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Umbellularia
''Umbellularia californica'' is a large hardwood tree native to coastal forests and the Sierra foothills of California, and to coastal forests extending into Oregon. It is the sole species in the genus ''Umbellularia''. The tree's pungent leaves have a similar flavor to bay leaves, though stronger, and it may be mistaken for bay laurel. The tree is endemic to the California Floristic Province. It is a host of the pathogen that causes sudden oak death. The dry wood has a color range from blonde (like maple) to brown (like walnut). It is considered an excellent tonewood and is sought after by luthiers and woodworkers. Description It is an evergreen tree growing to tall with a trunk up to in diameter. The largest recorded tree is in Mendocino County, California, and measured (as of 1997) in height with a spread. The thin bark is smooth and gray-brown when young, later turning reddish brown and scaly. The fragrant leaves are smooth-edged and lance-shaped, long and around a t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umbellulone
Umbellulone is a headache-inducing monoterpene ketone found in the leaves of the tree '' Umbellularia californica'', sometimes known as the "headache tree". It is hypothesized to cause headaches by influencing the trigeminovascular system via TRPA1. History '' Umbellularia californica'' is a tree native to California and Southern Oregon. Botanist Archibald Menzies was the first to collect the oil at the end of the 18th century. In 1826 this tree was classified as a laurel, ''Laurus regia'', by botanist David Douglas. In 1833 the tree received another classification by Hooker and Arnott, ''Tetranthera californica''. Shortly after that the present name was given by Nuttal, ''Umbellularia californica''. In 1875 Heaney obtained a colorless liquid (oreodaphenol) via fractionation under reduced pressure. This oil of the California laurel possess a pungent odor. Stillman (1880) did a fractionation at 215-216 °C. He discovered that inhalation of its fumes can lead to a painful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bay Leaves
The bay leaf is an aromatic leaf commonly used as a herb in cooking. It can be used whole, either dried or fresh, in which case it is removed from the dish before consumption, or less commonly used in ground form. The flavour that a bay leaf imparts to a dish has not been universally agreed upon, but many agree it is a subtle addition. Bay leaves come from various plants and are used for their distinctive flavour and fragrance. The most common source is the bay laurel (''Laurus nobilis''). Other types include California bay laurel, Indian bay leaf, Pimenta racemosa, West Indian bay laurel, and Litsea glaucescens, Mexican bay laurel. Bay leaves contain essential oils, such as eucalyptol, terpenes, and Methyl eugenol, methyleugenol, which contribute to their taste and aroma. Bay leaves are used in cuisines including Indian cuisine, Indian, Filipino cuisine, Filipino, European cuisine, European, and Caribbean cuisine, Caribbean. They are typically used in soups, stews, meat, sea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Native Plants
California native plants are plants that existed in California prior to the arrival of European explorers and colonists in the late 18th century. California includes parts of at least three phytochoria. The largest is the California Floristic Province, a geographical area that covers most of California, portions of neighboring Oregon, Nevada, and Baja California, and is regarded as a "world hotspot" of biodiversity. Introduction In 1993, '' The Jepson Manual'' estimated that California was home to 4,693 native species and 1,169 native subspecies or varieties, including 1,416 endemic species. A 2001 study by the California Native Plant Society estimated 6,300 native plants. These estimates continue to change over time. Of California's total plant population, 2,153 species, subspecies, and varieties are endemic and native to California alone, according to the 1993 Jepson Manual study. This botanical diversity stems not only from the size of the state, but also its diverse topo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lauraceae
Lauraceae, or the laurels, is a plant Family (biology), family that includes the bay laurel, true laurel and its closest relatives. This family comprises about 2850 known species in about 45 genus (biology), genera worldwide. They are dicotyledons, and occur mainly in warm temperate and tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia and South America. Many are aromatic evergreen trees or shrubs, but some, such as ''Sassafras'', are deciduous, or include both deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs, especially in tropical and temperate climates. The genus ''Cassytha'' is unique in the Lauraceae in that its members are parasite, parasitic vines. Most laurels are highly poisonous. Overview The family has a worldwide distribution in tropical and warm climates. The Lauraceae are important components of tropical forests ranging from low-lying to Montane forest, montane. In several forested regions, Lauraceae are among the top five families in terms of the number of species present. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only plants that are usable as lumber, or only plants above a specified height. But wider definitions include taller palms, tree ferns, bananas, and bamboos. Trees are not a monophyletic taxonomic group but consist of a wide variety of plant species that have independently evolved a trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. The majority of tree species are angiosperms or hardwoods; of the rest, many are gymnosperms or softwoods. Trees tend to be long-lived, some trees reaching several thousand years old. Trees evolved around 400 million years ago, and it is estimated that there are around three trillion mature trees in the world currently. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported cle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willis Linn Jepson
