1.
Nelumbo nucifera
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Nelumbo nucifera, also known as Indian lotus, sacred lotus, bean of India, Egyptian bean or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. The Linnaean binomial Nelumbo nucifera is the currently recognized name for this species and this plant is an aquatic perennial. Native to Tropical Asia, and Queensland, Australia, it is cultivated in water gardens. It is also the flower of India, and Vietnam. The lotus is often confused with the water lilies, in fact, several older systems, such as the Bentham & Hooker system call the lotus Nymphaea nelumbo or Nymphaea stellata. Far from being in the family, Nymphaea and Nelumbo are members of different orders. The roots of lotus are planted in the soil of the pond or river bottom, the flowers are usually found on thick stems rising several centimeters above the leaves. The plant normally grows up to a height of about 150 cm and a spread of up to 3 meters. The leaves may be as large as 60 cm in diameter, researchers report that the lotus has the remarkable ability to regulate the temperature of its flowers to within a narrow range just as humans and other warmblooded animals do. Dr. Roger S. Seymour and Dr and they suspect the flowers may be doing this to attract coldblooded insect pollinators. The study, published in the journal Nature, is the latest discovery in the field of thermoregulation, heat-producing, two other species known to be able to regulate their temperature include Symplocarpus foetidus and Philodendron selloum. An individual lotus can live for over a thousand years and has the ability to revive into activity after stasis. In 1994, a seed from a lotus, dated at roughly 1,300 years old ±270 years, was successfully germinated. As mentioned earlier, the traditional Sacred Lotus is only related to Nymphaea caerulea. Both Nymphaea caerulea and Nelumbo nucifera contain the alkaloids nuciferine and aporphine, the genome of the sacred lotus was sequenced in May 2013. The distinctive dried seed heads, which resemble the spouts of watering cans, are sold throughout the world for decorative purposes. The flowers, seeds, young leaves, and roots are all edible, in Asia, the petals are sometimes used for garnish, while the large leaves are used as a wrap for food, not frequently eaten. In Korea, the leaves and petals are used as a tisane, yeonkkotcha is made with dried petals of white lotus and yeonipcha is made with the leaves
2.
Turmeric
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Turmeric is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is native to southern Asia, requiring temperatures between 20 and 30 °C and an amount of annual rainfall to thrive. Plants are gathered annually for their rhizomes and propagated from some of those rhizomes in the following season, although long-used in Ayurvedic medicine to treat various diseases, there is little high-quality clinical evidence for use of turmeric or its main constituent, curcumin, as a therapy. Turmeric has been used in Asia for thousands of years and is a part of Siddha medicine. It was first used as a dye, and then later for its medicinal properties, the origin of the name is uncertain, possibly deriving from Middle English/early modern English as turmeryte or tarmaret. Speculation exists that it may be of Latin origin, terra merita, the name of the genus, Curcuma, is from an Arabic name of both saffron and turmeric. Turmeric is a herbaceous plant that reaches up to 1 m tall. Highly branched, yellow to orange, cylindrical, aromatic rhizomes are found, the leaves are alternate and arranged in two rows. They are divided into leaf sheath, petiole, and leaf blade, from the leaf sheaths, a false stem is formed. The petiole is 50 to 115 cm long, the simple leaf blades are usually 76 to 115 cm long and rarely up to 230 cm. They have a width of 38 to 45 cm and are oblong to elliptic, in China, the flowering time is usually in August. Terminally on the stem is a 12 to 20 cm long inflorescence stem containing many flowers. The bracts are green and ovate to oblong with a blunt upper end with a length of 3 to 5 cm. At the top of the inflorescence, stem bracts are present on which no flowers occur, these are white to green and sometimes, tinged reddish-purple, the hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic and threefold. The three 0.8 to 1.2 cm long sepals are fused, white, have fluffy hairs, the three bright-yellow petals are fused into a corolla tube up to 3 cm long. The three corolla lobes have a length of 1.0 to 1.5 cm, and are triangular with soft-spiny upper ends, while the average corolla lobe is larger than the two lateral, only the median stamen of the inner circle is fertile. The dust bag is spurred at its base, all other stamens are converted to staminodes. The outer staminodes are shorter than the labellum, the labellum is yellowish, with a yellow ribbon in its center and it is obovate, with a length from 1.2 to 2.0 cm
3.
