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Jojoba
Jojoba (; botanical name: ''Simmondsia chinensis'')also commonly called goat nut, deer nut, pignut, wild hazel, quinine nut, coffeeberry, and gray box bushis an evergreen, dioecious shrub native to the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. ''Simmondsia chinensis'' is the sole species of the family Simmondsiaceae, placed in the order Caryophyllales. Jojoba is grown commercially in its area of origin and in other (semi-)arid regions to produce jojoba oil, a liquid wax ester extracted from its seed. Distribution The plant is a native shrub of the Sonoran Desert, Colorado Desert, Baja California desert, and California chaparral and woodlands habitats in the Peninsular Ranges and San Jacinto Mountains. It is found in southern California, Arizona, and Utah (U.S.), and Baja California state (Mexico). Jojoba is endemic to North America, and occupies an area of approximately between latitudes 25° and 31° North and between longitudes 109° and 117° West. Descr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jojoba Oil
Jojoba oil () is the liquid produced in the seed of the ''Simmondsia chinensis'' ( jojoba) plant, a shrub, which is native to southern Arizona, southern California, and northwestern Mexico. The oil makes up approximately 50% of the jojoba seed by weight. The terms "jojoba oil" and "jojoba wax" are often used interchangeably because the wax visually appears to be a mobile oil, but as a wax it is composed almost entirely (~97%) of mono-esters of long-chain fatty acids ''(wax ester)'' and alcohols ( isopropyl jojobate), accompanied by only a tiny fraction of triglyceride esters. This composition accounts for its extreme shelf-life stability and extraordinary resistance to high temperatures, compared with true vegetable oils. History The O'odham Native American tribe extracted the oil from jojoba seeds to treat sores and wounds. The collection and processing of the seed from naturally occurring stands marked the beginning of jojoba domestication in the early 1970s. In 1943, natu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simmondsiaceae
Simmondsiaceae or the jojoba family is a family of flowering plants. The family is not recognized by all taxonomic systems, the single species, '' Simmondsia chinensis'', often being treated as belonging to family Buxaceae. The APG II system, of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system, of 1998), does recognize this family and assigns it to the order Caryophyllales in the clade core eudicots. It consist of a single species only, jojoba (''Simmondsia chinensis''), of North American shrubs. The Cronquist system The Cronquist system is a list of systems of plant taxonomy, taxonomic classification system of angiosperms, flowering plants. It was developed by Arthur Cronquist in a series of monographs and texts, including ''The Evolution and Classification of ..., 1981, had also recognized this family and placed it in order Euphorbiales. References External links Euphorbiales: an overview of the history Caryophyllales families Monogeneric plant families {{Caryophylla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wax Ester
A wax ester (WE) is an ester of a fatty acid and a fatty alcohol. Wax esters are the main components of three commercially important waxes: carnauba wax, candelilla wax, and beeswax.. Wax esters are formed by combining one fatty acid with one fatty alcohol: :RCOOH + R'OH RCOOR' + H2O Some wax esters are saturated, and others contain unsaturated centers. Saturated wax esters have higher melting points and are more likely to be solid at room temperature. Unsaturated wax esters have a lower melting point and are more likely to be liquid at room temperature. Both fatty acids and fatty alcohols may be made of different carbon chain length. In the end, there are many different possible combinations of fatty acids and fatty alcohols and each combination will have a unique set of properties in terms of steric orientation and phase transition. The chain lengths of fatty acids and fatty alcohols in naturally occurring wax esters vary. The fatty acids in wax esters derived from plant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert () is a hot desert and ecoregion in North America that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the Southwestern United States (in Arizona and California). It is the hottest desert in Mexico. It has an area of . In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran floristic province of the Madrean region of southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic realm of the northern Western Hemisphere. The desert contains a variety of unique endemic plants and animals, notably, the saguaro (''Carnegiea gigantea'') and organ pipe cactus (''Stenocereus thurberi''). The Sonoran Desert is clearly distinct from nearby deserts (e.g., the Great Basin, Mojave, and Chihuahuan deserts) because it provides subtropical warmth in winter and two seasons of rainfall (in contrast, for example, to the Mojave's dry summers and cold winters). This creates an extreme contrast between aridity and moistur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. The largest cities by List of metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan area are Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, Las Vegas, El Paso, Texas, El Paso, Albuquerque, and Tucson, Arizona, Tucson. Before 1848, in the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México as well as parts of Alta California and Coahuila y Tejas, settlement was almost non-existent outside of New Mexico's pueblos and Santa Fe de Nuevo México#Regions and municipalities, Spanish or Mexican municipalities. Much of the area had been a part of New Spain and Mexico until the United States acquired the area through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the smaller Gadsden Purchase in 1854. While the regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caryophyllales
