1.
Honey
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Honey /ˈhʌni/ is a sugary food substance produced and stored by certain social hymenopteran insects. It is produced from the secretions of plants or insects, such as floral nectar or aphid honeydew, through regurgitation, enzymatic activity. The variety of honey produced by bees is the most well-known, due to its worldwide commercial production. Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and has about the relative sweetness as granulated sugar. It has attractive properties for baking and a distinctive flavor that leads some people to prefer it to sugar. Most microorganisms do not grow in honey, so sealed honey does not spoil, however, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to babies, as it may result in botulism. People who have an immune system should not eat honey because of the risk of bacterial or fungal infection. Although some evidence indicates honey may be effective in treating diseases and other conditions, such as wounds and burns. Providing 64 calories in a serving of one tablespoon equivalent to 1272 kj per 100 g. Honey is generally safe, but may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs. Honey use and production have a long and varied history as an ancient activity, depicted in Valencia, in cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees use stored honey as food. By contriving for bee swarms to nest in man-made hives, people have been able to semidomesticate the insects, Bee digestive enzymes - invertase, amylase, and diastase - and gastric acid hydrolyze sucrose to a mixture of glucose and fructose. The bees work together as a group with the regurgitation and digestion for as long as 20 minutes until the product reaches storage quality. It is then placed in honeycomb cells left unsealed while still high in content and natural yeasts. The bees then cap the cells with wax to seal them, as removed from the hive by a beekeeper, honey has a long shelf life and will not ferment if properly sealed. Another source of honey is from a number of species, such as the wasps Brachygastra lecheguana and Brachygastra mellifica. These species are known to feed on nectar and produce honey, Honey is collected from wild bee colonies, or from domesticated beehives. The honey is stored in honeycombs, wild bee nests are sometimes located by following a honeyguide bird
2.
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
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.
Species
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In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, morphology, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection. Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships. At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas
5.
Citrus
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Citrus is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops like oranges, lemons, grapefruit, pomelo, the most recent research indicates an origin in Australia, New Caledonia and New Guinea. Citrus fruit has been cultivated in an area since ancient times. At various times, citrus plants were thought to be native to Asia, Europe, but the European oranges were originally brought from India at around the time of Alexander the Great, and the native oranges of Florida actually originated with the Spanish Conquistadors. The lemon reached Europe during the time of classical Rome, the generic name originated from Latin, where it referred to either the plant now known as Citron or a conifer tree. It is somehow related to the ancient Greek word for cedar and this may be due to perceived similarities in the smell of citrus leaves and fruit with that of cedar. Collectively, Citrus fruits and plants are known by the Romance loanword agrumes. The large citrus fruit of today evolved originally from small, edible berries over millions of years, Citrus plants diverged from a common ancestor about 15 million years ago, which was about when it diverged from the closely related severinia, for example the Chinese box orange. These estimates are made using genetic mapping of plant chloroplasts, the three original species in the citrus genus that have been hybridized into most modern commercial citrus fruit are the mandarin orange, pummelo, and citron. Within the last few years, all common citrus fruits were created by crossing those original species. Something similar has occurred with the array of chili peppers originating in the hybridization of a few initial species. Natural and cultivated citrus hybrids include commercially important fruit such as oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes, apart from these four core citrus species, there are Australian limes and the recently discovered Mangshanyegan. Kumquats and Clymenia sp. are now considered to belong within the citrus genus. Trifoliate orange, which is used as commercial rootstock, is an outgroup. Phylogenetic analysis suggests the species of Oxanthera from New Caledonia should be transferred to the genus Citrus and these plants are large shrubs or small to moderate-sized trees, reaching 5–15 m tall, with spiny shoots and alternately arranged evergreen leaves with an entire margin. The flowers are solitary or in corymbs, each flower 2–4 cm diameter, with five white petals and numerous stamens. The fruit is a hesperidium, a berry, globose to elongated, 4–30 cm long and 4–20 cm diameter. The outermost layer of the pericarp is a called the flavedo
6.
Beekeeper
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A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Beekeepers also use honeybees to provide services to fruit and vegetable growers. Many people keep bees as a hobby, others do it for income either as a sideline to other work or as a commercial operator. These factors affect the number of colonies maintained by the beekeeper, Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists. The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees in beehives, boxes, Honey bees are not domesticated and the beekeeper does not control the creatures. The beekeeper owns the hives or boxes and associated equipment, the bees are free to forage or leave as they desire. Bees usually return to the hive as the hive presents a clean, dark. These people typically work or own only a few hives and their main attraction is an interest in ecology and natural science. Honey is a by-product of this hobby, a sideline beekeeper attempts to make a profit keeping bees but relies on another source of income. Sideliners may operate up to as many as 300 colonies of bees, commercial beekeepers control hundreds or thousands of colonies of bees. The most extensive own and operate up to 50,000 colonies of bees, the first major commercial beekeeper was probably Petro Prokopovych of Ukraine, operating 6600 colonies in the early 19th century. Moses Quinby was the first commercial beekeeper in the USA, with 1200 colonies by the 1840s, later, Jim Powers of Idaho, USA, had 30,000 honey producing hives. Miel Carlota operated by partners Arturo Wulfrath and Juan Speck of Mexico operated at least 50,000 hives of bees from 1920 to 1960. Today, Adee Honey Farm in South Dakota, USA, and Scandia Honey Company in Alberta, worldwide, commercial beekeepers number about 5% of the individuals with bees but produce about 60% of the worlds honey crop. Most beekeepers produce commodities for sale, Honey is the most valuable commodity sold by beekeepers. Honey-producer beekeepers try to maintain colonies of bees in areas with dense nectar sources. They produce and sell liquid and sometimes comb honey, Beekeepers may sell their commodities retail, as self-brokers, or through commercial packers and distributors. Beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis may also be significant revenue generators, taiwanese beekeepers, for example, export tonnes of royal jelly, the high-nutrition food supplement fed to queen honeybees
7.
Harvest
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Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, on smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor-intensive activity of the growing season. On large mechanized farms, harvesting utilizes the most expensive and sophisticated farm machinery, the term harvesting in general usage may include immediate postharvest handling, including cleaning, sorting, packing, and cooling. Harvest, a noun, came from the Old English word hærfest, meaning autumn, harvest-time, the harvest came to also mean the activity of reaping, gathering, and storing grain and other grown products during the autumn, and also the grain and other grown products themselves. Harvest was also verbified, To harvest means to reap, gather, people who harvest and equipment that harvests are harvesters, while they do it, they are harvesting. In history, crop failures and subsequent famines have triggered human migration, rural exodus, over years, unsustainable farming of land degrades soil fertility and diminishes crop yield. With a steadily growing population and local overpopulation, even slightly diminishing yields are already the equivalent to a partial harvest failure. Fortunately, fertilizers obviate the need for regeneration in the first place. Harvesting commonly refers to grain and produce, but also has other uses, the term harvest is also used in reference to harvesting grapes for wine. Within the context of irrigation, water harvesting refers to the collection, instead of harvest, the term exploit is also used, as in exploiting fisheries or water resources. Energy harvesting is the process of capturing and storing energy that would otherwise go unexploited, body harvesting, or cadaver harvesting, is the process of collecting and preparing cadavers for anatomical study. In a similar sense, organ harvesting is the removal of tissues or organs from a donor for purposes of transplanting. Harvesting or Domestic Harvesting in Canada refers to hunting, fishing, and plant gathering by First Nations, Métis, for example, in the Gwichin Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement, Harvesting means gathering, hunting, trapping or fishing. Similarly, in the Tlicho Land Claim and Self Government Agreement, Harvesting means, in relation to wildlife, hunting, trapping or fishing and, in relation to plants or trees, combine Harvester Harvest Harvest festival Overharvesting Threshing Winnowing
8.