Stolon
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In biology, stolons, also known as runners, are horizontal connections between organisms. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton, typically, in botany, stolons are stems which grow at the soil surface or just below ground that form adventitious roots at the nodes, and new plants from the buds. Rhizomes, in contrast, are root-like stems that may either grow horizontally at the surface or in other orientations underground. Thus, not all horizontal stems are called stolons, plants with stolons are called stoloniferous. A stolon is a plant propagation strategy and the complex of individuals formed by a plant and all its clones produced from stolons form a single genetic individual. Stolons may or may not have long internodes, the leaves along the stolon are usually very small, but in a few cases such as Stachys sylvatica are normal in size. Stolons arise from the base of the plant, the nodes of the stolons produce roots, often all around the node and hormones produced by the roots cause the stolon to initiate shoots with normal leaves. A number of plants have soil-level or above-ground rhizomes, including Iris species and he recognized stolons as axillary, subterranean branches that do not bear green leaves but only membranaceous, scale-like ones. In some Cyperus species the stolons end with the growth of tubers, some species of crawling plants can also sprout adventitious roots, but are not considered stoloniferous, a stolon is sprouted from an existing stem and can produce a full individual. Examples of plants that extend through stolons include some species from the genera Argentina, Cynodon, Fragaria, other plants with stolons below the soil surface include many grasses, Ajuga, Mentha, and Stachys. Lily-of-the-valley has rhizomes that grow stolon-like stems called stoloniferous rhizomes or leptomorph rhizomes, a number of plants have stoloniferous rhizomes including Asters. These stolon-like rhizomes are long and thin, with long internodes and indeterminate growth with lateral buds at the node, in potatoes, the stolons start to grow within 10 days of plants emerging above ground, with tubers usually beginning to form on the end of the stolons. The tubers are modified stolons that hold food reserves, with a few buds grow into stems. Since it is not a rhizome it does not generate roots, see also BBCH-scale Hydrilla use stolons that produce tubers to spread themselves and to survive dry periods in aquatic habitats. Erythronium, commonly called Trout Lily, have white stolons growing from the bulb, most run horizontally, either underground or along the surface of the ground under leaf litter. A number of species produce stolons, such as Erythronium propullans. Flowering plants often produce no stolons, convolvulus arvensis is a weed species in agriculture that spreads by under ground stolons that produce rhizomes. In studies on grass species, with plants that produce stolons or rhizomes, in mycology, a stolon is defined as an occasionally septate hypha, which connects sporangiophores together
4.
Crocosmia
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Crocosmia is a small genus of flowering plants in the iris family, Iridaceae. It is native to the grasslands of southern and eastern Africa, one species is endemic to Madagascar. They can be evergreen or deciduous perennials that grow from basal underground corms, the alternate leaves are cauline and ensiform. The corms are unusual in forming vertical chains with the youngest at the top, the roots of the lowermost corm in a chain are contractile roots and drag the corm deeper into the ground where conditions allow. The chains of corms are fragile and easily separated, a quality that has enabled species to become invasive. They have colourful inflorescences of 4 to 20 vivid red and orange flowers on a divaricately branched stem. The terminal inflorescence can have the form of a cyme or a raceme and these flower from early summer well into fall. The flowers are sessile on a flexuose arched spike, all stamens have an equal length. The style branches are apically forked and they are pollinated by insects, birds or by the wind. The dehiscent capsules are shorter than they are wide and they are commonly known in the United States as coppertips or falling stars, and in the United Kingdom as montbretia. Other names, for hybrids and cultivars, include antholyza, the genus name is derived from the Greek words krokos, meaning saffron, and osme, meaning odor – from the dried leaves emitting a strong smell like that of saffron – when immersed in hot water. Crocosmias are grown worldwide, and more than 400 cultivars have been produced, some hybrids have become invasive species, especially C. × crocosmiiflora hybrids, which are invasive in the UK, New Zealand, the American Pacific Northwest, and probably elsewhere. Crocosmia are winter-hardy in temperate regions and they can be propagated through division, removing offsets from the corm in spring. The following cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Societys Award of Garden Merit, Manning – Madagascar Crocosmia aurea Planch. – eastern + southern Africa from Cape Province to Sudan, naturalised in Azores Crocosmia × crocosmiiflora N. E. Br, – Lesotho, Free State, Drakensberg Mountains in Mpumalanga Crocosmia pottsii N. E. Br. – Cape Province, KwaZulu-Natal Crocosmia × curtonus Crocosmia × crocosmiiflora Lucifer scarlet De Vos, flora of Southern Africa 7, 129-138. Peter Goldblatt, John Manning, Gary Dunlop, Auriol Batten - Crocosmia and Chasmanthe Kostelijk, P. J. Crocosmia in gardens
5.