Willis Linn Jepson (August 19, 1867 – November 7, 1946) was a late-19th and 20th century California botanist, professor, conservationist, and writer. A co-founder of the Sierra Club in 1892, he was much honored in later life for his research and impact on his fields. Career Jepson was born at Little Oak Ranch near Vacaville, California. He became interested in botany as a boy and explored the adjacent San Francisco Bay Area, coming into contact with various botanists before he entered college. In 1892, at the age of 25, Jepson, John Muir, and Warren Olney formed the Sierra Club, in Olney's San Francisco law office. From 1895 to 1898, Jepson served as instructor in Botany and carried on research at the University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University (1895), and Harvard University (1896–1897). He received his Ph.D. at Berkeley in 1899. He was made assistant professor in 1899, associate professor in 1911, professor in 1918, and professor emeritus in 1937. He wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bay Laurel
''Laurus nobilis'' is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glabrous (smooth) leaves. It is in the flowering plant family Lauraceae. According to Flora Cretica (Kleinsteuber Books, 2024, ISBN 978-3-9818110-5-6) the stem can be 1 meter in diameter; the tree can be as high as 20 metres. It is native to the Mediterranean region and is used as bay leaf for seasoning in cooking. Its common names include bay tree (esp. United Kingdom), bay laurel, sweet bay, true laurel, Grecian laurel, or simply laurel. ''Laurus nobilis'' figures prominently in classical Greco-Roman culture. Worldwide, many other kinds of plants in diverse families are also called "bay" or "laurel", generally due to similarity of foliage or aroma to ''Laurus nobilis''. Description The laurel is an evergreen shrub or small tree, variable in size and sometimes reaching tall. The genus ''Laurus'' includes three accepted species, whose diagnostic key characters often overlap. The bay laurel is di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tonewood
Tonewood refers to specific wood varieties used for woodwind or acoustic stringed instruments. The word implies that certain species exhibit qualities that enhance acoustic properties of the instruments, but other properties of the wood such as aesthetics and availability have always been considered in the selection of wood for musical instruments. According to ''Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms'', tonewood is:Wood that is used to make stringed musical instruments. The term is often used to indicate wood species that are suitable for stringed musical instruments and, by exclusion, those that are not. But the list of species generally considered to be tonewoods changes constantly and has changed constantly throughout history. Varieties of tonewood As a rough generalization it can be said that stiff-but-light softwoods (i.e. from coniferous trees) are favored for the soundboards or soundboard-like surface that transmits the vibrations of the strings to the ambient ai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berry (botany)
In botany, a berry is a fleshy fruit without a drupe, drupe (pit) produced from a single flower containing one Ovary (botany), ovary. Berries so defined include grapes, Ribes, currants, and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers, eggplants (aubergines), persimmons and bananas, but exclude certain fruits that meet the berry, culinary definition of berries, such as strawberries and raspberries. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire outer layer of the ovary wall ripens into a potentially edible "pericarp". Berries may be formed from one or more gynoecium, carpels from the same flower (i.e. from a simple or a compound ovary). The seeds are usually embedded in the fleshy interior of the ovary, but there are some non-fleshy exceptions, such as ''Capsicum'' species, with air rather than pulp around their seeds. Many berries are edible, but others, such as the Potato fruit, fruits of the potato and the deadly nightshade, are poisonous to humans. A plant that be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umbel
UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer) is a logically organized knowledge graph of 34,000 concepts and entity types that can be used in information science for relating information from disparate sources to one another. It was retired at the end of 2019. UMBEL was first released in July 2008. Version 1.00 was released in February 2011. Its current release is version 1.50. The grounding of this information occurs by common reference to the permanent URIs for the UMBEL concepts; the connections within the UMBEL upper ontology enable concepts from sources at different levels of abstraction or specificity to be logically related. Since UMBEL is an open-source extract of the OpenCyc knowledge base, it can also take advantage of the reasoning capabilities within Cyc. UMBEL has two means to promote the semantic interoperability of information:. It is: * An ontology of about 35,000 reference concepts, designed to provide common mapping points for relating different on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurus
''Laurus'' () is a genus of evergreen trees or shrubs belonging to the laurel family, Lauraceae. The genus contains three or more species, including the bay laurel or sweet bay, ''L. nobilis'', widely cultivated as an ornamental plant and a culinary herb. Description They are slow-growing, large, evergreen aromatic shrubs or trees with alternate, ovate leaves and insignificant yellow male and female flowers borne on separate plants (dioecious). They are frost-hardy but in temperate zones they require a sheltered spot in full sun that is not subject to prolonged freezing. Plants in pots can be moved into a cold greenhouse during the winter months. Species The number of species in the genus has not yet been fully resolved. Three species are currently accepted: *'' Laurus azorica'', – Azores laurel. Native to the Azores. *''Laurus nobilis'' – bay laurel, true laurel, or sweet bay. Native to the Mediterranean region. Used as an ornamental plant and culinary herb (one type o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagated using the movements of humans and other animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; humans, and many other 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 and culinary 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'' als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
