation, West Asian Football Federation, Western Asia was in use as a geographical term in the early 19th century, even before Near East became current as a geopolitical concept. Use of the term in the context of contemporary geopolitics or world economy appears to date from the 1960s, Western Asia is located directly south of Eastern Europe. The region is surrounded by seven major seas, the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. The Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut deserts in eastern Iran naturally delimit the region somewhat from Asia itself, three major tectonic plates converge on Western Asia, including the African, Eurasian, and Arabian plates. The boundaries between the plates make up the Azores-Gibraltar Ridge, extending across North Africa, the Red Sea. The Arabian Plate is moving northward into the Anatolian plate at the East Anatolian Fault, several major aquifers provide water to large portions of Western Asia. In Saudi Arabia, two large aquifers of Palaeozoic and Triassic origins are located beneath the Jabal Tuwayq mountains and areas west to the Red Sea. Cretaceous and Eocene-origin aquifers are located beneath large portions of central and eastern Saudi Arabia, including Wasia, flood or furrow irrigation, as well as sprinkler methods, are extensively used for irrigation, covering nearly 90,000 km² across Western Asia for agriculture. Western Asia is primarily arid and semi-arid, and can be subject to drought, the region consists of grasslands, rangelands, deserts, and mountains. Water shortages are a problem in parts of West Asia, with rapidly growing populations increasing demands for water. Major rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates, provide sources for water to support agriculture
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France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
18.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
19.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
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Caucasus
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The Caucasus /ˈkɔːkəsəs/ or Caucasia /kɔːˈkeɪʒə/ is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europes highest mountain, politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The southern parts consist of independent sovereign states, and the parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The region is known for its diversity, aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages, the Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian. Pliny the Elders Natural History derives the name of the Caucasus from Scythian kroy-khasis, German linguist Paul Kretschmer notes that the Latvian word Kruvesis also means ice. According to German philologists Otto Schrader and Alfons A. Nehring, the South Caucasus region and southern Dagestan were the furthest points of Persian expansions, with areas to the north of Caucasus Mountains practically impregnable. The mythological mountain of Qaf, the worlds highest mountain that ancient lore shrouded in mystery, was said to be situated in this region, therefore, the Caucasus might be associated with the legendary mountain. The Ciscaucasus contains the majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands, all of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are in South Caucasus. The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the line between Asia and Europe. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, the Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, three territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful or by no independent states, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognised by the majority of independent states as part of Georgia, the Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. The region has many different languages and language families, there are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region. Russian is used as a common language, today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the part of the region. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world
21.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
22.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
23.
British Isles
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The British Isles are a group of islands off the north-western coast of continental Europe that consist of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. Situated in the North Atlantic, the islands have an area of approximately 315,159 km2. Two sovereign states are located on the islands, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the oldest rocks in the group are in the north west of Scotland, Ireland and North Wales and are 2,700 million years old. During the Silurian period the north-western regions collided with the south-east, the topography of the islands is modest in scale by global standards. Ben Nevis rises to an elevation of only 1,344 metres, and Lough Neagh, the climate is temperate marine, with mild winters and warm summers. The North Atlantic Drift brings significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 °C above the average for the latitude. This led to a landscape which was dominated by temperate rainforest. The region was re-inhabited after the last glacial period of Quaternary glaciation, Ireland, which became an island by 12,000 BC, was not inhabited until after 8000 BC. Great Britain became an island by 5600 BC, Hiberni, Pictish and Britons tribes, all speaking Insular Celtic, inhabited the islands at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. Much of Brittonic-controlled Britain was conquered by the Roman Empire from AD43, the first Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century and eventually dominated the bulk of what