1.
Houseplant
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A houseplant is a plant that is grown indoors in places such as residences and offices. Houseplants are commonly grown for decorative purposes, positive psychological effects, plants used in this fashion are most commonly, though not always, tropical or semi-tropical epiphytes, succulents or cacti. Houseplants need the correct moisture, light levels, soil mixture, temperature, as well, houseplants need the proper fertilizer and correct-sized pots. Major factors that should be considered when caring for houseplants are moisture, light, soil mixture, temperature, humidity, fertilizers, potting, the following includes some general guidelines for houseplant care. For specific houseplant needs, the tags that sometimes come with plants are notoriously unhelpful, specific care information may be found widely online and in books. Both under-watering and over-watering can be detrimental to a houseplant, the best way to determine whether a plant needs water is to check the soil moisture. Feeling the soil is most reliable, since moisture meters are often inaccurate, most potted plants must be allowed to reach an appropriate level of dryness in between waterings, though the amount of watering required varies greatly depending on the species. Proper soil moisture can range from slightly moist on the soil surface to very dry to nearly the bottom of the pot. Watering a plant by the calendar is not recommended, if a plant does need to be watered, water should be slowly poured over the surface of the soil until it begins to drain out the bottom of the pot, ensuring complete saturation. If this is the case, it may be necessary to set the plant in a dish of water long enough for it to soak up enough water to moisten the rootball to its center. Repotting should be done only when necessary, since the roots of a plant that is in a large pot may rot. Through the process of photosynthesis, plants convert the energy in sunlight to chemical energy, the two important factors for providing light to a house plant are intensity and duration. Different plants require different light intensities, intensity of light is difficult to measure without a light meter. It is usually measured in units of lux.100 lux or less is considered low intensity or indirect lighting. A bright office has about 400 lux of illumination,1,000 lux or more is usually considered high intensity lighting. Direct outdoor sunlight is in the range 32, 000-100,000 lux, the duration of light exposure is as important as the intensity. Quality exposure of 8 to 16 hours is ideal for most plants, photoperiodism must also be considered, since some plants such as Poinsettia and Schlumbergera are influenced by either decreasing or increasing daylight hours. Windows are the most common sources of light for houseplants, in the Northern Hemisphere, south-facing windows have the most sun exposure, while western, eastern, and north-facing windows have progressively less exposure
2.
Hippeastrum
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Hippeastrum /ˌhɪpiːˈæstrəm/ is a genus of about 90 species and over 600 hybrids and cultivars of perennial herbaceous bulbous plants. They generally have large fleshy bulbs and tall broad leaves, generally evergreen, Hippeastrum is a genus in the family Amaryllidaceae The name Hippeastrum, given to it by William Herbert, means Knights-star-lily, although precisely what Herbert meant by the name is not certain. By contrast the generic name Amaryllis applies to bulbs from South Africa, the genus is native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas from Argentina north to Mexico and the Caribbean. Reproduction is generally by allogamy and Hippeastrum may be propagated by seed or offset bulbils, although commercial ventures use in vitro techniques, the genus has been intensely bred and cultivated since the early nineteenth century to produce large colourful showy flowers. In temperate climes these can be placed outside in the summer, the bulbs are generally between 5–12 cm in diameter and produce two to seven long-lasting evergreen or deciduous leaves that are 30–90 cm long and 2. 5–5 cm wide. The leaves are hysteranthous, sessile, rarely persistent and subpetiolate, depending on the species, there are two to fifteen large showy flowers, which are more or less zygomophic and hermaphrodite. Each flower is 13–20 cm across, and the species are usually purple or red. They are funnelform and declinate in shape, the perianth has six brightly colored tepals that may be similar in appearance or very different. The perianth segments are subequal or unequal, the tepals are united at the base to form a short tube, usually with a rudimentary scaly paraperigonium with fimbriae or a callose ridge present at the throat. The androecium consists of six stamens with filiform filaments, which are fasciculate and declinate or ascendent, the anthers are dorsifixed or versatile. In the gynaecium, the ovary is inferior and trilocular with pluriovulate locules, the style is filiform, and the stigma trifid. The taxonomy of the genus is complicated, the first issue is whether the name should more properly be Amaryllis L. In 1753 Carl Linnaeus created the name Amaryllis belladonna, the species of the genus Amaryllis. Linnaeus had earlier worked on the Estate of George Clifford near Haarlem between 1735 and 1737 describing the plants growing there in his Hortus Cliffortianus in 1738 and it is to this work that he refers in his Species Plantarum. This was assumed to be the South African Cape Belladonna, although not precisely known, cliffords herbarium is now preserved at the Natural History Museum in London. At the time both South African and South American plants were placed in this same genus and this work commenced in 1819 with the contributions of the English botanist, the Revd. William Herbert in Curtiss Botanical Magazine which he expanded in 1821 in The Botanical Register, identifying 14 species of the new genus of Hippeastrum, the rest of the Amaryllis species he transferred to other genera, several of which he created. Herbert further refined his descriptions of Hippeastrum in his work on the Amaryllidaceae in 1837, since then a key question has been whether Linnaeuss original type was a South African plant or a South American plant
3.