Caryophyllales ( ) is a diverse and heterogeneous order of flowering plants with well-known members including cacti, carnations, beets, quinoa, spinach, amaranths, pigfaces and ice plants, oraches and saltbushes, goosefoots, sundews, Venus flytraps, monkey cup pitcher plants, Malabar spinach, bougainvilleas, four o'clock flowers, buckwheat, knotweeds, rhubarb, sorrel, portulacas, jojoba, and tamarisks. Many members are succulent, having fleshy stems or leaves. The betalain pigments are unique in plants of this order and occur in all its core families with the exception of Caryophyllaceae and Molluginaceae. Noncore families, such as Nepenthaceae, instead produce anthocyanins. In its modern definition, the order encompasses a whole new group of families (formerly included in the order Polygonales) that never synthesize betalains, among which several families are carnivorous (like Nepenthaceae and Droseraceae). According to molecular clock calculations, the line ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leaf
A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the plant stem, stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, flower, and fruit collectively form the Shoot (botany), shoot system. In most leaves, the primary Photosynthesis, photosynthetic Tissue (biology), tissue is the palisade mesophyll and is located on the upper side of the blade or lamina of the leaf, but in some species, including the mature foliage of ''Eucalyptus'', palisade mesophyll is present on both sides and the leaves are said to be isobilateral. The leaf is an integral part of the stem system, and most leaves are flattened and have distinct upper (Glossary of botanical terms#adaxial, adaxial) and lower (Glossary of botanical terms#abaxial, abaxial) surfaces that differ in color, Trichome, hairiness, the number of stomata (pores that intake and output gases), the amount and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many different species, the unique feature of evergreen plants lends itself to various environments and purposes. Evergreen species There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, including trees, shrubs, and vines. Evergreens include: * Most species of conifers (e.g., pine, Tsuga, hemlock, spruce, and fir), but not all (e.g., larch). * Live oak, holly, and "ancient" gymnosperms such as cycads * Many woody plants from frost-free climates * Rainforest trees * All eucalypts * Lycopodiopsida, Clubmosses and relatives * Most bamboos The Latin binomial term , meaning "always green", refers to the evergreen nature of the plant, for instance: :''Cupressus sempervirens'' (a cypress) :''Lonicera sempervirens'' (a honeysuckle) :''Sequoia sempervirens'' ... [...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] |
Dioecy
Dioecy ( ; ; adj. dioecious, ) is a characteristic of certain species that have distinct unisexual individuals, each producing either male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproduction is biparental reproduction. Dioecy has costs, since only the female part of 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. In zoology In zoology, dioecy means that an animal is either male or female, in which case the synonym gonochory is more often used. Most animal species are gonochoric, almost all vertebrate species are gonochoric, and all bird and mammal species are gonochoric. Dioecy may also describe colonies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermaphrodites
A hermaphrodite () is a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes. Animal species in which individuals are either male or female are gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphroditic. The individuals of many taxonomic groups of animals, primarily invertebrates, are hermaphrodites, capable of producing viable gametes of both sexes. In the great majority of tunicates, mollusks, and earthworms, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which either partner can act as the female or male. Hermaphroditism is also found in some fish species, but is rare in other vertebrate groups. Most hermaphroditic species exhibit some degree of self-fertilization. The distribution of self-fertilization rates among animals is similar to that of plants, suggesting that similar pressures are operating to direct the evolution of selfing in animals and plants. A rough estimate of the number of hermaphroditic animal species is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Nuttall
Thomas Nuttall (5 January 1786 – 10 September 1859) was an English botanist and zoologist who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841. Nuttall was born in the village of Long Preston, near Settle in the West Riding of Yorkshire and spent some years as an apprentice printer in England. Soon after going to the United States he met professor Benjamin Smith Barton in Philadelphia. Barton encouraged his strong interest in natural history. Early explorations in the United States In 1810 he travelled to the Great Lakes and in 1811 travelled on the Astor Expedition led by William Price Hunt on behalf of John Jacob Astor up the Missouri River. Nuttall was accompanied by the English botanist John Bradbury, who was collecting plants on behalf of Liverpool botanical gardens. Nuttall and Bradbury left the party at the trading post with the Arikara Indians in South Dakota, and continued farther upriver with Ramsay Crooks. In August they returned to the Arikara post and jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