is now England. Viking invasions began in the 9th century, followed by permanent settlements. Most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence, the term British Isles is controversial in Ireland, where there are objections to its usage due to the association of the word British with Ireland. The Government of Ireland does not recognise or use the term, as a result, Britain and Ireland is used as an alternative description, and Atlantic Archipelago has had limited use among a minority in academia, while British Isles is still commonly employed. Within them, they are sometimes referred to as these islands. The earliest known references to the islands as a group appeared in the writings of sea-farers from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia. The original records have been lost, however, later writings, e. g. Avienuss Ora maritima, in the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus has Prettanikē nēsos, the British Island, and Prettanoi, the Britons. Strabo used Βρεττανική, and Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, historians today, though not in absolute agreement, largely agree that these Greek and Latin names were probably drawn from native Celtic-language names for the archipelago. Along these lines, the inhabitants of the islands were called the Πρεττανοί, the shift from the P of Pretannia to the B of Britannia by the Romans occurred during the time of Julius Caesar
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Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
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North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
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Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
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New Zealand
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New Zealand /njuːˈziːlənd/ is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu—and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, the countrys varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealands capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland, sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that later were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, in 1840, representatives of Britain and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire, today, the majority of New Zealands population of 4.7 million is of European descent, the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealands culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, New Zealand is a developed country and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, education, economic freedom and quality of life. Since the 1980s, New Zealand has transformed from an agrarian, Queen Elizabeth II is the countrys head of state and is represented by a governor-general. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes, the Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau, the Cook Islands and Niue, and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealands territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, in 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand, Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the country before the arrival of Europeans. Māori had several names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North, Middle and South, in 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised and this set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu
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Invasive species
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One study pointed out widely divergent perceptions of the criteria for invasive species among researchers and concerns with the subjectivity of the term invasive. Such invasive species may be either plants or animals and may disrupt by dominating a region, wilderness areas, particular habitats and this includes non-native invasive plant species labeled as exotic pest plants and invasive exotics growing in native plant communities. It has been used in this sense by government organizations as well as groups such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The European Union defines Invasive Alien Species as those that are, firstly, outside their natural distribution area and it is also used by land managers, botanists, researchers, horticulturalists, conservationists, and the public for noxious weeds. The kudzu vine, Andean Pampas grass, and yellow starthistle are examples, an alternate usage broadens the term to include indigenous or native species along with non-native species, that have colonized natural areas. Deer are an example, considered to be overpopulating their native zones and adjacent suburban gardens, by some in the Northeastern, sometimes the term is used to describe a non-native or introduced species that has become widespread. However, not every introduced species has adverse effects on the environment, a nonadverse example is the common goldfish, which is found throughout the United States, but rarely achieves high densities. Scientists include species and ecosystem factors among the mechanisms that when combined, while all species compete to survive, invasive species appear to have specific traits or specific combinations of traits that allow them to outcompete native species. In some cases, the competition is about rates of growth, in other cases, species interact with each other more directly. Researchers disagree about the usefulness of traits as invasiveness markers, one study found that of a list of invasive and noninvasive species, 86% of the invasive species could be identified from the traits alone. Another study found invasive species tended to have only a subset of the presumed traits. Repeated patterns of movement, such as ships sailing