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
4.
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
5.
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
6.
Monocotyledon
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Monocotyledons, commonly referred to as monocots, are flowering plants whose seeds typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. However, molecular research has shown that while the monocots form a monophyletic group or clade. Monocots have almost always recognized as a group, but with various taxonomic ranks. The APG III system of 2009 recognises a clade called monocots, the monocots include about 60,000 species. The largest family in this group by number of species are the orchids, about half as many species belong to the true grasses, which are economically the most important family of monocots. In agriculture the majority of the biomass produced comes from monocots and these include not only major grains, but also forage grasses, sugar cane, and the bamboos. Other economically important monocot crops include various palms, bananas, gingers and their relatives, turmeric and cardamom, asparagus and the onions and garlic family. Additionally most of the bulbs, plants cultivated for their blooms, such as lilies, daffodils, irises, amaryllis, cannas, bluebells. The monocots or monocotyledons have, as the name implies, a single cotyledon, or embryonic leaf, from a diagnostic point of view the number of cotyledons is neither a particularly useful characteristic, nor is it completely reliable. Nevertheless, monocots are sufficiently distinctive that there has rarely been disagreement as to membership of this group, however, morphological features that reliably characterise major clades are rare. Thus monocots are distinguishable from other angiosperms both in terms of their uniformity and diversity, although largely herbaceous, some arboraceous monocots reach great height, length and mass. The latter include agaves, palms, pandans, and bamboos and this creates challenges in water transport that monocots deal with in various ways. Some such as species of Yucca develop anomalous secondary growth, while palm trees, the axis undergoes primary thickening, that progresses from internode to internode, resulting in a typical inverted conical shape of the basal primary axis. The limited conductivity also contributes to limited branching of the stems, despite these limitations a wide variety of adaptive growth forms has resulted from epiphytic orchids and bromeliads to submarine Alismatales and mycotrophic Burmanniaceae and Triuridaceae. Other monocots, particularly Poales have adopted a life form. Leaves The cotyledon, the primordial Angiosperm leaf consists of a proximal leaf base or hypophyll, in moncots the hypophyll tends to be the dominant part in contrast to other angiosperms. Mature monocot leaves are narrow and linear, forming a sheathing around the stem at its base. There is usually only one leaf per node because the leaf base encompasses more than half the circumference, the evolution of this monocot characteristic has been attributed to developmental differences in early zonal differentiation rather than meristem activity
7.
Asparagales
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Asparagales is an order of plants in modern classification systems such as the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group and the Angiosperm Phylogeny Web. The order takes its name from the type family Asparagaceae and is placed in the monocots amongst the lilioid monocots, the order has only recently been recognized in classification systems. It was first put forward by Huber in 1977 and later taken up in the Dahlgren system of 1985 and then the APG in 1998,2003 and 2009. Before this, many of its families were assigned to the old order Liliales, DNA sequence analysis indicated that many of the taxa previously included in Liliales should actually be redistributed over three orders, Liliales, Asparagales and Dioscoreales. The boundaries of the Asparagales and of its families have undergone a series of changes in recent years, future research may lead to further changes and ultimately greater stability. In the APG circumscription, Asparagales is the largest order of monocots with 14 families,1,122 genera, the order is clearly circumscribed on the basis of molecular phylogenetics, but is difficult to define morphologically, since its members are structurally diverse. Most species of Asparagales are herbaceous perennials, although some are climbers, the order also contains many geophytes. According to telomere sequence, at least two evolutionary switch-points happened within the order, basal sequence is formed by TTTAGGG like in majority of higher plants. Basal motif was changed to vertebrate-like TTAGGG and finally the most divergent motif CTCGGTTATGGG appears in Allium, one of the defining characteristics of the order is the presence of phytomelanin, a black pigment present in the seed coat, creating a dark crust. Phytomelanin is found in most families of the Asparagales, the leaves of almost all species form a tight rosette, either at the base of the plant or at the end of the stem, but occasionally along the stem. The flowers are not particularly distinctive, being lily type, with six tepals, from an economic point of view, the order Asparagales is second in importance within the monocots to the order Poales. Species are used as food and flavourings, as cut flowers, and as garden ornamentals. Thus although most species in the order are herbaceous, some no more than 15 cm high, there are a number of climbers, as well as several genera forming trees, succulent genera occur in several families. Almost all species have a cluster of leaves, either at the base of the plant or at the end of a more-or-less woody stem as with Yucca. In some cases the leaves are produced along the stem, the flowers are in the main not particularly distinctive, being of a general lily type, with six tepals, either free or fused from the base and up to six stamina. They are frequently clustered at the end of the plant stem and they are generally geophytes, but with linear leaves, and a lack of fine reticular venation. The seeds characteristically have the external epidermis either obliterated, or if present, have a layer of black carbonaceous phytomelanin in species with dry fruits. The inner part of the coat is generally collapsed, in contrast to Liliales whose seeds have a well developed outer epidermis, lack phytomelanin
8.