Appalachian Mountains
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The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period and it once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before naturally occurring erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east-west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines, definitions vary on the precise boundaries of the Appalachians. A common variant definition does not include the Adirondack Mountains, which belong to the Grenville Orogeny and have a different geological history from the rest of the Appalachians. The range covers parts of the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the system is divided into a series of ranges, with the individual mountains averaging around 3,000 ft. The highest of the group is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet, the term Appalachian refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range. Most broadly, it refers to the mountain range with its surrounding hills. The Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma were originally part of the Appalachians as well, the name was soon altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north. Pánfilo de Narváezs expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15,1528, now spelled Appalachian, it is the fourth-oldest surviving European place-name in the US. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutierrezs map of 1562, the name was not commonly used for the whole mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the Allegheny Mountains, Alleghenies, in the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania. In U. S. dialects in the regions of the Appalachians. In northern parts of the range, it is pronounced /ˌæpəˈleɪtʃᵻnz/ or /ˌæpəˈleɪʃᵻnz/, the third syllable is like lay. There is often debate between the residents of the regions as to which pronunciation is the more correct one. Elsewhere, a commonly accepted pronunciation for the adjective Appalachian is /ˌæpəˈlætʃiən/, the whole system may be divided into three great sections, Northern, The northern section runs from the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador to the Hudson River. The Monteregian Hills, which cross the Green Mountains in Quebec, are also unassociated with the Appalachians, Central, The central section goes from the Hudson Valley to the New River running through Virginia and West Virginia. Southern, The southern section runs from the New River onwards and it consists of the prolongation of the Blue Ridge, which is divided into the Western Blue Ridge Front and the Eastern Blue Ridge Front, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and the Cumberland Plateau
9.
Oxydendrum
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Sourwood or sorrel tree, Oxydendrum arboreum, /ˌɒksᵻˈdɛndrəm ɑːrˈbɔəriəm/ is the sole species in the genus Oxydendrum, in the family Ericaceae. It is native to eastern North America, from southern Pennsylvania south to northwest Florida and west to southern Illinois, the tree is frequently seen as a component of oak-heath forests. Sourwood is a tree or large shrub, growing to 10–20 m tall with a trunk up to 50 cm diameter. Occasionally on extremely productive sites, this species can reach heights in excess of 30 meters and 60 cm diameter. The leaves are arranged, deciduous, 8–20 cm long and 4–9 cm broad, with a finely serrated margin, they are dark green in summer. The flowers are white, bell-shaped, 6–9 mm long, produced on 15–25 cm long panicles, the fruit is a small woody capsule. The roots are shallow, and the tree grows best when there is little root competition, the leaves can be chewed to help alleviate a dry-feeling mouth. The bark is gray with a reddish tinge, deeply furrowed, branchlets at first are light yellow green, but later turn reddish brown. The wood is brown, with paler sapwood, it is heavy, hard, and close-grained. Its specific gravity is 0.7458, with a density of 46.48 lb/cu ft, the winter buds are axillary, minute, dark red, and partly immersed in the bark. Inner scales enlarge when spring growth begins, leaves are alternate, four to seven inches long,1.5 to 2.5 inches wide, oblong to ablanceolate, wedge-shaped at the base, serrate, and acute or acuminate. Leaf veins are Feather-veined, the midrib is conspicuous and they emerge from the bud revolute, bronze green and shining, and smooth, when full grown, they are dark green, shining above, and pale and glaucous below. In autumn, they turn bright scarlet, petioles are long and slender, with stipules wanting. They are heavily laden with acid, in June and July, perfect, cream-white flowers are borne in terminal panicles of secund racemes seven to eight inches long, rachis and short pedicels are downy. The calyx is five-parted and persistent, lobes are valvate in bud, the corolla is ovoid-cylindric, narrowed at the throat, cream-white, and five-toothed. The 10 stamens are inserted on the corolla, filaments are wider than the anthers, anthers are two-celled, the pistil is ovary superior, ovoid, and five-celled, the style is columnar, the stigma is simple, the disk is ten-toothed, and ovules are many. The fruit is a capsule, downy, five-valved, five-angled, and tipped by the persistent style, the sourwood is perfectly hardy in the north and a worthy ornamental tree in lawns and parks. Its late bloom makes it desirable, and its autumnal coloring is particularly beautiful, the leaves are heavily charged with acid, and to some extent have the poise of those of the peach
10.
Liriodendron
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Liriodendron /ˌlaɪriəˈdɛndrən, ˌlɪr-, -ioʊ-/ is a genus of two species of characteristically large deciduous trees in the magnolia family. These trees are known by the common name tulip tree or tuliptree for their large flowers superficially resembling tulips. The Latin Liriodendron actually means lily tree, the tree is also called canoewood, saddle-leaf tree, and white wood. Two species of Liriodendron are known to exist, Liriodendron tulipifera is native to eastern North America, while Liriodendron chinense is native to China and Vietnam. Both species often grow to great size, sometimes exceeding 50 m in height, the American species is commonly used horticulturally, and hybrids have been produced between these two allopatrically distributed species. Various extinct species of Liriodendron have been described from the fossil record, Liriodendron trees are easily recognized by their leaves, which are distinctive, having four lobes in most cases and a cross-cut notched or straight apex. Leaf size varies from 8–22 cm long and 6–25 cm wide, the tulip tree is often a large tree, 18–50 m high and 60–120 cm in diameter. The tulip tree grows to a height of 70–190 and a spread of around 40 at maturity and its trunk is usually columnar, with a long, branch-free bole forming a compact, rather than open, conical crown of slender branches. It has deep roots that spread widely, leaves are slightly larger in L. chinense, compared to L. tulipifera, but with considerable overlap between the species, the petiole is 4–18 cm long. Leaves on young trees tend to be more deeply lobed and larger in size than those on mature trees, in autumn, the leaves turn yellow, or brown and yellow. Both species grow rapidly in rich, moist soils of temperate climates and they hybridize easily, and the progeny often grow faster than either parent]. Flowers are 3–10 cm in diameter and have nine tepals — three green sepals and six inner petals which are yellow-green with an orange flare at the base. They start forming after around 15 years and are similar to a tulip in shape. Flowers of L. tulipifera have a faint cucumber odor, the stamens and pistils are arranged spirally around a central spike or gynaecium, the stamens fall off, and the pistils become the samaras. The fruit is an aggregate of samaras 4–9 cm long, each of which has a roughly tetrahedral seed with one edge attached to the central conical spike. Appalachian cove forests often contain several tulip trees of height and girth not seen in species of eastern hardwoods. In the Appalachian cove forests, trees 150 to 165 ft in height are common, more Liriodendron over 170 ft in height have been measured by the Eastern Native Tree Society than for any other eastern species. The current tallest tulip tree on record has reached 191.9 ft, the tulip tree is rivaled in eastern forests only by white pine, loblolly pine, and eastern hemlock
11.
Honeybee
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A honey bee is any bee member of the genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests from wax. Currently, only seven species of bee are recognized, with a total of 44 subspecies, though historically. The best known honey bee is the Western honey bee which has been domesticated for honey production, Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey, including the stingless honey bees, the study of bees including honey bees is known as melittology. The genus name Apis is Latin for bee, nonetheless, compounds gradually solidify in the orthography of natural languages in ways that do not always comply with prescription. Honey bees appear to have their center of origin in South and Southeast Asia, notably, living representatives of the earliest lineages to diverge have their center of origin there. The first Apis bees appear in the record at the Eocene–Oligocene boundary. The origin of these prehistoric honey bees does not necessarily indicate Europe as the place of origin of the genus, few fossil deposits are known from South Asia, the suspected region of honey bee origin, and fewer still have been thoroughly studied. No Apis species existed in the New World during human times before the introduction of A. mellifera by Europeans, only one fossil species is documented from the New World, Apis nearctica, known from a single 14-million-year-old specimen from Nevada. The close relatives of modern honey bees – e. g. bumblebees and stingless bees – are also social to some degree, most species have historically been cultured or at least exploited for honey and beeswax by humans indigenous to their native ranges. Only two of these species have been domesticated, one at least since the time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids. Honey bees are the extant members of the tribe Apini. Todays honey bees constitute three clades, the chromosome counts of female bees for the three clades are, Micrapis 2N =16, Megapis 2N =16, and Apis 2N =32. Drones of all species have 1N chromosome counts, the genome of Apis has been mapped. Drones are produced from unfertilized eggs, so represent only the DNA of the queen that laid the eggs, workers and queens result from fertilized eggs, so have both a mother and a father. Arrhenotokous parthenogenesis, a form of parthenogenesis, controls sex differentiation. The sex allele is polymorphic, and so long as two different variants are present, a female bee results, if both sex alleles are identical, diploid drones are produced. Honey bees detect and destroy diploid drones after the eggs hatch, queens typically mate with multiple drones on more than one mating flight
12.