to and from ports or cars driving up. An introduced species might become if it can outcompete native species for resources such as nutrients, light, physical space, water. If these species evolved under great competition or predation, then the new environment may host fewer able competitors, allowing the invader to proliferate quickly. Ecosystems in which are being used to their fullest capacity by native species can be modeled as zero-sum systems in which any gain for the invader is a loss for the native, however, such unilateral competitive superiority is not the rule. For example, barbed goatgrass was introduced to California on serpentine soils, which have low water-retention, low nutrient levels, a high magnesium/calcium ratio, and possible heavy metal toxicity. Plant populations on these soils tend to low density, but goatgrass can form dense stands on these soils. Some species, like Kalanchoe daigremontana, produce allelopathic compounds, that might have an effect on competing species
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Crown (botany)
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The crown of a plant refers to the totality of an individual plants aboveground parts, including stems, leaves, and reproductive structures. A plant community consists of one or more plant crowns growing in a given area. The crown of a plant is the branches, leaves. Shapes of crowns are highly variable, the major types for trees are the excurrent branching habit resulting in conoid shapes and decurrent branching habit, resulting in round shapes. Crowns are also characterized by their width, depth, surface area, volume, measurements of crowns are important in quantifying and qualifying plant health, growth stage, and efficiency. These functions are performed by the leaves, branches of the crown provide mechanical support to distribute the leaves efficiently and serve as conduits for resources to perform these functions. Trees can be described as fitting different crown classes, kraft designated these social classes based on temperate and boreal forests in Mitteleuropa, so they do not necessarily work with every forest type in the world. Apical dominance Canopy Canopy Diameter at breast height Fruit tree forms Growth habit Habit Pruning Stratification Tree crown measurement Understory Tree crown Kozlowski, T. Kramer, P. Pallardy, the physiological ecology of woody plants
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Bark (botany)
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Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines, and shrubs, Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the bark and the outer bark. The inner bark, which in older stems is living tissue, the outer bark in older stems includes the dead tissue on the surface of the stems, along with parts of the innermost periderm and all the tissues on the outer side of the periderm. The outer bark on trees which lies external to the last formed periderm is also called the rhytidome, Bark has been used to make cloth, canoes, and ropes and used as a surface for paintings and map making. A number of plants are grown for their attractive or interesting bark colorations. What is commonly called bark includes a number of different tissues, Cork is an external, secondary tissue that is impermeable to water and gases, and is also called the phellem. The cork is produced by the cork cambium which is a layer of active cells which serve as a lateral meristem for the periderm. The cork cambium, which is called the phellogen, is normally only one cell layer thick. The phelloderm, which is not always present in all barks, is a layer of cells formed by, together, the phellem, phellogen and phelloderm constitute the periderm. Cork cell walls contain suberin, a substance which protects the stem against water loss, the invasion of insects into the stem. The cambium tissues, i. e. Phloem is a nutrient-conducting tissue composed of sieve tubes or sieve cells mixed with parenchyma, the cortex is the primary tissue of stems and roots. In stems the cortex is between the layer and the phloem, in roots the inner layer is not phloem. From the outside to the inside of a woody stem. The bark includes through, and is composed of periderm and phloem, as the stem ages and grows, changes occur that transform the surface of the stem into the bark. The epidermis is a layer of cells that cover the plant body, including the stems, leaves, flowers and fruits, in old stems the epidermal layer, cortex, and primary phloem become separated from the inner tissues by thicker formations of cork. Due to the cork layer these cells die because they do not receive water. This dead layer is the rough corky bark that forms around tree trunks, often a secondary covering called the periderm forms on small woody stems and many non woody plants, which is composed of cork, the cork cambium, and the phelloderm
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Petiole (botany)
