|
Agave Deserti
''Agave deserti'' (desert agave, mescal, century plant or maguey) is an agave native to desert regions in southern California, Arizona, and Baja California. Its tall yellow flower stalks dot dry rocky slopes and washes throughout the spring. It forms a rosette of fleshy gray-green leaves 20–70 cm long and 4.5–10 cm broad, with sharp spines along the edges and at the tips. It flowers at maturity (20 to 40 yearsDole 1996, pg. 57), sending up an inflorescence 2–6 m tall. The panicle bears numerous yellow, funnel-shaped flowers 3–6 cm long. There are two varieties: *''Agave deserti'' var. ''deserti''. Plants usually with numerous rosettes; perianth tube 3–5 mm. Southern California only. *''Agave deserti'' var. ''simplex'' (Gentry) W.C.Hodgson & Reveal. Plants usually with one or only a few rosettes; perianth tube 5–10 mm. Southern California and Arizona. Cultivation and uses The desert agave is drought-tolerant but requires good drainage. The de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agave
''Agave'' (; ; ) is a genus of monocots native to the arid regions of the Americas. The genus is primarily known for its succulent and xerophytic species that typically form large Rosette (botany), rosettes of strong, fleshy leaves. Many plants in this genus may be considered perennial, because they require several to many years to mature and flower. However, most ''Agave'' species are more accurately described as monocarpic rosettes or multiannuals, since each individual rosette semelparity, flowers only once and then dies; a small number of ''Agave'' species are polycarpic. Along with plants from the closely related genera ''Yucca'', ''Hesperoyucca'', and ''Hesperaloe,'' various ''Agave'' species are popular ornamental plants in hot, dry climates, as they require very little supplemental water to survive. Most ''Agave'' species grow very slowly. Some ''Agave'' species are known by the common name "century plant". is a Spanish word that refers to all of the large-leafed pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Engelmann
Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann (14 November 1843 – 20 May 1909) was a German botanist, physiologist, microbiologist, university professor, and musician whose 1882 experiment measured the effects of different colors of light on photosynthetic activity and showed that the conversion of light energy to chemical energy took place in the chloroplast. Academic history Engelmann studied natural science and medicine first at the University of Jena, from 1861 to 1862, and later at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Göttingen and the University of Leipzig. In 1867, he received a doctoral degree in medicine at Leipzig. From 1870 he taught physiology at the University of Utrecht, becoming a professor in 1877. In 1897, he began teaching physiology at the University of Berlin, where he also became the editor of the '' Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie''. He retired in 1908, but continued to serve as editor until his death. Engelmann became a foreign member of the Royal Net ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of The California Desert Regions
Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring ( indigenous) native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora'' for purposes of specificity. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and flora (the taxonomic composition of a community) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of Arizona
Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora as in the terms ''gut flora'' or ''skin flora'' for purposes of specificity. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora (mythology), Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digging Stick
A digging stick, sometimes called a yam stick, is a wooden implement used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers, tilling the soil, or burrowing animals and anthills. It is a term used in archaeology and anthropology to describe similar implements, which usually consists of little more than a sturdy stick which has been shaped or sharpened and sometimes hardened by being placed temporarily in a fire. Fashioned with handles for pulling or pushing, it forms a prehistoric plough, and is also described as a type of hoe. Digging sticks more than 170,000 years old, made of boxwood by Neanderthals, have been found in Italy. By region Americas In Mexico and the Mesoamerican region, the digging stick was the most important agricultural tool throughout the region. The ''coa'' stick normally flares out into a triangle at the end and is used for cultivating maize. It is still used for agriculture in some indigenous communities, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Native Americans In The United States
Native Americans (also called American Indians, First Americans, or Indigenous Americans) are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of the United States, particularly of the Contiguous United States, lower 48 states and Alaska. They may also include any Americans whose origins lie in any of the indigenous peoples of North or South America. The United States Census Bureau publishes data about "American Indians and Alaska Natives", whom it defines as anyone "having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America ... and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment". The census does not, however, enumerate "Native Americans" as such, noting that the latter term can encompass a broader set of groups, e.g. Native Hawaiians, which it tabulates separately. The European colonization of the Americas from 1492 resulted in a Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, precipitous decline in the size of the Native American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Scott Gentry
Howard Scott Gentry (December 10, 1903 – April 1, 1993) was an American botanist recognized as the world's leading authority on the agaves. Gentry was born in Temecula, California. In 1931 he received an A.B. (bachelor's) degree in vertebrate zoology from the University of California at Berkeley. In 1947, Gentry received a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Michigan, Dissertation: ''The Durango Grasslands''. Gentry made his first field trip to the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico in 1933. He spent most of the next twenty years exploring and recording the plant life of northwestern Mexico. He worked for the United States Department of Agriculture from 1950 to 1971. He made botanical field trips to Europe, India and Africa looking for plants that are useful to man. He was a research botanist with the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona after 1971. He also collected many of the specimens now at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. His 1942 s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variety (biology)
In botanical nomenclature, variety (abbreviated var.; in ) is a taxonomic rank below that of species and subspecies, but above that of form. As such, it gets a three-part infraspecific name. It is sometimes recommended that the subspecies rank should be used to recognize geographic distinctiveness, whereas the variety rank is appropriate if the taxon is seen throughout the geographic range of the species. Example The pincushion cactus, ''Escobaria vivipara'', is a wide-ranging variable species occurring from Canada to Mexico, and found throughout New Mexico below about . Nine varieties have been described. Where the varieties of the pincushion cactus meet, they intergrade. The variety ''Escobaria vivipara'' var. ''arizonica'' is from Arizona, while ''Escobaria vivipara'' var. ''neo-mexicana'' is from New Mexico. Definitions The term is defined in different ways by different authors. However, the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, while recognizing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flower
Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, modified leaves; corolla, the petals; androecium, the male reproductive unit consisting of stamens and pollen; and gynoecium, the female part, containing style and stigma, which receives the pollen at the tip of the style, and ovary, which contains the ovules. When flowers are arranged in groups, they are known collectively as inflorescences. Floral growth originates at stem tips and is controlled by MADS-box genes. In most plant species flowers are heterosporous, and so can produce sex cells of both sexes. Pollination mediates the transport of pollen to the ovules in the ovaries, to facilitate sexual reproduction. It can occur between different plants, as in cross-pollination, or between flowers on the same plant or even the same f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panicle
In botany, a panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are often racemes. A panicle may have determinate or indeterminate growth. This type of inflorescence is largely characteristic of grasses, such as oat and crabgrass, as well as other plants such as pistachio and mamoncillo. Botanists use the term paniculate in two ways: "having a true panicle inflorescence" as well as "having an inflorescence with the form but not necessarily the structure of a panicle". Corymb A corymb may have a paniculate branching structure, with the lower flowers having longer pedicels than the upper, thus giving a flattish top superficially resembling an umbel. Many species in the subfamily Amygdaloideae, such as hawthorns and rowans, produce their flowers in corymbs. up'' Sorbus glabrescens'' co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