Foraging
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Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animals fitness because it plays an important role in an ability to survive. Foraging theory is a branch of ecology that studies the foraging behavior of animals in response to the environment where the animal lives. Behavioral ecologists use economic models to understand foraging, many of these models are a type of optimality model, thus foraging theory is discussed in terms of optimizing a payoff from a foraging decision. The payoff for many of these models is the amount of energy an animal receives per unit time, more specifically, foraging theory predicts that the decisions that maximize energy per unit time and thus deliver the highest payoff will be selected for and persist. Behavioral ecologists first tackled this topic in the 1960s and 1970s and their goal was to quantify and formalize a set of models to test their null hypothesis that animals forage randomly. Learning is defined as a change or modification of a behavior based on a previous experience. Since an animals environment is changing, the ability to adjust foraging behavior is essential for maximization of fitness. Studies in social insects have shown there is a significant correlation between learning and foraging performance. In nonhuman primates, young individuals learn foraging behavior from their peers and elders by watching other group members forage, observing and learning from other members of the group ensure that the younger members of the group learn what is safe to eat and become proficient foragers. One measure of learning is foraging innovation—an animal consuming new food, foraging innovation is considered learning because it involves behavioral plasticity on the animals part. The animal recognizes the need to come up with a new foraging strategy, forebrain size has been associated with learning behavior. Animals with larger sizes are expected to learn better. A higher ability to innovate has been linked to larger sizes in North American. In this study, bird orders that contained individuals with larger forebrain sizes displayed a higher amount of foraging innovation, examples of innovations recorded in birds include following tractors and eating frogs or other insects killed by it and using swaying trees to catch their prey. Another measure of learning is learning, which refers to an individuals ability to associate the time of an event with the place of that event. This type of learning has been documented in the behaviors of individuals of the stingless bee species Trigona fulviventris. Foraging behavior can also be influenced by genetics, honey bee foraging activity occurs both inside and outside the hive for either pollen or nectar
13.
Robinia pseudoacacia
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Another common name is false acacia, a literal translation of the specific name It was introduced into Britain in 1636. The name locust is said to have given to Robinia by Jesuit missionaries, who fancied that this was the tree that supported St. John in the wilderness. The locust tree of Spain, which is native to Syria. Robinia is now a North American genus, but traces of it are found in the Eocene and Miocene rocks of Europe, black locust is an interesting example of how one plant can be considered an invasive species even on the same continent it is native to. For example, within the western United States, New England region, in the prairie and savanna regions of the Midwest black locust can dominate and shade open habitats. Black locust has been listed as invasive in Connecticut and prohibited in Massachusetts, in Australia black locust has become naturalized within Victoria, New South Wales, South, and Western Australia. It is considered an environmental weed there, in South Africa, it is regarded as a weed because of its habit suckering. Black locust reaches a height of 40–100 feet with a diameter of 2–4 feet. Exceptionally, it may grow up to 52 metres tall and 1.6 metres diameter in very old trees and it is a very upright tree with a straight trunk and narrow crown which grows scraggly with age. The dark blue-green compound leaves with a lighter underside give this tree a beautiful appearance in the wind. It also often spreads by underground shoots or suckers which contribute to the character of this species. Young trees are often spiny, however, mature trees often lack spines, in the early summer black locust flowers, the flowers are large and appear in large, intensely fragrant, clusters. The leaflets fold together in wet weather and at night as some change of position at night is a habit of the entire leguminous family and it may also resemble Styphnolobium japonicum which has smaller flower spikes and lacks spines. The bark is gray brown and tinged with red or orange in the grooves. It is deeply furrowed into grooves and ridges which run up and down the trunk and often cross, the roots of black locust contain nodules which allow it to fix nitrogen as is common within the pea family. The branches are typically zig-zagy and may have ridges and grooves or may be round, when young, they are at first coated with white silvery down, this soon disappears and they become pale green and afterward reddish or greenish brown. Prickles may or may not be present on young trees, root suckers, R. pseudoacacia is quite variable in the quantity and amount of prickles present as some trees are densely prickly and other trees have no prickles at all. The prickles typically remain on the tree until the young thin bark to which they are attached is replaced by the thicker mature bark and they develop from stipules and since stipules are paired at the base of leaves, the prickles will be paired at the bases of leaves
14.
Alfalfa
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Alfalfa /ælˈfælfə/, Medicago sativa also called lucerne, is a perennial flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, and silage, as well as a green manure, the name alfalfa is used in North America. The name lucerne is the commonly used name in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia. The plant superficially resembles clover, especially young, when trifoliate leaves comprising round leaflets predominate. Later in maturity, leaflets are elongated and it has clusters of small purple flowers followed by fruits spiralled in 2 to 3 turns containing 10–20 seeds. Alfalfa is native to temperate climates. It has been cultivated as livestock fodder since at least the era of the ancient Greeks, Alfalfa sprouts are a common ingredient in dishes made in South Indian cuisine. Alfalfa seems to have originated in south-central Asia, and was first cultivated in ancient Iran, according to Pliny, it was introduced to Greece in about 490 BC when the Persians invaded Greek territory. Alfalfa cultivation is discussed in the fourth-century AD book Opus Agriculturae by Palladius, stating, the crop may be cut four or six times a year. A jugerum of it is sufficient for three horses all the year. It may be given to cattle, but new provender is at first to be administered very sparingly, Pliny and Palladius called alfalfa in Latin medica, a name that referred to the Medes, a people who lived in ancient Iran. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed, probably correctly, that came from the Medes land. This name is the root of the scientific name for the alfalfa genus. In ancient India, Ayurvedic texts prescribe the use of Alfalfa seeds and sprouts for improving blood cell production and its leaves and stem as a source of protein. The medieval Arabic agricultural writer Ibn al-Awwam, who lived in Spain in the later 12th century, discussed how to cultivate alfalfa, a 13th-century general-purpose Arabic dictionary, Lisān al-Arab, says that alfalfa is cultivated as an animal feed and consumed in both fresh and dried forms. It is from the Arabic that the Spanish name alfalfa was derived, in the 16th century, Spanish colonizers introduced alfalfa to the Americas as fodder for their horses. They were aware that alfalfa is better than grass as food for working horses, in the North American colonies of the eastern US in the 18th century, it was called lucerne, and many trials at growing it were made, but generally without sufficiently successful results. Relatively little is grown in the southeastern United States today, lucerne is the name for alfalfa in Britain, Australia, France, Germany, and a number of other countries
15.
Apple
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The apple tree is a deciduous tree in the rose family best known for its sweet, pomaceous fruit, the apple. It is cultivated worldwide as a tree, and is the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe, and were brought to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek, Apple trees are large if grown from seed. Generally apple cultivars are propagated by grafting onto rootstocks, which control the size of the resulting tree, There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples, resulting in a range of desired characteristics. Different cultivars are bred for various tastes and uses, including cooking, eating raw, trees and fruit are prone to a number of fungal, bacterial and pest problems, which can be controlled by a number of organic and non-organic means. In 2010, the genome was sequenced as part of research on disease control. Worldwide production of apples in 2014 was 84.6 million tonnes, the apple is a deciduous tree, generally standing 1.8 to 4.6 m tall in cultivation and up to 12 m in the wild. When cultivated, the size, shape and branch density are determined by rootstock selection, the leaves are alternately arranged dark green-colored simple ovals with serrated margins and slightly downy undersides. Blossoms are produced in spring simultaneously with the budding of the leaves, the 3 to 4 cm flowers are white with a pink tinge that gradually fades, five petaled, with an inflorescence consisting of a cyme with 4–6 flowers. The central flower of the inflorescence is called the king bloom, it opens first, the fruit matures in late summer or autumn, and cultivars exist with a wide range of sizes. Commercial growers aim to produce an apple that is 7.0 to 8.3 cm in diameter, due to market preference. Some consumers, especially those in Japan, prefer a larger apple, while apples below 5.7 cm are generally used for making juice and have little market value. The skin of ripe apples is generally red, yellow, green, pink, the skin may also be wholly or partly russeted i. e. rough and brown. The skin is covered in a layer of epicuticular wax. The exocarp is generally pale yellowish-white, though pink or yellow also occur. The original wild ancestor of Malus pumila was Malus sieversii, found growing wild in the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, in strains without recent admixture the contribution of the latter predominates. It had about 57,000 genes, the highest number of any plant genome studied to date and this new understanding of the apple genome will help scientists in identifying genes and gene variants that contribute to resistance to disease and drought, and other desirable characteristics
16.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
17.