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In botany, the petiole is the stalk that attaches the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole is the transition between the stem and the leaf blade, outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole in some species are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile or epetiolate, the petiole is a stalk that attaches a leaf to the plant stem. In petiolate leaves, the stalk may be long, as in the leaves of celery and rhubarb, short or completely absent. Subpetiolate leaves are petiolate, or have an extremely short petiole. The broomrape family Orobanchaceae is an example of a family in which the leaves are always sessile, in some other plant groups, such as the speedwell genus Veronica, petiolate and sessile leaves may occur in different species. In the grasses the leaves are apetiolate, but the blade may be narrowed at the junction with the leaf sheath to form a pseudopetiole. In plants with leaves, the leaflets are attached to a continuation of the petiole called the rachis. Each leaflet may be attached to the rachis by a stalk called the petiolule. There may be swollen regions at either end of the known as pulvina that are composed of a flexible tissue that allows leaf movement. Pulvina are common in the bean family Fabaceae and the plant family Marantaceae. A pulvinus on a petiolule is called a pulvinulus, in some plants, the petioles are flattened and widened, to become phyllodes or phyllodia, or cladophylls and the true leaves may be reduced or absent. Thus, the comes to serve the functions of the leaf. Phyllodes are common in the genus Acacia, especially the Australian species, in Acacia koa, the phyllodes are leathery and thick, allowing the tree to survive stressful environments. The petiole allows partially submerged hydrophytes to have leaves floating at different depths, in plants such as rhubarb, celery, artichokes and cardoons the petioles are cultivated as edible crops. The petiole of rhubarb grows directly from the rhizome and produces the leaf at its end, botanically it is categorized as a vegetable and culinarily used as a fruit. Petiole is pronounced /ˈpiːtᵻoʊl/ and comes from Latin petiolus, or peciolus little foot, stem, the regular diminutive pediculus is also used for foot stalk
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Panicle
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A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. Some authors distinguish it from a spike, by requiring that the flowers be pedicellate. The branches of a panicle are often racemes, a panicle may have determinate or indeterminate growth. This type of inflorescence is largely characteristic of such as oat and crabgrass, as well as other plants such as pistachio. Botanists use the term paniculate in two ways, having a true panicle inflorescence as well as having an inflorescence with the form but not necessarily the structure of a panicle. A corymb may have a branching structure, with the lower flowers having longer pedicels than the upper. Many species in the Maloideae, such as hawthorns and rowans, thyrse, a branched inflorescence where the main axis has indeterminate growth, and the branches have determinate growth
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Pollen
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Pollen is a fine to coarse powdery substance comprising pollen grains which are male microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce male gametes. If pollen lands on a compatible pistil or female cone, it germinates, individual pollen grains are small enough to require magnification to see detail. The study of pollen is called palynology and is useful in paleoecology, paleontology, archaeology. Pollen in plants is used for transferring haploid male genetic material from the anther of a flower to the stigma of another in cross-pollination. In a case of self-pollination, this takes place from the anther of a flower to the stigma of the same flower. Pollen itself is not the male gamete, each pollen grain contains vegetative cells and a generative cell. In flowering plants the vegetative tube cell produces the pollen tube, pollen is produced in the microsporangia in the male cone of a conifer or other gymnosperm or in the anthers of an angiosperm flower. Pollen grains come in a variety of shapes, sizes. Pollen grains of pines, firs, and spruces are winged, the smallest pollen grain, that of the forget-me-not, is around 6 µm in diameter. Wind-borne pollen grains can be as large as about 90–100 µm, in angiosperms, during flower development the anther is composed of a mass of cells that appear undifferentiated, except for a partially differentiated dermis. As the flower develops, four groups of cells form within the anther. The fertile sporogenous cells are surrounded by layers of cells that grow into the wall of the pollen sac. Some of the cells grow into nutritive cells that supply nutrition for the microspores that form by meiotic division from the sporogenous cells, in a process called microsporogenesis, four haploid microspores are produced from each diploid sporogenous cell, after meiotic division. After the formation of the four microspores, which are contained by callose walls, the exine is what is preserved in the fossil record. Two basic types of microsporogenesis are recognised, simultaneous and successive, in simultaneous microsporogenesis meiotic steps I and II are completed prior to cytokinesis, whereas in successive microsporogenesis cytokinesis follows. While there may be a continuum with intermediate forms, the type of microsporogenesis has systematic significance, the predominant form amongst the monocots is successive, but there are important exceptions. During microgametogenesis, the unicellular microspores undergo mitosis and develop into mature microgametophytes containing the gametes, in some flowering plants, germination of the pollen grain may begin even before it leaves the microsporangium, with the generative cell forming the two sperm cells. Except in the case of submerged aquatic plants, the mature pollen grain has a double wall
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Nectar