Botany
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Botany, also called plant science, plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who specialises in this field, the term botany comes from the Ancient Greek word βοτάνη meaning pasture, grass, or fodder, βοτάνη is in turn derived from βόσκειν, to feed or to graze. Nowadays, botanists study approximately 410,000 species of plants of which some 391,000 species are vascular plants. Medieval physic gardens, often attached to monasteries, contained plants of medical importance and they were forerunners of the first botanical gardens attached to universities, founded from the 1540s onwards. One of the earliest was the Padua botanical garden and these gardens facilitated the academic study of plants. Efforts to catalogue and describe their collections were the beginnings of plant taxonomy, in the last two decades of the 20th century, botanists exploited the techniques of molecular genetic analysis, including genomics and proteomics and DNA sequences to classify plants more accurately. Modern botany is a broad, multidisciplinary subject with inputs from most other areas of science, dominant themes in 21st century plant science are molecular genetics and epigenetics, which are the mechanisms and control of gene expression during differentiation of plant cells and tissues. Botany originated as herbalism, the study and use of plants for their medicinal properties, many records of the Holocene period date early botanical knowledge as far back as 10,000 years ago. This early unrecorded knowledge of plants was discovered in ancient sites of human occupation within Tennessee, the early recorded history of botany includes many ancient writings and plant classifications. Examples of early works have been found in ancient texts from India dating back to before 1100 BC, in archaic Avestan writings. His major works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, constitute the most important contributions to science until the Middle Ages. De Materia Medica was widely read for more than 1,500 years, important contributions from the medieval Muslim world include Ibn Wahshiyyas Nabatean Agriculture, Abū Ḥanīfa Dīnawarīs the Book of Plants, and Ibn Bassals The Classification of Soils. In the early 13th century, Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati, and Ibn al-Baitar wrote on botany in a systematic and scientific manner and these gardens continued the practical value of earlier physic gardens, often associated with monasteries, in which plants were cultivated for medical use. They supported the growth of botany as an academic subject, lectures were given about the plants grown in the gardens and their medical uses demonstrated. Botanical gardens came much later to northern Europe, the first in England was the University of Oxford Botanic Garden in 1621, throughout this period, botany remained firmly subordinate to medicine. German physician Leonhart Fuchs was one of the three German fathers of botany, along with theologian Otto Brunfels and physician Hieronymus Bock, Fuchs and Brunfels broke away from the tradition of copying earlier works to make original observations of their own. Bock created his own system of plant classification, physician Valerius Cordus authored a botanically and pharmacologically important herbal Historia Plantarum in 1544 and a pharmacopoeia of lasting importance, the Dispensatorium in 1546. Naturalist Conrad von Gesner and herbalist John Gerard published herbals covering the medicinal uses of plants, naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi was considered the father of natural history, which included the study of plants
6.
Plant stem
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A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant, the other being the root. The stem is divided into nodes and internodes, The nodes hold one or more leaves. Adventitious roots may also be produced from the nodes, the internodes distance one node from another. The term shoots is often confused with stems, shoots generally refers to new plant growth including both stems and other structures like leaves or flowers. In most plants stems are located above the surface but some plants have underground stems. Stems have four main functions which are, Support for and the elevation of leaves, flowers, the stems keep the leaves in the light and provide a place for the plant to keep its flowers and fruits. Transport of fluids between the roots and the shoots in the xylem and phloem Storage of nutrients Production of new living tissue, the normal lifespan of plant cells is one to three years. Stems have cells called meristems that annually generate new living tissue, Stems are often specialized for storage, asexual reproduction, protection or photosynthesis, including the following, Acaulescent – used to describe stems in plants that appear to be stemless. Actually these stems are just extremely short, the leaves appearing to rise out of the ground. Arborescent – tree like with woody stems normally with a single trunk, branched – aerial stems are described as being branched or unbranched Bud – an embryonic shoot with immature stem tip. Bulb – a short underground stem with fleshy storage leaves attached, e. g. onion, daffodil. Bulbs often function in reproduction by splitting to form new bulbs or producing small new bulbs termed bulblets, bulbs are a combination of stem and leaves so may better be considered as leaves because the leaves make up the greater part. Caespitose – when stems grow in a mass or clump or in low growing mats. Cladode – a flattened stem that appears more-or-less leaf like and is specialized for photosynthesis, climbing – stems that cling or wrap around other plants or structures. Corm – a short enlarged underground, storage stem, e. g. taro, decumbent – stems that lie flat on the ground and turn upwards at the ends. Fruticose – stems that grow shrublike with woody like habit, herbaceous – non woody, they die at the end of the growing season. Pedicel – stems that serve as the stalk of a flower in an inflorescence or infrutescence. Peduncle – a stem that supports an inflorescence Prickle – a sharpened extension of the outer layers
7.