Aster (genus)
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Aster is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. After this split there are roughly 180 species within the genus, all, the name Aster comes from the Ancient Greek word ἀστήρ, meaning star, referring to the shape of the flower head. Many species and a variety of hybrids and varieties are popular as garden plants because of their attractive, Aster species are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species—see list of Lepidoptera that feed on Aster. Asters can grow in all hardiness zones, the genus Aster is now generally restricted to the Old World species, with Aster amellus being the type species of the genus, as well as of the family Asteraceae. Regardless of the change, all are still widely referred to as asters, or Michaelmas daisies, because of their typical blooming period. See the List of Aster synonyms for more information, in the United Kingdom, there are only two native members of the genus, goldilocks, which is very rare, and Aster tripolium, the sea aster. Aster alpinus spp. vierhapperi is the species native to North America. Ontario Wildflowers website Lots of info about Asters Pictures of Aster flowers thriving in the autumn sunshine
18.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
19.
Avocado
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The avocado is a tree that is native to South Central Mexico, classified as a member of the flowering plant family Lauraceae. Avocado also refers to the fruit, which is botanically a large berry containing a single seed. Avocados are commercially valuable and are cultivated in tropical and Mediterranean climates throughout the world and they have a green-skinned, fleshy body that may be pear-shaped, egg-shaped, or spherical. Avocado trees are partially self-pollinating and are propagated through grafting to maintain a predictable quality and quantity of the fruit. The native, undomesticated variety is known as a criollo, and is small, with black skin. It probably coevolved with extinct megafauna, the oldest evidence of avocado use was found in a cave located in Coxcatlán, Puebla, Mexico, that dates to around 10,000 BC. The avocado tree also has a history of cultivation in Central and South America. A water jar shaped like an avocado, dating to AD900, was discovered in the city of Chan Chan. The earliest known account of the avocado in Europe is that of Martín Fernández de Enciso in 1519 in his book. The first written record in English of the use of the avocado was by Hans Sloane in a 1696 index of Jamaican plants. The plant was introduced to Indonesia in 1750, Brazil in 1809, South Africa and Australia in the late 19th century, and the Levant in 1908. The word avocado comes from the Spanish aguacate, which in turn comes from the Nahuatl word āhuacatl, sometimes the Nahuatl word was used with the meaning testicle, probably because of the likeness between the fruit and the body part. The modern English name is not etymologically related to the similar-sounding Spanish word abogado, meaning lawyer, the earliest known written use in English is attested from 1697 as avogato pear, a term which was later corrupted as alligator pear. Because the word sounded like advocate, several languages reinterpreted it to have that meaning. In other Central American and Caribbean Spanish-speaking countries, it is known by the Mexican name, while South American Spanish-speaking countries use a Quechua-derived word, the fruit is sometimes called an avocado pear or alligator pear. The Nahuatl ahuacatl can be compounded with words, as in ahuacamolli, meaning avocado soup or sauce. In the United Kingdom, the term avocado pear is still sometimes misused as applied when avocados first became available in the 1960s. It is known as fruit in parts of India and goes by the name bơ in Vietnamese
20.
Tilia americana
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Common names include American basswood and American linden. The American basswood is a medium-sized to large tree reaching a height of 18 to 37 m exceptionally 39 m with a trunk diameter of 1–1.5 m at maturity. It grows faster than many North American hardwoods, often twice the growth rate of American beech. Total life expectancy is around 200 years, with flowering and seeding generally occurring between 15 and 100 years, occasionally, seed production may start as early as 8 years. The crown is domed, the spreading, often pendulous. The bark is gray to brown, with narrow, well defined fissures. The roots are large, deep, and spreading, the twigs are smooth, reddish-green, becoming light gray in their second year, finally dark brown or brownish gray, marked with dark wart-like excrescences. The winter buds are stout, ovate-acute, smooth, deep red, the fall color is yellow-green to yellow. Both the twigs and leaves contain mucilaginous sap and they are perfect, regular, with five sepals and petals, numerous stamens, and a five-celled superior ovary. Flowering is in early to mid summer, pollination is by bees, the fruit is a small, globose, downy, hard and dry cream-colored nutlet with a diameter of 8–10 mm. americana. It also has minor occurrence in other forest cover types. Its flowers provide abundant nectar for insects, the seeds are eaten by chipmunks, mice, and squirrels. Rabbits and voles eat the bark, sometimes girdling young trees, the leaves serve as food for caterpillars of various Lepidoptera. The ribbed cocoon maker species Bucculatrix improvisa has not been found on other plants and this species is particularly susceptible to adult Japanese beetles that feed on its leaves. The American basswood can be propagated by cuttings and grafting as well as by seed, the plants grow rapidly in a rich soil, but are subject to the attacks of many insect enemies. If planting them, it is recommended to gather the seeds in autumn and sow them before they dry out. This will then allow germination to occur immediately, overall, seeds are not a major part of the trees reproductive strategy and it instead mostly spreads by self-coppicing. All juvenile basswoods coppice extremely readily, and even old trees will often sprout from the stump if cut, the American basswood is recommended as an ornamental tree when the mass of foliage or a deep shade is desired, no native tree surpasses it in this respect
21.
Tilia
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Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. Commonly called lime trees in the British Isles, they are not related to the lime fruit, other names include linden, and basswood for the North American species. The genus occurs in Europe and eastern North America, but the greatest species diversity is found in Asia, Tilia species are mostly large, deciduous trees, reaching typically 20 to 40 metres tall, with oblique-cordate leaves 6 to 20 centimetres across. As with elms, the number of species is uncertain, as many if not most of the species will hybridise readily. Limes are hermaphroditic, having perfect flowers with male and female parts, pollinated by insects. The genus is called lime or linden in Britain and linden, lime. Within Germanic languages, English lithe, German lind lenient, yielding are from the same root, neither the name nor the tree is related to the citrus fruit called lime. Another common name used in North America is basswood, derived from bast, teil is an old name for the lime tree. Latin tilia is cognate to Greek πτελέᾱ, ptelea, elm tree, τιλίαι, tiliai, black poplar, ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European word *ptel-ei̯ā with a meaning of broad, perhaps broad-leaved or similar. The Tilias sturdy trunk stands like a pillar and the divide and subdivide into numerous ramifications on which the twigs are fine. In summer, these are profusely clothed with large leaves and the result is a head of abundant foliage. The flowers of the European and American Tilia species are similar, except the American bears a petal-like scale among its stamens, all of the Tilia species may be propagated by cuttings and grafting, as well as by seed. They grow rapidly in rich soil, but are subject to the attack of many insects, Tilia is notoriously difficult to propagate from seed unless collected fresh in the fall. If allowed to dry, the seeds will go into a deep dormancy, cars left under the trees can quickly become coated with a film of the syrup thus dropped from higher up. The ant/aphid farming process does not appear to any serious damage to the trees. In Europe, some linden trees reached considerable ages, a coppice of T. cordata in Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire is estimated to be 2,000 years old. In the courtyard of the Imperial Castle at Nuremberg is a Tilia which, by tradition recounted in 1900, was planted by the Empress Cunigunde, the Tilia of Neuenstadt am Kocher in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, was estimated at 1000 years old when it fell. The Alte Linde tree of Naters, Switzerland, is mentioned in a document in 1357, a plaque at its foot mentions that in 1155 a linden tree was already on this spot
22.
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
23.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
24.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
25.