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Common nectar-consuming pollinators include mosquitoes, hoverflies, wasps, bees, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds, and bats. M. scutellata and the honey bee. Nectar is an important item, the sugar source for honey. It is also useful in agriculture and horticulture because the adult stages of some predatory insects feed on nectar, for example, the social wasp species Apoica flavissima relies on nectar as a primary food source. In turn, these wasps then hunt agricultural pest insects as food for their young, for example, thread-waisted wasps are known for hunting caterpillars that are destructive to crops. Caterpillars however, do eventually become butterflies and moths, which are important pollinators. Nectar secretion increases as the flower is visited by pollinators, after pollination, the nectar is frequently reabsorbed into the plant. Nectar is derived from Greek nektar, the drink of the gods. The current meaning, sweet liquid in flowers, is first recorded in AD1600, floral nectaries are generally located at the base of the perianth, so pollinators are made to brush the flowers reproductive structures, the stamen and pistil, while accessing the nectar. A septal nectary is nectar-producing tissue that is found in the wall of a plant ovary, septal nectaries function as a way of attracting pollinators. Plants that rely on insects, birds, or bats for pollination often have septal nectaries, aside from attracting pollinators, septal nectaries have also been known to attract plant protectors. Some plants, like Ruellia radicans, have nectaries that continue to secrete nectar even after the petals have been shed and this attracts ants which will in turn protect the developing fruits of the plant from seed predators and herbivores in exchange for nectar. Extrafloral nectaries are nectar-secreting plant glands that develop outside of flowers and are not involved in pollination and they are highly diverse in form, location, size, and mechanism. They have been described in virtually all above-ground plant parts—including leaves, petioles, stipules, cotyledons, fruits and they range from single-celled trichomes to complex cup-like structures that may or may not be vascularized. In contrast to floral nectaries, nectar produced outside the flower generally have a defensive function, the nectar attracts predatory insects which will eat both the nectar and any plant-eating insects around, thus functioning as bodyguards. Foraging predatory insects show a preference for plants with extrafloral nectaries, particularly species of ants and wasps. Among passion flowers, for example, extrafloral nectaries prevent herbivores by attracting ants, in many carnivorous plants, extrafloral nectaries are also used to attract insect prey. Extrafloral nectaries were originally believed to simply be excretory in nature and their defensive functions were first recognized by the Italian botanist Federico Delpino in his important monograph Funzione mirmecofila nel regno vegetale
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Germination
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Germination is the process by which a plant grows from a seed. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, in addition, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of hyphae from fungal spores, is also germination. Thus, in a sense, germination can be thought of as anything expanding into greater being from a small existence or germ. The seed of a plant is a small package produced in a fruit or cone after the union of male and female reproductive cells. All fully developed seeds contain an embryo and, in most plant species some store of food reserves, some plants produce varying numbers of seeds that lack embryos, these are called empty seeds and never germinate. Dormant seeds are seeds that do not germinate because they are subject to external environmental conditions that prevent the initiation of metabolic processes. Under proper conditions, the seed begins to germinate and the embryonic tissues resume growth, Seed germination depends on both internal and external conditions. The most important external factors include right temperature, water, oxygen or air, various plants require different variables for successful seed germination. Often this depends on the seed variety and is closely linked to the ecological conditions of a plants natural habitat. For some seeds, their future germination response is affected by environmental conditions during seed formation, mature seeds are often extremely dry and need to take in significant amounts of water, relative to the dry weight of the seed, before cellular metabolism and growth can resume. Most seeds need enough water to moisten the seeds but not enough to soak them, the uptake of water by seeds is called imbibition, which leads to the swelling and the breaking of the seed coat. When seeds are formed, most plants store a reserve with the seed, such as starch, proteins. This food reserve provides nourishment to the growing embryo, when the seed imbibes water, hydrolytic enzymes are activated which break down these stored food resources into metabolically useful chemicals. Oxygen is required by the seed for metabolism. Oxygen is used in respiration, the main source of the seedlings energy until it grows leaves. Oxygen is a gas that is found in soil pore spaces, if a seed is buried too deeply within the soil or the soil is waterlogged. Temperature affects cellular metabolic and growth rates, Seeds from different species and even seeds from the same plant germinate over a wide range of temperatures. Seeds often have a range within which they will germinate
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Biodiversity