Amaryllidaceae
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The Amaryllidaceae are a family of herbaceous, mainly perennial and bulbous flowering plants in the monocot order Asparagales. The family takes its name from the genus Amaryllis and is known as the amaryllis family. The leaves are linear, and the flowers are usually bisexual and symmetrical. The petals and sepals are undifferentiated as tepals, which may be fused at the base into a floral tube, allyl sulfide compounds produce the characteristic odour of the onion subfamily. The family, which was created in 1805, now contains about 1600 species, divided into about 75 genera,17 tribes. Over time, it has seen much reorganisation and at times was combined with the related Liliaceae. Since 2009, a broad view has prevailed based on phylogenetics. The family is found in tropical to subtropical areas of the world and includes many garden plants. The Amaryllidaceae are mainly terrestrial flowering plants that are herbaceous or succulent geophytes that are perennial, most genera grow from bulbs, but a few such as Agapanthus, Clivia and Scadoxus develop from rhizomes. The leaves are simple rather fleshy and two-ranked with parallel veins, leaf shape may be linear, strap like, oblong, elliptic, lanceolate or filiform. The leaves which are grouped at the base or arranged alternatively on the stem may be sessile or petiolate. The perianth consists of six undifferentiated tepals arranged in two whorls of three, the tepals are similar in shape and size, and may be free from each other or fused at the base to form a floral tube. In some genera, such as Narcissus, this may be surmounted by cup or trumpet shaped projection and this may be reduced to a mere disc in some species. The position of the ovary varies by subfamily, the Agapanthoideae and Allioideae have superior ovaries, the six stamens are arranged in two whorls of three, occasionally more as in Gethyllis. The fruit is dry and capsule-shaped, or fleshy and berry-like, the Allioideae produce allyl sulfide compounds which give them their characteristic smell. The name Amaryllis had been applied to a number of plants over the course of history. Hexandria monogynia has come to be treated as either liliaceous or amaryllidaceaous over time. From 1763, when Adanson conceived of these genera as Liliaceae it was included in family, placing Amaryllis in Section VII, Narcissi. of his scheme. With de Jussieu came the establishment of organising genera into families in 1789
9.
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
10.
Western Cape
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The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated in the south-western part of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces in terms of area and population, with an area of 129,449 square kilometres and 5.8 million inhabitants. About two-thirds of these live in the metropolitan area of Cape Town. The Western Cape was created in 1994 from part of the former Cape Province, the Western Cape Province is roughly L-shaped, extending north and east from the Cape of Good Hope, in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It stretches about 400 kilometres northwards along the Atlantic coast and about 500 kilometres eastwards along the South African south coast and it is bordered on the north by the Northern Cape and on the east by the Eastern Cape. The total land area of the province is 129,462 square kilometres and it is roughly the size of England or the State of Louisiana. Its capital city and largest city is Cape Town, and some major cities include Stellenbosch, Worcester, Paarl. The Garden Route and the Overberg are popular tourism areas. The Western Cape is the southernmost region of the African continent with Cape Agulhas as its southernmost point, the coastline varies from sandy between capes, to rocky to steep and mountainous in places. The only natural harbour is Saldanha Bay on the west coast, however a lack of fresh water in the region meant that it has only recently been used as a harbour. But fresh water coming off Table Mountain and Devils Peak allowed the early European settlers to build Cape Town on the shores of this less than satisfactory anchorage, the province is topographically exceptionally diverse. Most of the province falls within the Cape Fold Belt, a set of parallel ranges of sandstone folded mountains of Cambrian-Ordovician age. The valleys between ranges are very fertile as they contain the weathered loamy soils of the Bokkeveld mustones. The far interior forms part of the Karoo and this region of the Province is generally arid and hilly with a prominent escarpment that runs close to the Provinces most inland boundary. The Escarpment marks the edge of South Africas central plateau. The principal rivers of the province are the Berg and Olifants which drain into the Atlantic Ocean, and the Breede and Gourits which drain into the Indian Ocean. The vegetation is extremely diverse, with one of the worlds seven floral kingdoms almost exclusively endemic to the province, namely the Cape Floral Kingdom. These evergreen heathlands are extremely rich in diversity, with at least as many plant species occurring on Table Mountain as in the entire United Kingdom