Hungary
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Hungary is a unitary parliamentary republic in Central Europe. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a member state of the European Union. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken language in Europe. Hungarys capital and largest metropolis is Budapest, a significant economic hub, major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs and Győr. His great-grandson Stephen I ascended to the throne in 1000, converting the country to a Christian kingdom, by the 12th century, Hungary became a middle power within the Western world, reaching a golden age by the 15th century. Hungarys current borders were established in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon after World War I, when the country lost 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, following the interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary became a state of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a four-decade-long communist dictatorship. On 23 October 1989, Hungary became again a democratic parliamentary republic, in the 21st century, Hungary is a middle power and has the worlds 57th largest economy by nominal GDP, as well as the 58th largest by PPP, out of 188 countries measured by the IMF. As a substantial actor in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds 36th largest exporter and importer of goods, Hungary is a high-income economy with a very high standard of living. It keeps up a security and universal health care system. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and part of the Schengen Area since 2007, Hungary is a member of the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the AIIB, the Council of Europe and Visegrád Group. Well known for its cultural history, Hungary has been contributed significantly to arts, music, literature, sports and science. Hungary is the 11th most popular country as a tourist destination in Europe and it is home to the largest thermal water cave system, the second largest thermal lake in the world, the largest lake in Central Europe, and the largest natural grasslands in Europe. The H in the name of Hungary is most likely due to historical associations with the Huns. The rest of the word comes from the Latinized form of Medieval Greek Oungroi, according to an explanation the Greek name was borrowed from Proto-Slavic Ǫgǔri, in turn borrowed from Oghur-Turkic Onogur. Onogur was the name for the tribes who later joined the Bulgar tribal confederacy that ruled the eastern parts of Hungary after the Avars. The Hungarians likely belonged to the Onogur tribal alliance and it is possible they became its ethnic majority. The Hungarian endonym is Magyarország, composed of magyar and ország, the word magyar is taken from the name of one of the seven major semi-nomadic Hungarian tribes, magyeri
26.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
27.
Blueberry
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Blueberries are perennial flowering plants with indigo-colored berries from the section Cyanococcus within the genus Vaccinium. Species in the section Cyanococcus are the most common fruits sold as blueberries and are native to North America, Blueberries are usually erect, prostrate shrubs that can vary in size from 10 centimeters to 4 meters in height. In the commercial production of blueberries, the species are known as lowbush blueberries. The leaves can be deciduous or evergreen, ovate to lanceolate. The flowers are bell-shaped, white, pale pink or red, the fruit is a berry 5–16 millimeters in diameter with a flared crown at the end, they are pale greenish at first, then reddish-purple, and finally dark purple when ripe. They are covered in a coating of powdery epicuticular wax. They have a sweet taste when mature, with variable acidity, the genus Vaccinium has a mostly circumpolar distribution, with species mainly being present in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Many commercially sold species with English common names including blueberry are currently classified in section Cyanococcus of the genus Vaccinium, many North American native species of blueberries are grown commercially in the Southern Hemisphere in Australia, New Zealand and South American nations. See the Identification section for more information, note, habitat and range summaries are from the Flora of New Brunswick, published in 1986 by Harold R. These species are sometimes called blueberries and sold as jam or other products. The names of blueberries in languages other than English often translate as blueberry, e. g. Scots blaeberry, blaeberry, blåbær and French myrtilles usually refer to the European native bilberry, while bleuets refers to the North American blueberry. Russian голубика does not refer to blueberries, which are non-native and nearly unknown in Russia, Cyanococcus blueberries can be distinguished from the nearly identical-looking bilberries by their flesh color when cut in half. Ripe blueberries have light green flesh, while bilberries, whortleberries and huckleberries are red or purple throughout, Blueberries may be cultivated, or they may be picked from semiwild or wild bushes. In North America, the most common cultivated species is V. corymbosum, hybrids of this with other Vaccinium species adapted to southern U. S. climates are known collectively as southern highbush blueberries. So-called wild blueberries, smaller than cultivated highbush ones, have intense color, the lowbush blueberry, V. angustifolium, is found from the Atlantic provinces westward to Quebec and southward to Michigan and West Virginia. In some areas, it produces natural blueberry barrens, where it is the dominant species covering large areas, several First Nations communities in Ontario are involved in harvesting wild blueberries. Wild has been adopted as a term for harvests of managed native stands of lowbush blueberries. The bushes are not planted or genetically manipulated, but they are pruned or burned over two years, and pests are managed
28.
Buckwheat
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Buckwheat is a plant cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. To distinguish it from a species, Fagopyrum tataricum, it is also known as Japanese buckwheat. Despite the name, buckwheat is not related to wheat, as it is not a grass, instead, buckwheat is related to sorrel, knotweed, and rhubarb. Because its seeds are eaten and rich in carbohydrates, it is referred to as a pseudocereal. The cultivation of grain declined sharply in the 20th century with the adoption of nitrogen fertilizer that increased the productivity of other staples. The name buckwheat or beech wheat comes from its seeds, which resemble the much larger seeds of the beech nut from the beech tree. The word may be a translation of Middle Dutch boecweite, boec, beech and weite, wheat, the wild ancestor of common buckwheat is F. esculentum ssp. ancestrale. F. homotropicum is interfertile with F. esculentum and the forms have a common distribution, in Yunnan. The wild ancestor of tartary buckwheat is F. tataricum ssp. potanini, common buckwheat was domesticated and first cultivated in inland Southeast Asia, possibly around 6000 BCE, and from there spread to Central Asia and Tibet, and then to the Middle East and Europe. Domestication most likely place in the western Yunnan region of China. Buckwheat is documented in Europe in Finland by at least 5300 BCE as a first sign of agriculture, russian-speakers call buckwheat гречка meaning of Greece, due to its introduction in the seventh century by the Byzantine Greeks, the same is the case in Ukrainian. The oldest remains found in China so far date to circa 2600 BCE and it is the worlds highest-elevation domesticate, being cultivated in Yunnan on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau or on the plateau itself. Buckwheat was one of the earliest crops introduced by Europeans to North America, dispersal around the globe was complete by 2006, when a variety developed in Canada was widely planted in China. In India, buckwheat flour is known as kuttu ka atta and is associated with Navratri festival. On the day of festival, food items made only from buckwheat are consumed. Buckwheat, a crop, does well on low-fertility or acidic soils. Too much fertilizer, especially nitrogen, reduces yields, in hot climates it can only be grown by sowing late in the season, so that it blooms in cooler weather. The presence of pollinators greatly increases the yield, the nectar from buckwheat flower makes a dark-colored honey
29.
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
30.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
31.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
32.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
33.
Carrot
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The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist. Carrots are a form of the wild carrot, Daucus carota, native to Europe. The plant probably originated in Persia and originally cultivated for its leaves, the most commonly eaten part of the plant is the taproot, although the greens are sometimes eaten as well. The domestic carrot has been bred for its greatly enlarged, more palatable. The carrot is a plant in the umbellifer family Apiaceae. At first, it grows a rosette of leaves while building up the enlarged taproot, fast-growing cultivars mature within three months of sowing the seed, while slower-maturing cultivars are harvested four months later. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports that production of carrots and turnips for the calendar year 2013 was 37.2 million tonnes. Carrots are widely used in many cuisines, especially in the preparation of salads, in Old English, carrots were not clearly distinguished from parsnips, the two were collectively called moru or more. Various languages still use the word for carrot as they do for root. Molecular and genetic studies, along with history, support the idea that the cultivated/domesticated carrot has a single origin in Central Asia. The wild ancestors of the carrot are likely to have originated in Persia, which remains the centre of diversity for Daucus carota, when they were first cultivated, carrots were grown for their aromatic leaves and seeds rather than their roots. Carrot seeds have been found in Switzerland and Southern Germany dating back to 2000–3000 BC, some close relatives of the carrot are still grown for their leaves and seeds, for example, parsley, cilantro/coriander, fennel, dill and cumin. Three different types of carrots are depicted, and the states of them that the root can be cooked. The plant appears to have been introduced into Spain by the Moors in the 8th century, in the 10th century, in worldwide locations like West Asia, India and Europe, the roots were purple. The modern carrot originated in Afghanistan at about this time, the Jewish scholar Simeon Seth describes both red and yellow carrots in the 11th century. The 12th-century Arab-Andalusian agriculturist, Ibn al-Awwam, also mentions roots of these colours, cultivated carrots appeared in China in the 14th century, and in Japan in the 18th century. Orange-coloured carrots appeared in the Netherlands in the 17th century, which has been related to the fact that the Dutch flag at the time, the Princes Flag, included orange. These, the carrots, were intended by the English antiquary John Aubrey when he noted in his memoranda
34.
