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Treculia Africana
''Treculia africana'' is a tree species in the genus ''Treculia'' which can be used as a food plant and for various other traditional uses. The fruits are hard and fibrous, can be the size of a volleyball and weight up to . Chimpanzees have been observed to use tools to break the fruits into small pieces that they can eat. The fruits contain polyphenols. Description and origin ''Treculia africana'' is a species of tree known in English as African breadfruit (Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, USA),Katende, A. B. et al.; 1995; Useful Trees and Shrubs for Uganda : Identification, Propagation, and Management for Agricultural and Pastoral Communities, p.638; Regional Soil Conservation Unit; Nairobi; Mbuya, L. P. et al.; 1994; Useful trees and shrubs for Tanzania: Identification, Propagation and Management for Agricultural and Pastoral Communities, p.488; Regional Soil Conservation Unit, Swedish International Development Authority; Nairobi; breadfruit (Nigeria),Baerts, M. and J. Lehmann; Pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Decaisne
Joseph Decaisne (7 March 1807 – 8 January 1882) was a French botanist and agronomist. He became an ''aide-naturaliste'' to Adrien-Henri de Jussieu (1797-1853), who served as the chair of rural botany. It was during this time that he began to study plants brought back by various travelers like those of Victor Jacquemont (1801-1832) from Asia. Decaisne used applied research, most notably on the agronomy of the madder, the yam and the ramie. He was also interested in algae. Biography Although born in Brussels, Belgium, he exercised his activity exclusively in Paris. He entered in 1824 as a gardener at the ''Muséum national d'histoire naturelle'' (French museum of natural history) and became, in 1832, head of the ''carré des semis'' section. He also worked at the '' Jardin des Plantes'' and collaborated with Asa Gray. In 1847 he chaired Statistical Agriculture department in the College de France. In 1850, Decaisne followed Charles-François Brisseau de Mirbel (1776-1854) as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dicotyledonous
The dicotyledons, also known as dicots (or, more rarely, dicotyls), are one of the two groups into which all the flowering plants (angiosperms) were formerly divided. The name refers to one of the typical characteristics of the group: namely, that the seed has two embryonic leaves or cotyledons. There are around 200,000 species within this group. The other group of flowering plants were called monocotyledons (or monocots), typically each having one cotyledon. Historically, these two groups formed the two divisions of the flowering plants. Largely from the 1990s onwards, molecular phylogenetic research confirmed what had already been suspected: that dicotyledons are not a group made up of all the descendants of a common ancestor (i.e., they are not a monophyletic group). Rather, a number of lineages, such as the magnoliids and groups now collectively known as the basal angiosperms, diverged earlier than the monocots did; in other words, monocots evolved from within the dicot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medicinal Plants
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection against insects, fungi, diseases, and herbivorous mammals. The earliest historical records of herbs are found from the Sumerian civilization, where hundreds of medicinal plants including opium are listed on clay tablets, c. 3000 BC. The Ebers Papyrus from ancient Egypt, c. 1550 BC, describes over 850 plant medicines. The Greek physician Dioscorides, who worked in the Roman army, documented over 1000 recipes for medicines using over 600 medicinal plants in ''De materia medica'', c. 60 AD; this formed the basis of pharmacopoeias for some 1500 years. Drug research sometimes makes use of ethnobotany to search for pharmacologically active substances, and this approach has yielded hundreds of useful compounds. These include the common drugs aspi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fruits Originating In Africa
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagated using the movements of humans and animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; in fact, humans and many animals have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Consequently, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the world's agricultural output, and some (such as the apple and the pomegranate) have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. In common language usage, "fruit" normally means the seed-associated fleshy structures (or produce) of plants that typically are sweet or sour and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries. In botanical usage, the term "fruit" also incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In Vitro
''In vitro'' (meaning in glass, or ''in the glass'') studies are performed with microorganisms, cells, or biological molecules outside their normal biological context. Colloquially called " test-tube experiments", these studies in biology and its subdisciplines are traditionally done in labware such as test tubes, flasks, Petri dishes, and microtiter plates. Studies conducted using components of an organism that have been isolated from their usual biological surroundings permit a more detailed or more convenient analysis than can be done with whole organisms; however, results obtained from ''in vitro'' experiments may not fully or accurately predict the effects on a whole organism. In contrast to ''in vitro'' experiments, '' in vivo'' studies are those conducted in living organisms, including humans, and whole plants. Definition ''In vitro'' ( la, in glass; often not italicized in English usage) studies are conducted using components of an organism that have been isolated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nutrecul Agroforestry Project