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Biodiversity, a contraction of biological diversity, generally refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. One of the most widely used definitions defines it in terms of the variability within species and it is a measure of the variety of organisms present in different ecosystems. This can refer to genetic variation, ecosystem variation, or species variation within an area, biome, terrestrial biodiversity tends to be greater near the equator, which seems to be the result of the warm climate and high primary productivity. Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth, and is richest in the tropics and these tropical forest ecosystems cover less than 10 per cent of earths surface, and contain about 90 percent of the worlds species. Marine biodiversity tends to be highest along coasts in the Western Pacific, there are latitudinal gradients in species diversity. Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots, and has been increasing through time, the number and variety of plants, animals and other organisms that exist is known as biodiversity. It is a component of nature and it ensures the survival of human species by providing food, fuel, shelter, medicines. The richness of biodiversity depends on the conditions and area of the region. All species of plants taken together are known as flora and about 300,000 species of plants are known to date, all species of animals taken together are known as fauna which includes birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, insects, crustaceans, molluscs, etc. Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions, more than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. Estimates on the number of Earths current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described, the total amount of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037 and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC. In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living on Earth. The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old, there are microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia. Other early physical evidence of a substance is graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old meta-sedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland. More recently, in 2015, remains of life were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. According to one of the researchers, If life arose relatively quickly on Earth, then it could be common in the universe
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Ornamental plant
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Ornamental plants are plants that are grown for decorative purposes in gardens and landscape design projects, as houseplants, for cut flowers and specimen display. The cultivation of these, called floriculture, forms a branch of horticulture. Commonly, ornamental plants are grown for the display of aesthetic features including, leaves, scent, overall foliage texture, fruit, stem and bark, and aesthetic form. In some cases, unusual features may be considered to be of interest, such as the prominent thorns of Rosa sericea, in all cases, their purpose is for the enjoyment of gardeners, visitors, and the public institutions. Similarly certain trees may be called ornamental trees and this term is used when they are used as part of a garden, park, or landscape setting, for instance for their flowers, their texture, form, size and shape, and other aesthetic characteristics. In some countries trees in utilitarian landscape use such as screening, for plants to be considered to be ornamental, they may require specific work and activity by a gardener. Ornamental plants and trees are distinguished from utilitarian and crop plants, such as used for agriculture and vegetable crops. This does not preclude any type of plant being grown both for ornamental qualities in the garden, and for utilitarian purposes in other settings. Thus lavender is typically grown as a plant in gardens. The term ornamental plant is used here in the sense that it is generally used in the horticultural trades. The term largely corresponds to garden plant, though the latter is less precise. Ornamental plants are plants which are grown for display purposes, rather than functional ones, Ornamental plants are the keystone of ornamental gardening, and they come in a range of shapes, sizes and colors suitable to a broad array of climates, landscapes, and gardening needs. Some ornamental plants are grown for showy foliage and their foliage may be deciduous, turning bright orange, red, and yellow before dropping off in the fall, or evergreen, in which case it stays green year-round. Other ornamental plants are cultivated for their blooms, flowering ornamentals are a key aspect of many gardens, with many flower gardeners preferring to plant a variety of flowers so that the garden is continuously in flower through the spring and summer. Media related to Ornamental plants at Wikimedia Commons
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Sap
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Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant, sap is not to be confused with latex, resin or cell sap, it is a separate substance, separately produced, and with different components and functions. Saps may be divided into two types, xylem sap and phloem sap. Xylem sap consists primarily of a solution of hormones, mineral elements. Transport of sap in xylem is characterized by movement from the roots toward the leaves, xylem sap transport can be disrupted by cavitation—an abrupt phase change from liquid to vapor—resulting in air-filled xylem conduits. Phloem sap consists primarily of sugars, hormones, and mineral elements dissolved in water and it flows from where carbohydrates are produced or stored to where they are used. The pressure flow hypothesis proposes a mechanism for phloem sap transport, although other hypotheses have been proposed. Phloem sap is also thought to play a role in sending informational signals throughout vascular plants, loading and unloading patterns are largely determined by the conductivity and number of plasmodesmata and the position-dependent function of solute-specific, plasma membrane transport proteins. Recent evidence indicates that proteins and RNA are part of the plants long-distance communication