Cherry
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A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy drupe. The cherry fruits of commerce usually are obtained from a number of species such as cultivars of the sweet cherry. The name cherry also refers to the tree, and is sometimes applied to almonds and visually similar flowering trees in the genus Prunus, as in ornamental cherry, cherry blossom. Wild cherry may refer to any of the species growing outside of cultivation. The subgenus is native to the regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Other cherry fruits are members of subgenus Padus, most eating cherries are derived from either Prunus avium, the sweet cherry, or from Prunus cerasus, the sour cherry. The indigenous range of the sweet cherry extends through most of Europe, western Asia, and parts of northern Africa, and the fruit has been consumed throughout its range since prehistoric times. A cultivated cherry is recorded as having brought to Rome by Lucius Licinius Lucullus from northeastern Anatolia, also known as the Pontus region. Cherries were introduced into England at Teynham, near Sittingbourne in Kent, by order of Henry VIII, cherries arrived in North America early in the settlement of Brooklyn, New York when the region was under Dutch sovereignty. Trades people leased or purchased land to plant orchards and produce gardens, behind the house sold by Anthony Jansen from Salee to Barent Dirksen. Both species originate in Europe and western Asia, they do not cross-pollinate, some other species, although having edible fruit, are not grown extensively for consumption, except in northern regions where the two main species will not grow. Irrigation, spraying, labor, and their propensity to damage from rain, nonetheless, demand is high for the fruit. In commercial production, cherries are harvested by using a mechanized shaker, hand picking is also widely used to harvest the fruit to avoid damage to both fruit and trees. Common rootstocks include Mazzard, Mahaleb, Colt, and Gisela Series, sour cherries require no pollenizer, while few sweet varieties are self-fertile. Like most temperate-latitude trees, cherry seeds require exposure to cold to germinate, the pits are planted in the autumn and seedlings emerge in the spring. A cherry tree will take three to four years in the field to produce its first crop of fruit, and seven years to attain full maturity, because of the cold-weather requirement, none of the Prunus genus can grow in tropical climates. Cherries have a growing season and can grow in most temperate latitudes. Cherries blossom in April and the season for the cherry harvest is in the summer
35.
Chestnut
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The chestnut group is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce, Chestnuts belong to the family Fagaceae, which also includes oaks and beeches. Unrelated but externally similar species of horse chestnut are abundant around Europe, other trees commonly mistaken for chestnut trees are the chestnut oak and the American beech, both of which are also in Fagaceae. The name chestnut is derived from an earlier English term chesten nut, the name Castanea is probably derived from the old name for the sweet chestnut, either in Latin or in Ancient Greek. Another possible source of the name is the town of Kastania in Thessaly, Greece, more probable, in the Mediterranean climate zone, chestnut trees are rarer in Greece because the chalky soil is not conducive to the trees growth. Kastania is located on one of the relatively few sedimentary or siliceous outcrops and they grow so abundantly there, their presence would have determined the places name. Still others take the name as coming from the Greek name of Sardis glans – Sardis being the capital of Lydia, Asia Minor, the name is cited twice in the King James Version of the Bible. In one instance, Jacob puts peeled twigs in the troughs to promote healthy offspring of his livestock. Although it may indicate another tree, it indicates the fruit was a staple food in the early 17th century. These synonyms are or have been in use, Fagus castanea, Sardian nut, Jupiters nut, husked nut, Chestnut trees are of moderate growth rate to fast-growing for American and European species. Their mature heights vary from the smallest species of chinkapins, often shrubby, to the giant of past American forests, C. dentata that could reach 60 m. Between these extremes are found the Japanese chestnut at 10 m average, followed by the Chinese chestnut at about 15 m, when standing on their own, they spread on the sides and develop broad, rounded, dense crowns at maturity. The two latters foliage has striking yellow autumn colouring and its bark is smooth when young, of a vinous maroon or red-brown colour for the American chestnut, grey for the European chestnut. The leaves are simple, ovate or lanceolate, 10–30 cm long and 4–10 cm wide, with sharply pointed, the flowers follow the leaves, appearing in late spring or early summer or into July. They are arranged in long catkins of two kinds, with both kinds being borne on every tree, some catkins are made of only male flowers, which mature first. Each flower has eight stamens, or 10 to 12 for C. mollissima, the ripe pollen carries a heavy, sweet odour that some people find too sweet or unpleasant. Other catkins have these pollen-bearing flowers, but also carry near the twig from which these spring, two or three flowers together form a four-lobed prickly calybium, which ultimately grows completely together to make the brown hull, or husk, covering the fruits. Chestnut flowers are not self-compatible, so two trees are required for pollination, all Castanea species readily hybridize with each other
36.
Triadica sebifera
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Triadica sebifera, also known as Sapium sebiferum, is commonly known as the Chinese tallow, Chinese tallowtree, Florida aspen, chicken tree, gray popcorn tree, and candleberry tree. The tree is native to eastern Asia, and is most commonly associated with eastern China, Taiwan, in these regions, the waxy coating of the seeds is used for candle and soap making, and the leaves are used as herbal medicine to treat boils. The plant sap and leaves are reputed to be toxic, the specific epithets sebifera and sebiferum mean wax-bearing and refer to the vegetable tallow that coats the seeds. It is useful in the production of biodiesel because it is the third most productive oil producing crop in the world, after algae. This species is documented as an invader in the southern U. S. The leaves are green in color and slightly paler underneath. They become bright yellows, oranges, purples and reds in the autumn, the tree is monoecious, producing male and female flowers on the same plant. The waxy green leaves set off the clusters of greenish-yellow and white flowers at bloom time, the flowers occur in terminal spike-like inflorescences up to 20 cm long. Light green in color, these flowers are conspicuous in the spring. Each pistillate flower is solitary and has a three-lobed ovary, three styles, and no petals and they are located on short branches at the base of the spike. The staminate flowers occur in clusters at the nodes of the inflorescence. As the capsules mature, their color changes from green to a brown-black, the capsule walls fall away and release three globose seeds with a white, tallow-containing covering. Seeds usually hang on the plants for several weeks, in North America, the flowers typically mature from April to June and the fruit ripens from September to October. In the Houston area, Chinese tallow trees account for a full 23 percent of all trees, the plant is sold in nurseries as an ornamental tree. It is not choosy about soil types or drainage, but will not grow in deep shade and it commonly grows all over Japan, and is reasonably hardy. It is prized for its abundant and often spectacular autumn foliage, the tree is common in southeast Oklahoma as well, although it is not depicted on the map. The seeds white waxy aril is used in soap making, the seeds inner oil is toxic but has industrial applications. The nectar is non-toxic, and it has become a major plant for beekeepers
37.
Clover
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Clover or trefoil are common names for plants of the genus Trifolium, consisting of about 300 species of plants in the leguminous pea family Fabaceae. They are small annual, biennial, or short-lived perennial herbaceous plants. The leaves are trifoliate, with adnate to the leaf-stalk, and heads or dense spikes of small red, purple, white, or yellow flowers. Other closely related genera often called clovers include Melilotus and Medicago, several species of clover are extensively cultivated as fodder plants. The most widely cultivated clovers are white clover Trifolium repens and red clover Trifolium pratense, in many areas, particularly on acidic soil, clover is short-lived because of a combination of insect pests, diseases and nutrient balance, this is known as clover sickness. When crop rotations are managed so that clover does not recur at intervals shorter than eight years, clover sickness in more recent times may also be linked to pollinator decline, clovers are most efficiently pollinated by bumblebees, which have declined as a result of agricultural intensification. Honeybees can also pollinate clover, and beekeepers are often in demand from farmers with clover pastures. Farmers reap the benefits of increased reseeding that occurs with increased bee activity, beekeepers benefit from the clover bloom, as clover is one of the main nectar sources for honeybees. Trifolium repens, white or Dutch clover, is a perennial abundant in meadows, the flowers are white or pinkish, becoming brown and deflexed as the corolla fades. Trifolium hybridum, alsike or Swedish clover, is a perennial which was introduced early in the 19th century and has now become naturalized in Britain, the flowers are white or rosy, and resemble those of the last species. Trifolium medium, meadow or zigzag clover, a perennial with straggling flexuous stems, clovers occasionally have four leaflets, instead of the usual three. These four-leaf clovers, like other rarities, are considered lucky, clovers can also have five, six, or more leaflets, but these are rarer. The record for most leaflets is 56, set on 10 May 2009 and this beat the 21-leaf clover, a record set in June 2008 by the same discoverer, who had also held the prior Guinness World Record of 18. A common idiom is to be in clover, meaning to live a life of ease, comfort. The cloverleaf interchange is named for the resemblance to the leaflets of a clover when viewed from the air, quattrofolium Edibility of clover, Edible parts and visual identification of wild clover
38.
