1.
Coriander
–
Coriander, also known as cilantro or Chinese parsley, is an annual herb in the family Apiaceae. All parts of the plant are edible, but the fresh leaves, Coriander is native to regions spanning from southern Europe and northern Africa to southwestern Asia. It is a plant growing to 50 cm tall. The leaves are variable in shape, broadly lobed at the base of the plant, the flowers are borne in small umbels, white or very pale pink, asymmetrical, with the petals pointing away from the center of the umbel longer than those pointing toward it. The fruit is a globular, dry schizocarp 3–5 mm in diameter, the earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek ko-ri-ja-da-na written in Linear B syllabic script which later evolved to koriannon or koriandron. Cilantro is the Spanish word for coriander, also deriving from coriandrum and it is the common term in North American English for coriander leaves, due to their extensive use in Mexican cuisine. Coriander grows wild over an area of Western Asia and southern Europe, prompting the comment, It is hard to define exactly where this plant is wild. Fifteen desiccated mericarps were found in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B level of the Nahal Hemar Cave in Israel, Coriander seems to have been cultivated in Greece since at least the second millennium BC. Coriander was brought to the British colonies in North America in 1670, all parts of the plant are edible, but the fresh leaves and the dried seeds are the parts most traditionally used in cooking. Coriander is used in cuisines throughout the world, the leaves are variously referred to as coriander leaves, fresh coriander, dhania, Chinese parsley, or cilantro. Coriander potentially may be confused with culantro, an Apiaceae like coriander, culantro has a distinctly different spiny appearance, a more potent volatile leaf oil and a stronger aroma. The leaves have a different taste from the seeds, with citrus overtones, however, some people find the leaves to have an unpleasant soapy taste or a rank smell and avoid them. Chopped coriander leaves are a garnish on Indian dishes such as dal, as heat diminishes their flavour, coriander leaves are often used raw or added to the dish immediately before serving. In Indian and Central Asian recipes, coriander leaves are used in large amounts, the leaves spoil quickly when removed from the plant, and lose their aroma when dried or frozen. The dry fruits are known as coriander seeds, the word coriander in food preparation may refer solely to these seeds, rather than to the plant. The seeds have a citrus flavour when crushed, due to terpenes linalool. It is described as warm, nutty, spicy, and orange-flavoured and they are used extensively for grinding and blending purposes in the spice trade. Types with smaller fruit are produced in regions and usually have a volatile oil content around 0. 4-1. 8%
2.
Taxonomy (biology)
–
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
–
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
–
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.
Apiaceae
–
Apiaceae or Umbelliferae, is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus Apium and commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family. Most Apiaceae are annual, biennial or perennial herbs, though a minority are woody shrubs or small trees such as Bupleurum fruticosum and their leaves are of variable size and alternately arranged, or with the upper leaves becoming nearly opposite. The leaves may be petiolate or sessile, there are no stipules but the petioles are frequently sheathing and the leaves may be perfoliate. The leaf blade is usually dissected, ternate or pinnatifid, but simple and entire in some genera, commonly, their leaves emit a marked smell when crushed, aromatic to foetid, but absent in some species. The defining characteristic of family is the inflorescence, the flowers nearly always aggregated in terminal umbels. The flowers are perfect and actinomorphic but there may be zygomorphic petals at the edges of the umbel. The flowers are nearly perfectly pentamerous, with five petals, sepals, the androecium consists of five stamens, but there is often variation in the functionality of the stamens even within a single inflorescence. Some flowers are functionally staminate while others are functionally pistillate, pollination of one flower by the pollen of a different flower of the same plant is common. The gynoecium consists of two carpels fused into a single, bicarpellate pistil with an inferior ovary, stylopodia support two styles and secrete nectar, attracting pollinators like flies, mosquitoes, gnats, beetles, moths, and bees. The fruit is a schizocarp consisting of two fused carpels that separate at maturity into two mericarps, each containing a single seed. The fruits of species are dispersed by wind but others such as those of Daucus spp. are covered in bristles. The shape and details of the ornamentation of the fruits are important for identification to species. Apiaceae was first described by John Lindley in 1836, the name is derived from the type genus Apium, which was originally used by Pliny the Elder circa 50 AD for a celery-like plant. The alternative name for the family, Umbelliferae, derives from the inflorescence being generally in the form of a compound umbel, the family was one of the first to be recognized as a distinct group in Jacques Daleschamps 1586 Historia generalis plantarum. With Robert Morison’s 1672 Plantarum umbelilliferarum distribution nova it became the first group of plants for which a study was published. The family is placed within the Apiales order in the APG III classification system. It is closely related to Araliaceae and the boundaries between these families remain unclear, traditionally groups within the family have been delimited largely based on fruit morphology, and the results from this have not been congruent with the more recent molecular phylogenetic analyses. The subfamilial and tribal classification for the family is currently in a state of flux, according to the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website as of July 2014434 genera are in the family Apiaceae
6.
Eryngium
–
Eryngium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Apiaceae. The genus has a distribution, with the center of diversity in South America. Common names include eryngo and amethyst sea holly and these are annual and perennial herbs with hairless and usually spiny leaves. The dome-shaped umbels of steely blue or white flowers have whorls of spiny basal bracts, some species are native to rocky and coastal areas, but the majority are grassland plants. In the language of flowers, they represent admiration, species are grown as ornamental plants in gardens. Numerous hybrids have been selected for use, of which E. × oliverianum. Many species of Eryngium have been used as food and medicine, Eryngium campestre is used as a folk medicine in Turkey. Eryngium creticum is a remedy for scorpion stings in Jordan. Eryngium elegans is used in Argentina and Eryngium foetidum in Latin America, native American peoples used many species for varied purposes. Cultures worldwide have used Eryngium extracts as anti-inflammatory agents, Eryngium yields an essential oil and contains many kinds of terpenoids, saponins, flavonoids, coumarins, and steroids. The roots have been used as vegetables or sweetmeats, young shoots and leaves are sometimes used as vegetables like asparagus. E. foetidum is used in parts of the Americas and Asia as a culinary herb and it is similar to coriander or cilantro, and is sometimes mistaken for it. It may be called spiny coriander or culantro