Root
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In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. Roots can also be aerial or aerating, that is growing up above the ground or especially above water, furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either. Therefore, the root is best defined as the non-leaf, non-nodes bearing parts of the plants body, however, important internal structural differences between stems and roots exist. The fossil record of roots – or rather, infilled voids where roots rotted after death – spans back to the late Silurian and their identification is difficult, because casts and molds of roots are so similar in appearance to animal burrows. They can be discriminated using a range of features, the first root that comes from a plant is called the radicle. In response to the concentration of nutrients, roots also synthesise cytokinin, Roots often function in storage of food and nutrients. The roots of most vascular plant species enter into symbiosis with fungi to form mycorrhizae. In its simplest form, the root architecture refers to the spatial configuration of a plant’s root system. This system can be complex and is dependent upon multiple factors such as the species of the plant itself, the composition of the soil. The configuration of root systems serves to support the plant, compete with other plants. Roots grow to specific conditions, which, if changed, can impede a plants growth. For example, a system that has developed in dry soil may not be as efficient in flooded soil, yet plants are able to adapt to other changes in the environment. Root architecture plays the important role of providing a supply of nutrients and water as well as anchorage. The main terms used to classify the architecture of a system are, Branch magnitude. Root angle, the angle of a lateral root’s base around the parent root’s circumference, the angle of a lateral root from its parent root. Link radius, the diameter of a root, all components of the root architecture are regulated through a complex interaction between genetic responses and responses due to environmental stimuli. These developmental stimuli are categorised as intrinsic, the genetic and nutritional influences, or extrinsic, the main hormones and respective pathways responsible for root architecture development include, Auxin – Auxin promotes root initiation, root emergence and primary root elongation. Cytokinins – Cytokinins regulate root apical meristem size and promote lateral root elongation, gibberellins – Together with ethylene they promote crown primordia growth and elongation
8.
Shoot
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In botany, shoots consist of stems including their appendages, the leaves and lateral buds, flowering stems and flower buds. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop, in the spring, perennial plant shoots are the new growth that grows from the ground in herbaceous plants or the new stem or flower growth that grows on woody plants. In everyday speech, shoots are often synonymous with stems, stems, which are an integral component of shoots, provide an axis for buds, fruits, and leaves. Young shoots are eaten by animals because the fibres in the new growth have not yet completed secondary cell wall development, making the young shoots softer and easier to chew. As shoots grow and age, the cells develop secondary cell walls that have a hard, some plants produce toxins that make their shoots inedible or less palatable. Many woody plants have distinct short shoots and long shoots, in some angiosperms, the short shoots, also called spur shoots or fruit spurs, produce the majority of flowers and fruit. A similar pattern occurs in some conifers and in Ginkgo, although the short shoots of some such as Picea are so small that they can be mistaken for part of the leaf that they have produced. A related phenomenon is seasonal heterophylly, which involves visibly different leaves from spring growth, whereas spring growth mostly comes from buds formed the previous season, and often includes flowers, lammas growth often involves long shoots
9.