signaling system. Evidence also exists for the transport and sorting of macromolecules as they pass through plasmodesmata. A large number of insects of the order Hemiptera, feed directly on phloem sap, a much larger set of animals do however consume phloem sap by proxy, either through feeding on the honeydew of phloem-feeding hemipterans. Maple syrup is made from reduced sugar maple sap, the sap often is harvested from the Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum. In some countries harvesting the early spring sap of trees for human consumption is common practice. Preparations made from the sap of Aloe vera are widely used for their purported soothing, moisturizing, Aloe vera gel is also used as an ingredient in commercially available lotions, yogurt, beverages, and some desserts. Note, however, that so-called aloe products such as aloes and they are largely distinct substances, different from each other and different from the true phloem and cellular saps. They also are produced in different cellular structures, much as other materials such as latex. Certain palm tree sap can be used to make palm syrup, in the Canary Islands they use the Canary Island Date Palm while in Chile they use the Chilean Wine Palm to make their syrup called miel de palma
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Alcoholic drink
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Long-term use can lead to alcohol abuse, physical dependence, and alcoholism. Drinking alcohol plays an important social role in many cultures, most countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption, some countries ban such activities entirely. However, alcoholic drinks are legal in most parts of the world, the global alcoholic drink industry exceeded $1 trillion in 2014. Alcohol is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. For instance, in 2015, among Americans, 89% of adults had consumed alcohol at point, 70% had drunk it in the last year. Alcoholic drinks are divided into three classes—beers, wines, and spirits—and typically contain between 3% and 40% alcohol by volume. Discovery of late Stone Age jugs suggest that intentionally fermented drinks existed at least as early as the Neolithic period, wine is a fermented beverage produced from grapes. Wine involves a longer process than beer and also a long aging process. Sparkling wine can be made by means of a secondary fermentation, fruit wines are made from fruits other than grapes, such as plums, cherries, or apples. Sake is an example of rice wine. Beer is a beverage fermented from grain mash and it is made from barley or a blend of several grains. If the fermented mash is distilled, then the drink is a spirit, beer is the most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world. Cider or cyder is an alcoholic drink made from any fruit juice, apple juice, peaches. Cider alcohol content varies from 1. 2% ABV to 8. 5% or more in traditional English ciders, in some regions, cider may be called apple wine. Mead is a drink created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains. The alcoholic content of mead may range from about 8% ABV to more than 20%, the defining characteristic of mead is that the majority of the drinks fermentable sugar is derived from honey. A distilled drink or liquor is a drink produced by distilling ethanol produced by means of fermenting grain, fruit. Unsweetened, distilled, alcoholic drinks that have a content of at least 20% ABV are called spirits
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Species description
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A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species which have been described previously. The species description often contains photographs or other illustrations of the type material, the publication in which the species is described gives the new species a formal scientific name. Today, some 1.9 million species have been described and named and it is customary for scientists to introduce all relevant new findings and research in a scientific manuscript, which is sent to other scientists for peer review. If accepted, it is published in a journal of the appropriate discipline or in a book. Descriptions and naming of a new species or other taxa follow the same process, a name of a new species becomes valid with the date of publication of its formal scientific description. A scientific species description must fulfill several formal criteria specified by the nomenclature codes, Species names are written in the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, but many species names are based on words from other languages, Latinized. Once the manuscript has been accepted for publication, the new name is officially created. Once a species name has been assigned and approved, it can not be changed except in the case of error. For example, a species of beetle was named by a German collector after Adolf Hitler in 1933 when he had become chancellor of Germany. It is not clear whether such a dedication would be considered acceptable or appropriate today, Species names have been chosen on many different bases. Most common is a naming for the external appearance, its origin. Examples would include a bat species named for the two stripes on its back, a named for its Bolivian origin, and an ant species dedicated to the actor Harrison Ford. A scientific name in honor of a person or persons is a known as a taxonomic patronym or patronymic, a number of humorous species names also exist. Literary examples include the genus name Borogovia, which is named after the borogove, a second example, Macrocarpaea apparata was named after the magical spell to apparate from the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling, as it seemed to appear out of nowhere. For example, the genus Victoria was named in honour of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, more recently, a species of lemur was named after the actor John Cleese in recognition of his work to publicize the plight of lemurs in Madagascar. Non-profit ecological organizations may also allow benefactors to name new species in exchange for support for taxonomic research. A German non-profit organisation, BIOPAT - Patrons for Biodiversity has raised more than $450,000 for research, the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants discourages this practice somewhat, Recommendation 20A