Fructose
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Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple ketonic monosaccharide found in many plants, where it is often bonded to glucose to form the disaccharide sucrose. It is one of the three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly into the bloodstream during digestion, fructose was discovered by French chemist Augustin-Pierre Dubrunfaut in 1847. The name fructose was coined in 1857 by the English chemist William Miller, pure, dry fructose is a very sweet, white, odorless, crystalline solid and is the most water-soluble of all the sugars. Fructose is found in honey, tree and vine fruits, flowers, berries, commercially, fructose is frequently derived from sugar cane, sugar beets, and corn. Crystalline fructose is the monosaccharide, dried, ground, and of high purity, high-fructose corn syrup is a mixture of glucose and fructose as monosaccharides. Sucrose is a compound with one molecule of glucose covalently linked to one molecule of fructose, all forms of fructose, including fruits and juices, are commonly added to foods and drinks for palatability and taste enhancement, and for browning of some foods, such as baked goods. About 240,000 tonnes of crystalline fructose are produced annually, leads to adverse health outcomes independent of any effects related to its presence as a component of total and free sugars. Crystalline fructose adopts a cyclic six-membered structure owing to the stability of its hemiketal and internal hydrogen-bonding and this form is formally called D-fructopyranose. In solution, fructose exists as a mixture of 70% fructopyranose and about 22% fructofuranose. Fructose may be fermented by yeast or bacteria. Yeast enzymes convert sugar to ethanol and carbon dioxide, the carbon dioxide released during fermentation will remain dissolved in water, where it will reach equilibrium with carbonic acid, unless the fermentation chamber is left open to the air. The dissolved carbon dioxide and carbonic acid produce the carbonation in bottled fermented beverages, fructose undergoes the Maillard reaction, non-enzymatic browning, with amino acids. Because fructose exists to an extent in the open-chain form than does glucose. Fructose readily dehydrates to give hydroxymethylfurfural and this process, in the future, may become part of a low-cost, carbon-neutral system to produce replacements for petrol and diesel from plants. The primary reason that fructose is used commercially in foods and beverages, besides its low cost, is its high relative sweetness and it is the sweetest of all naturally occurring carbohydrates. The relative sweetness of fructose has been reported in the range of 1. 2–1.8 times that of sucrose, however, it is the 6-membered ring form of fructose that is sweeter, the 5-membered ring form tastes about the same as usual table sugar. Warming fructose leads to formation of the 5-membered ring form, therefore, the relative sweetness decreases with increasing temperature. The sweetness of fructose is perceived earlier than that of sucrose or glucose, fructose can also enhance other flavors in the system
39.
Hygroscopy
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Hygroscopy is the phenomenon of attracting and holding water molecules from the surrounding environment, which is usually at normal or room temperature. This is achieved through either absorption or adsorption with the absorbing or adsorbing substance becoming physically changed somewhat. Zinc chloride and calcium chloride, as well as potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide, are so hygroscopic that they readily dissolve in the water they absorb, not only is sulfuric acid hygroscopic in concentrated form but its solutions are hygroscopic down to concentrations of 10 Vol-% or below. A hygroscopic material will tend to damp and cakey when exposed to moist air. Because of their affinity for moisture, hygroscopic materials might require storage in sealed containers. When added to foods or other materials for the purpose of maintaining moisture content. Materials and compounds exhibit different hygroscopic properties, and this difference can lead to detrimental effects, differences in hygroscopy can be observed in plastic-laminated paperback book covers—often, in a suddenly moist environment, the book cover will curl away from the rest of the book. The unlaminated side of the cover absorbs more moisture than the side and increases in area. This is similar to the function of a thermostats bi-metallic strip, inexpensive dial-type hygrometers make use of this principle using a coiled strip. Deliquescence, the process by which a substance absorbs moisture from the atmosphere until it dissolves in the absorbed water, deliquescence occurs when the vapour pressure of the solution that is formed is less than the partial pressure of water vapour in the air. While some similar forces are at work here, it is different from capillary attraction, a process where glass or other solid substances attract water, the similar-sounding but unrelated word hydroscopic is sometimes used in error for hygroscopic. A hydroscope is a device used for making observations deep under water. The amount of moisture held by hygroscopic materials is proportional to the relative humidity. Tables containing this information can be found in engineering handbooks and is also available from suppliers of various materials and chemicals. Hygroscopy also plays an important role in the engineering of plastic materials, some plastics are hygroscopic while others are not. The seeds of grasses have hygroscopic extensions that bend with changes in humidity. An example is Needle-and-Thread, Hesperostipa comata, each seed has an awn that twists several turns when the seed is released. Increased moisture causes it to untwist, and, upon drying, to twist again, thorny dragons collect moisture in the dry desert via nighttime condensation of dew that forms on their skin and is channeled to their mouths in hygroscopic grooves between the spines of their skin
40.
Taraxacum
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Taraxacum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae which consists of species commonly known as dandelion. They are native to Eurasia and North America, but the two species worldwide, T. officinale and T. erythrospermum, were imports from Europe that now propagate as wildflowers. Both species are edible in their entirety, the common name dandelion is given to members of the genus. Like other members of the Asteraceae family, they have small flowers collected together into a composite flower head. Each single flower in a head is called a floret, many Taraxacum species produce seeds asexually by apomixis, where the seeds are produced without pollination, resulting in offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant. The species of Taraxacum are tap-rooted, perennial, herbaceous plants, the genus contains many species which usually reproduce by apomixis, resulting in many local populations and endemism. In the British Isles alone,234 microspecies are recognised in 9 loosely defined sections, in general, the leaves are 5–25 cm long or longer, simple, lobed, and form a basal rosette above the central taproot. The flower heads are yellow to orange coloured, and are open in the daytime, the heads are borne singly on a hollow stem that is usually leafless and rises 1–10 cm or more above the leaves. Stems and leaves exude a white, milky latex when broken, a rosette may produce several flowering stems at a time. The flower heads are 2–5 cm in diameter and consist entirely of ray florets, the flower heads mature into spherical seed heads called blowballs or clocks containing many single-seeded fruits called achenes. Each achene is attached to a pappus of hairs, which enable wind-aided dispersal over long distances. The flower head is surrounded by bracts in two series, the inner bracts are erect until the seeds mature, then flex downward to allow the seeds to disperse. The outer bracts are often reflexed downward, but remain appressed in plants of the sections Palustria and Spectabilia, some species drop the parachute from the achenes, the hair-like parachutes are called pappus, and they are modified sepals. Between the pappus and the achene is a called a beak. The beak breaks off from the achene quite easily, separating the seed from the parachute, a number of species of Taraxacum are seed-dispersed ruderals that rapidly colonize disturbed soil, especially the common dandelion, which has been introduced over much of the temperate world. After flowering is finished, the flower head dries out for a day or two. The dried petals and stamens drop off, the reflex. Many similar plants in the Asteraceae family with yellow flowers are known as false dandelions
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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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Eucalyptus
