Spearmint, also known as garden mint, common mint, lamb mint and mackerel mint, is a species of mint, Mentha spicata (, native to Europe and southern temperate Asia, extending from Ireland in the west to southern China in the east. It is naturalized in many other temperate parts of the world, including northern and southern Africa, North America, and South America. It is used as a flavouring in food and herbal teas. The aromatic oil, called oil of spearmint, is also used as a flavoring and sometimes as a scent.
Zingiberaceae or the ginger family is a family of flowering plants made up of about 50 genera with a total of about 1600 known species of aromatic perennial herbs with creeping horizontal or tuberous rhizomes distributed throughout tropical Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Many of the family's species are important ornamental, spice, or medicinal plants. Ornamental genera include the shell gingers (Alpinia), Siam or summer tulip, Globba, ginger lily (Hedychium), Kaempferia, torch-ginger Etlingera elatior, Renealmia, and ginger (Zingiber). Spices include ginger (Zingiber), galangal or Thai ginger, melegueta pepper, myoga, korarima, turmeric (Curcuma), and cardamom.
In botany, a tendril is a specialized stem, leaf or petiole with a threadlike shape used by climbing plants for support and attachment, as well as cellular invasion by parasitic plants such as Cuscuta. There are many plants that have tendrils; including sweet peas, passionflower, grapes and the Chilean glory-flower. Tendrils respond to touch and to chemical factors by curling, twining, or adhering to suitable structures or hosts. Tendrils vary greatly in size from a few centimeters up to 27 inches for Nepenthes harryana The chestnut vine can have tendrils up to 20.5 inches in length. Normally there is only one simple or branched tendril at each node, but the aardvark cucumber can have as many as eight.
Austrobaileya is the sole genus consisting of a single species that constitutes the entire flowering plant family Austrobaileyaceae. The species Austrobaileya scandens grows naturally only in the Wet Tropics rainforests of northeastern Queensland, Australia.
Etlingera elatior is a species of herbaceous perennial plant in the family Zingiberaceae; it is native to Thailand, Malaysia and New Guinea.
Erythranthe lewisii is a perennial plant in the family Phrymaceae. It is named in honor of explorer Meriwether Lewis. Together with other species in Erythranthe, it serves as a model system for studying pollinator-based reproductive isolation. It was formerly known as Mimulus lewisii.
Erythranthe androsacea is a species of monkeyflower known by the common name rockjasmine monkeyflower. It was formerly known as Mimulus androsaceus.
Diplacus congdonii is a species of monkeyflower known by the common name Congdon's monkeyflower.
Erythranthe dentata is a species of monkeyflower known by the common names coastal monkeyflower and toothleaf monkeyflower. It is native to the western coast of North America from British Columbia to northern California, where it grows in moist habitat. It was formerly known as Mimulus dentatus.
Erythranthe floribunda is a species of monkeyflower known by the common name many-flowered monkeyflower. It is native to western North America from western Canada to California and northern Mexico, to the Rocky Mountains. It grows in many types of habitat, especially moist areas. It was formerly known as Mimulus floribundus.
Diplacus fremontii is a species of monkeyflower known by the common name Frémont's monkeyflower. It is native to California and Baja California, where it grows in mountain and desert habitat, especially moist or disturbed areas. It was formerly known as Mimulus fremontii.
Erythranthe inflatula, synonyms Mimulus inflatulus and Mimulus evanescens, is a rare species of monkeyflower known by the common name disappearing monkeyflower. It is native to the western United States, where it is known from about ten locations in and around the Great Basin within the states of Idaho, Oregon, and California; it is also found in Nevada. Specimens of the plant had been catalogued as Mimulus breviflorus, but on further examination it was evident that they were a separate, unclassified species; this was described to science in 1995. It is thought that the plant may have evolved via hybridization between Erythranthe breviflora and Erythranthe latidens, or that it evolved from E. latidens and then into E. breviflora.
Erythranthe montioides is a species of monkeyflower known by the common name montia-like monkeyflower. It is native to the Sierra Nevada and its foothills in California, and it has been observed in the mountains near Carson City, Nevada. It grows in moist areas in the mountains and disturbed, rocky soils. It was formerly known as Mimulus montioides.
Diplacus nanus is a species of monkeyflower known by the common name dwarf purple monkeyflower. It is native to California and the Northwestern United States to Montana. It grows in moist habitat, often in bare or disturbed soils. It was formerly known as Mimulus nanus.
Mimetanthe is a genus of flowering plants in the family Phrymaceae. It has only one species, Mimetanthe pilosa, synonym Mimulus pilosus, known by the common names false monkeyflower and downy mimetanthe. It is native to the western United States and Baja California, where it grows in moist and disturbed habitat types. This plant is different enough from other monkeyflowers that it is treated in its own monotypic genus, Mimetanthe, or it may be retained in Mimulus.
Cautleya is a small genus of perennial plants of the family Zingiberaceae, found in the eastern Himalayas through to China and Vietnam. It consists of two species of high-altitude tropical and temperate plants, native to cool forest areas – an unusual habitat for members of the Zingiberaceae. They are grown as ornamental flowering plants.
Etlingera fulgens is a species of herbaceous perennial plant of the family Zingiberaceae. This species occurs in southern Thailand and peninsular Malaysia. E. fulgens is used as an ornamental plant in landscape gardens for its bright red flowers and young leaves.
Tacca chantrieri is a species of flowering plant in the yam family Dioscoreaceae. It was first described in 1901 by Édouard André. T. chantrieri is native to southeastern Asia. It is commonly known as the black bat flower due to its shape and coloring. The bat flower has unique pollination method in that it is mostly autonomous self pollinating. T. chantrieri prefers environments similar to its native region with tropical, moist conditions. The bat flower has been commonly used in Chinese medicine. It uses are wide in range from common aliments to more complex conditions such as cancer.
Erythranthe suksdorfii, with the common names Suksdorf's monkeyflower and miniature monkeyflower, is an annual flowering plant in the family Phrymaceae (Lopseed). It was formerly known as Mimulus suksdorfii. A specimen collected in Washington state in 1885 by the self-taught immigrant botanist Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf was identified as a new species by Asa Gray in 1886, who named it in Suksdorf's honor. It can easily be misidentified with Erythranthe breviflora, which generally has elliptic leaves rather than the linear or oblong leaves found in E. suksdorfii.
Rosemary Margaret Smith (1933–2004) was a Scottish botanist and illustrator who specialized in the taxonomy of the Zingiberaceae, or ginger family. Many of the species she classified and identified as being placed into improper genera were found in Asian countries, especially in the isolated island of Borneo.