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Species Plantarum
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Species Plantarum is a book by Carl Linnaeus, originally published in 1753, which lists every species of plant known at the time, classified into genera. It is the first work to consistently apply binomial names and was the point for the naming of plants. Species Plantarum was published on 1 May 1753 by Laurentius Salvius in Stockholm, a second edition was published in 1762–1763, and a third edition in 1764, although this scarcely differed from the second. Species Plantarum was the first botanical work to apply the binomial nomenclature system of naming to any large group of organisms. The use of names had originally been developed as a kind of shorthand in a student project about the plants eaten by cattle. After the specific epithet, Linnaeus gave a description of each species. Because it is the first work in which binomial nomenclature was consistently applied, Species Plantarum contained descriptions of the thousands of plant species known to Linnaeus at the time. In the first edition, there were 5,940 names, in his introduction, Linnaeus estimated that there were fewer than 10,000 plant species in existence, there are now thought to be around 400,000 species of flowering plants alone. The species were arranged in around a thousand genera, which were grouped into 24 classes, 1–2 at Biodiversity Heritage Library facsimile Species Plantarum, vol. 1, vol.2 at Botanicus Species Plantarum at Project Guttenberg I-III IV-V VI-X XI-XIII text Linnaeus Link Union Catalogue
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Type species
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A similar concept is used for suprageneric groups called a type genus. In botanical nomenclature, these terms have no standing under the code of nomenclature. In botany, the type of a name is a specimen which is also the type of a species name. The species name that has that type can also be referred to as the type of the genus name, names of genus and family ranks, the various subdivisions of those ranks, and some higher-rank names based on genus names, have such types. In bacteriology, a species is assigned for each genus. Every named genus or subgenus in zoology, whether or not currently recognized as valid, is associated with a type species. In practice, however, there is a backlog of untypified names defined in older publications when it was not required to specify a type, a type species is both a concept and a practical system that is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals. The type species represents the species and thus definition for a particular genus name. In the Glossary, type species is defined as The nominal species that is the type of a nominal genus or subgenus. The type species permanently attaches a formal name to a genus by providing just one species within that genus to which the name is permanently linked. The species name in turn is fixed, in theory, to a type specimen, for example, the type species for the land snail genus Monacha is Monacha cartusiana. That genus is placed within the family Hygromiidae. The type genus for that family is the genus Hygromia, the concept of the type species in zoology was introduced by Pierre André Latreille. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature states that the name of the type species should always be cited. It gives an example in Article 67.1, Astacus marinus Fabricius,1775 was later designated as the type species of the genus Homarus, thus giving it the name Homarus marinus. However, the species of Homarus should always be cited using its original name. 3, the type of the genus name Elodes is quoted as the type of the species name Hypericum aegypticum, Glossary of scientific naming Genetypes – genetic sequence data from type specimens. Holotype Paratype Principle of Typification Type Type genus
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Form (botany)
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In botanical nomenclature, a form is one of the secondary taxonomic ranks, below that of variety, which in turn is below that of species, it is an infraspecific taxon. The abbreviation f. or the full forma should be put before the infraspecific epithet to indicate the rank, for example, Acanthocalycium spiniflorum f. klimpelianum or Acanthocalycium spiniflorum forma klimpelianum Donald Crataegus aestivalis Torr. & A. Gray var. cerasoides Sarg. f. luculenta Sarg. is a classification of a plant whose name is, a form usually designates a group with a noticeable morphological deviation. The usual taxonomic practice is that the individuals classified within the form are not necessarily known to be closely related, for instance, white-flowered plants of species that usually have coloured flowers can be grouped and named. Formae apomicticae are sometimes named among plants that reproduce asexually, by apomixis, there are theoretically countless numbers of forms based on minor genetic differences, and only a few that have particular significance are likely to be named. Form Forma specialis, a rank used for a parasitic form adapted to a particular host Trinomial nomenclature Variety Subvariety Plant variety Cultivar Hybrid Race
. PMID 23595268.