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Eucalyptus /ˌjuːkəˈlɪptəs/ LHeritier 1789 is a diverse genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the flora of Australia. There are more than 700 species of eucalyptus and most are native to Australia, one species, Eucalyptus deglupta, ranges as far north as the Philippines. Of the 15 species found outside Australia, just nine are exclusively non-Australian, species of eucalyptus are cultivated widely in the tropical and temperate world, including the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, China, and the Indian subcontinent. However, the range over which many eucalypts can be planted in the zone is constrained by their limited cold tolerance. Australia is covered by 92,000,000 hectares of eucalypt forest, Eucalyptus is one of three similar genera that are commonly referred to as eucalypts, the others being Corymbia and Angophora. Many species, though by no means all, are known as gum trees because they exude copious kino from any break in the bark. The generic name is derived from the Greek words ευ well and καλύπτω to cover, Eucalyptus oil finds many uses like in aromatherapy, as a cure for joint pains. Eucalyptus trees show allelopathic effects, they release compounds which inhibit other plant species from growing nearby, on warm days, eucalyptus forests are sometimes shrouded in a smog-like mist of vaporised volatile organic compounds, the Australian Blue Mountains take their name from the haze. A mature eucalyptus may take the form of a low shrub or a large tree. The species can be divided into three main habits and four size categories, as a generalisation forest trees are single-stemmed and have a crown forming a minor proportion of the whole tree height. Woodland trees are single-stemmed, although they may branch at a distance above ground level. Many mallee trees may be so low-growing as to be considered a shrub, two other tree forms are notable in Western Australia and described using the native names mallet and marlock. The mallet is a small to medium-sized tree that does not produce lignotubers and has a long trunk. This is the habit of mature healthy specimens of Eucalyptus occidentalis, E. astringens, E. spathulata, E. gardneri, E. dielsii, E. forrestiana, E. salubris, E. clivicola. The smooth bark of mallets often has a satiny sheen and may be white, cream, grey, green, or copper. The term marlock has been used, in Forest Trees of Australia, it is defined as a small tree without lignotubers. They usually grow in more or less pure stands, clearly recognisable examples are stands of E. platypus, E. vesiculosa, and the unrelated E. stoatei
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Eucalypt
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These genera are recognised as having evolved from ancient lineages of the Myrtaceae family. Eucalyptus urophylla also grows naturally as far west as the Flores, once cooled down, the land becomes a freshly fertilised seed bed. Oils in the leaves tend to make the more severe and therefore more damaging to less attuned species. Epicormic buds under the thick bark of the trunk and branches are ready to sprout new stems. These advantages work well in areas affected by long dry spells, there are over 700 eucalypt species that dominates landscapes all over Australia, but diversity is reduced in rainforests and arid environments. Eucalypt leaves are low in protein and high in toxins, the main consumers of eucalypt leaves are the koala and eucalyptus leaf beetles. Plant Guide, Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora at Australian Native Plants Society Eucalypt Research at Currency Creek Arboretum
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Eucalyptus marginata
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Jarrah is a tree which sometimes grows to a height of 40 m high with a trunk up to 3 m in diameter. Older specimens have a lignotuber and have roots that extend down as far as 40 m and it is a stringybark with rough, greyish-brown, vertically grooved, fibrous bark which sheds in long flat strips. The leaves are arranged alternately along the branches, narrow lance-shaped, often curved, 8–13 cm long and 1. 5–3 cm broad, shiny green above. There is a distinct midvein, spreading lateral veins and a marginal vein separated from the margin, the stalked flower buds are arranged in umbels of between 4 and 8, each bud with a narrow, conical cap 5–9 mm long. The flowers 1–2 cm in diameter, with white stamens and bloom in spring. The fruit are spherical to barrel-shaped, and 9–20 mm long, Eucalyptus marginata was first formally described in 1802 by James Edward Smith, whose description was published in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. Smith noted that his specimens had grown from seeds brought from Port Jackson, the specific epithet is a Latin word meaning furnished with a border. Smith did not provide an etymology for the epithet but did note that and it is found inland as far as Mooliabeenee, Clackline and Narrogin and in the south as far east as the Stirling Range. Its northern limit is Mount Peron near Jurien Bay but there are also outliers at Kulin and Tutanning in the Pingelly Shire. The plant often takes the form of a mallee in places like Mount Lesueur and in the Stirling Range but it is usually a tree and it typically grows in soils derived from ironstone and is generally found within its range, wherever ironstone is present. Jarrah is an important element in its ecology, providing habitats for animal life – especially birds and bees – while it is alive. When it falls, it provides shelter to ground-dwellers such as the chuditch, Jarrah has shown considerable adaptation to different ecologic zones – as in the Swan Coastal Plain and further north, and also to a different habitat of the lateritic Darling Scarp. Jarrah is very vulnerable to dieback, the oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi, in large sections of the Darling Scarp there have been various measures to reduce the spread of dieback by washing down vehicles, and restricting access to areas of forest not yet infected. Jarrah produces a dark, thick, tasty honey, but its wood is its main use and it is a heavy wood, with a specific gravity of 1.1 when green. Its long, straight trunks of richly coloured and beautifully grained termite-resistant timber make it valuable for making, flooring, panelling. The finished lumber has a deep rich colour and an attractive grain. When fresh, jarrah is quite workable but when seasoned it becomes so hard that conventional wood-working tools are near useless on it and it is very durable and water resistant, making it a choice structural material for bridges, wharves, railway sleepers, ship building and telegraph poles. Jarrah wood is similar to that of Karri, Eucalyptus diversicolor
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Eucalyptus melliodora
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Eucalyptus melliodora, commonly known as Yellow Box, is a medium-sized to occasionally tall eucalypt. Leaves are stalked, narrow-lanceolate to lanceolate, to 14 x 1.8 cm, concolorous, dull, the intramarginal vein is markedly distant from the leaf margin in this species. This occurs in adult and juvenile leaves. The tree is distributed on the eastern plains and tablelands from western Victoria. E. melliodora is considered to be the best native tree for production, the honey produced has a delightful golden colour. The timber is pale brown, dense and heavy, resistant to decay and has used for sleepers, posts. It is not known as a furniture timber, in the 1985 Australian film Bliss, the Yellow Box is the tree planted as the letter that took eight years to deliver
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Eucalyptus camaldulensis
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Eucalyptus camaldulensis, the river red gum, is a tree of the genus Eucalyptus. It is one of around 800 species within the genus, oddly, it is named for a private estate garden near the Camaldoli monastery near Naples, from where the first specimen came to be described. Material from this tree was used by Frederick Dehnhardt, Chief Gardener at the Botanic Gardens in Naples and it is a familiar and iconic tree seen along many watercourses right across inland Australia. The tree produces welcome shade in the temperatures of central Australia. The tree can grow to 45 metres tall, it has smooth bark, ranging in colour from white and grey to red-brown, the tree has a large, dense crown of leaves. The base of the bole can be covered with rough, reddish-brown bark, the juvenile and adult leaves are stalked, with the adult leaves broad at the base, tapering to the tip. The adult leaf colour is a dull blue-green, the leaf also contains several to many oil-producing glands in the un-veined areas of the leaf. It is fast growing, and usually grows to 40 to 45 metres in height, the tree grows somewhat straight under favourable conditions, but can develop twisted branches in drier conditions. River reds and many other eucalypts have a nickname, widow maker. This form of self-pruning may be a means of saving water or simply a result of their brittle wood and this is also an efficient way of attracting wildlife that live in the holes formed, which gives the red gum a source of natural fertiliser. Eucalyptus camaldulensis consists of two variations and one subspecies, E. camaldulensis var. camaldulensis, and E. camldulensis var. obtusa, the subspecies Eucalyptus simulata, found in North Queensland, has been recognised as a hybrid of var. obtusa and Eucalyptus tereticornis. E. camaldulensis is found along many waterways within Australia. The species is linked to watercourses. In fact, in only a few locations in Australia will the species occur away from water courses, Eucalyptus camaldulensis var. camaldulensis is found in the Murray-Darling catchment area, whereas Eucalyptus camaldulensis var. obtusa is found outside the Murray-Darling catchment. The species can be found along the banks of watercourses, as well as the floodplains of those watercourses, due to the proximity to these watercourses, river red gum is subject to regular flooding in its natural habitat. River red gum prefers soils with clay content, the trees not only rely on rainfall but also on regular flooding, since flooding recharges the sub-soil with water. The association of the red gum with water makes the tree a natural habitat choice, indeed sometimes the only choice in drier areas. The trees provide a habitat for fish during the flooding season
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