Strawberry
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The garden strawberry is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus Fragaria. It is cultivated worldwide for its fruit, the fruit is widely appreciated for its characteristic aroma, bright red color, juicy texture, and sweetness. It is consumed in quantities, either fresh or in such prepared foods as preserves, fruit juice, pies, ice creams, milkshakes. Artificial strawberry flavorings and aromas are also used in many products like lip gloss, candy, hand sanitizers, perfume. Cultivars of Fragaria × ananassa have replaced, in production, the woodland strawberry. Technically, the strawberry is an accessory fruit, meaning that the fleshy part is derived not from the plants ovaries. Each apparent seed on the outside of the fruit is one of the ovaries of the flower. The first garden strawberry was grown in Brittany, France during the late 18th century, prior to this, wild strawberries and cultivated selections from wild strawberry species were the common source of the fruit. The strawberry fruit was mentioned in ancient Roman literature in reference to its medicinal use, the French began taking the strawberry from the forest to their gardens for harvest in the 14th century. Charles V, Frances king from 1364 to 1380, had 1,200 strawberry plants in his royal garden, in the early 15th century western European monks were using the wild strawberry in their illuminated manuscripts. The strawberry is found in Italian, Flemish, and German art, the entire strawberry plant was used to treat depressive illnesses. By the 16th century references of cultivation of the strawberry became more common, people began using it for its supposed medicinal properties and botanists began naming the different species. In England the demand for regular strawberry farming had increased by the mid-16th century, the combination of strawberries and cream was created by Thomas Wolsey in the court of King Henry VIII. Instructions for growing and harvesting strawberries showed up in writing in 1578, by the end of the 16th century three European species had been cited, F. vesca, F. moschata, and F. viridis. The garden strawberry was transplanted from the forests and then the plants would be propagated asexually by cutting off the runners, two subspecies of F. vesca were identified, F. sylvestris alba and F. sylvestris semperflorens. The introduction of F. virginiana from Eastern North America to Europe in the 17th century is an important part of history because this gave rise to the modern strawberry. The new species gradually spread through the continent and did not become completely appreciated until the end of the 18th century, when a French excursion journeyed to Chile in 1712, it introduced the strawberry plant with female flowers that resulted in the common strawberry that we have today. The Mapuche and Huilliche Indians of Chile cultivated the female strawberry species until 1551 when the Spanish came to conquer the land, in 1765, a European explorer recorded the cultivation of F. chiloensis, the Chilean strawberry
10.
Tuber
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Tubers are enlarged structures in some plant species used as storage organs for nutrients. They are used for the plants perennation, to energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season. Stem tubers form from thickened rhizomes or stolons, common plant species with stem tubers include potato and yam. Some sources also treat modified lateral roots under the definition, these are encountered in sweet potato, cassava, the term originates from Latin tuber, meaning lump, bump, swelling. Some sources define the term tuber to mean only structures derived from stems, a stem tuber forms from thickened rhizomes or stolons. The top sides of the tuber produce shoots that grow into stems and leaves. They tend to form at the sides of the parent plant and are most often located near the soil surface, the underground stem tuber is normally a short-lived storage and regenerative organ developing from a shoot that branches off a mature plant. The offsprings or new tubers are attached to a parent tuber or form at the end of a hypogeogenous rhizome, some plants also form smaller tubers and/or tubercules which act like seeds, producing small plants that resemble seedlings. Stem tubers generally start off as enlargements of the section of a seedling. Tuberous begonia, yams, and Cyclamen are commonly grown stem tubers, mignonette vine produces aerial stem tubers on 12-to-25-foot-tall vines, the tubers fall to the ground and grow. Enlarged stolons thicken to develop into storage organs, the tuber has all the parts of a normal stem, including nodes and internodes. The nodes are the eyes and each has a leaf scar, the nodes or eyes are arranged around the tuber in a spiral fashion beginning on the end opposite the attachment point to the stolon. The terminal bud is produced at the farthest point away from the stolon attachment, internally, a tuber is filled with starch stored in enlarged parenchyma like cells. The inside of a tuber has the cell structures of any stem, including a pith, vascular zones. The tuber is produced in one growing season and used to perennate the plant, as the main shoot develops from the tuber, the base of the shoot close to the tuber produces adventitious roots and lateral buds on the shoot. The shoot also produces stolons that are long etiolated stems, the stolon elongates during long days with the presence of high auxins levels that prevent root growth off of the stolon. Before new tuber formation begins, the stolon must be a certain age, the enzyme lipoxygenase makes a hormone, jasmonic acid, which is involved in the control of potato tuber development. The stolons are easily recognized when potato plants are grown from seeds, as the plants grow, stolons are produced around the soil surface from the nodes
Media related to Rhizomes at Wikimedia Commons