The Nutrecul Agroforestry Project is a project which promotes the use of the indigenous multipurpose tree species Treculia africana. This project was initiated by Belgian agronomists and missionaries in the rainforest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and later entrusted to the Belgian horticulturist Jean Kiala-Inkisi. The project promotes Forestry combined with alternative food provision through agro-forestry techniques. Prehistory Eala, 1924 - INEAC, 1930-1962 The botanists ''P. Staner'' & ''A. Corbisier'' together with ''Professor G. Gilbert'' at the Laboratory of Tropical Forestry, UC Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium started cultivating the Treculia at the Botanic Garden of Eala in the Belgian Congo at the end of 1924. During the period from 1930 to 1962, research was conducted at ''The National Institute for Agronomy in the Belgian Congo'' (Institut National pour l'Etude Agronomique du Congo Belge or INEAC). Lisala, 1974-1977 During the years 1974, 1976 and 1977, the Flemish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reforestation
Reforestation (occasionally, reafforestation) is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands (forestation) that have been depleted, usually through deforestation, but also after clearcutting. Management A debated issue in managed reforestation is whether or not the succeeding forest will have the same biodiversity as the original forest. If the forest is replaced with only one species of tree and all other vegetation is prevented from growing back, a monoculture forest similar to agricultural crops would be the result. However, most reforestation involves the planting of different selections of seedlings taken from the area, often of multiple species. Another important factor is the natural regeneration of a wide variety of plant and animal species that can occur on a clear cut. In some areas the suppression of forest fires for hundreds of years has resulted in large single aged and single species forest stands. The logging of small clear cuts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, a half of that loss occurring in the last century. Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year. On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines deforestation as the conversion of forest to other land uses (regardless of whether it is human-induced). "Deforestation" and "forest area net change" are not the same: the latter is the sum of all forest losses (deforestation) and all forest gains (forest expansion) in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea to the south in the Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of , and with a population of over 225 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. The largest city in Nigeria is Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the second-largest in Africa. Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC, marking the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monoecious
Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. Monoecy is connected to anemophily. It can prevent self-pollination in an individual flower but cannot prevent self-pollination between male and female flowers on the same plant. Monoecy in angiosperms has been of interest for evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin. Terminology Monoecious comes from the Greek words for one house. History The term monoecy was first introduced in 1735 by Carl Linnaeus. Darwin noted that the flowers of monoecious species sometimes showed traces of the opposite sex function. Monoecious hemp was first reported in 1929. Occurrence Monoecy is most common in temperate climates and is often associated with inefficient pollinators or wind-pollinated plants. It may be beneficial to reducing pollen-stigma inter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treculia
''Treculia'' is a genus of trees in the plant family Moraceae that is native to west and central Africa and Madagascar. The best-known member of the genus, ''Treculia africana'', commonly known as the African breadfruit, is used as a food plant. The fruits are hard and fibrous, can be the size of a volleyball and weight up to 8.5 kg. Chimpanzees have been observed to use tools to break the fruits into small pieces that they can eat. Species ''Treculia'' *''Treculia africana ''Treculia africana'' is a tree species in the genus ''Treculia'' which can be used as a food plant and for various other traditional uses. The fruits are hard and fibrous, can be the size of a volleyball and weight up to . Chimpanzees have been ...'' :•''Treculia africana subsp. africana'' Decne. ex Trec. :•''Treculia africana subsp. africana cultivar. Nutreculia'' Nutrecul-TRC :•''Treculia africana subsp. madagascarica'' (N.E. Br.) C.C. Berg :•''Treculia africana var. ilicifolia'' (Lea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dioecious
Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproduction is biparental reproduction. Dioecy has costs, since only about half the population directly produces offspring. It is one method for excluding self-fertilization and promoting allogamy (outcrossing), and thus tends to reduce the expression of recessive deleterious mutations present in a population. Plants have several other methods of preventing self-fertilization including, for example, dichogamy, herkogamy, and self-incompatibility. Dioecy is a dimorphic sexual system, alongside gynodioecy and androdioecy. In zoology In zoology, dioecious species may be opposed to hermaphroditic species, meaning that an individual is either male or female, in which case the synonym gonochory is more often used. Most animal species are dioeci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
