The Arecaceae is a family of perennial, flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees. Currently, 181 genera with around 2,600 species are known, most of which are restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at the top of an unbranched stem. However, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts.
Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic flowering plants in the family Rafflesiaceae. The species have enormous flowers, the buds rising from the ground or directly from the lower stems of their host plants; one species has the largest flower in the world. Plants of the World Online lists up to 41 species from this genus, all of them are found throughout Southeast Asia.
The Araceae are a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants in which flowers are borne on a type of inflorescence called a spadix. The spadix is usually accompanied by, and sometimes partially enclosed in, a spathe. Also known as the arum family, members are often colloquially known as aroids. This family of 140 genera and about 4,075 known species is most diverse in the New World tropics, although also distributed in the Old World tropics and northern temperate regions.
Amorphophallus is a large genus of some 200 tropical and subtropical tuberous herbaceous plants from the Arum family (Araceae), native to Asia, Africa, Australia and various oceanic islands. A few species are edible as "famine foods" after careful preparation to remove irritating chemicals. The genus includes the Titan arum of Indonesia, which has the largest inflorescence of any plant in the genus, and is also known as the 'corpse flower' for the pungent odour it produces during its flowering period, which can take up through seven years of growth before it occurs.
Rattan, also spelled ratan, is the name for roughly 600 species of Old World climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. The greatest diversity of rattan palm species and genera are in the closed-canopy old-growth tropical forests of Southeast Asia, though they can also be found in other parts of tropical Asia and Africa. Most rattan palms are ecologically considered lianas due to their climbing habits, unlike other palm species. A few species also have tree-like or shrub-like habits.
The common toad, European toad, or in Anglophone parts of Europe, simply the toad, is a frog found throughout most of Europe, in the western part of North Asia, and in a small portion of Northwest Africa. It is one of a group of closely related animals that are descended from a common ancestral line of toads and which form a species complex. The toad is an inconspicuous animal as it usually lies hidden during the day. It becomes active at dusk and spends the night hunting for the invertebrates on which it feeds. It moves with a slow, ungainly walk or short jumps, and has greyish-brown skin covered with wart-like lumps.
Bufotenin is a tryptamine derivative, more specifically, a DMT analog, related to the neurotransmitter serotonin. It is an alkaloid found in some species of mushrooms, plants and toads, especially the skin.
Bufotoxins are a family of toxic steroid lactones or substituted tryptamines of which some are toxic. They occur in the parotoid glands, skin, and poison of many toads and other amphibians, and in some plants and mushrooms. The exact composition varies greatly with the specific source of the toxin. It can contain 5-MeO-DMT, bufagins, bufalin, bufotalin, bufotenin, bufothionine, dehydrobufotenine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Some authors have also used the term bufotoxin to describe the conjugate of a bufagin with suberylarginine.
The black toad, also known as the Inyo toad or Deep Springs toad, is a true toad that lives only in scattered oases in the Deep Springs Valley of Inyo County, California. In fact, its original scientific name, Bufo exsul, means "exiled toad," which refers to its species' isolation in a tiny spot in the high desert wilderness of the Californian Great Basin.
The European green toad is a species of toad found in steppes, mountainous areas, semi-deserts, urban areas and other habitats in mainland Europe, ranging from far eastern France and Denmark to the Balkans and Western Russia. As historically defined, the species ranged east through the Middle East and Central Asia to western China, Mongolia and northwestern India, and south through Italy and the Mediterranean islands to North Africa. Following genetic and morphological reviews, 14 population are now regarded as separate species. These species and the European green toad are placed in their own genus Bufotes, but they were included in Bufo.
The American toad is a common species of toad found throughout Canada and the eastern United States. It is divided into three subspecies: the eastern American toad, the dwarf American toad and the rare Hudson Bay toad. Recent taxonomic treatments place this species in the genus Anaxyrus instead of Bufo.
Fowler's toad is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae. The species is native to North America, where it occurs in much of the eastern United States and parts of adjacent Canada. It was previously considered a subspecies of Woodhouse's toad.
The Canadian toad, also known commonly as the Dakota toad, is a species of toad that ranges from the prairie regions of western Canada south to parts of the upper midwest of the United States. It belongs to the family Bufonidae, the "true" toads. Its specific name is derived from the Latin word hemiophrys, meaning eyebrow, which refers to its pronounced cranial crest between and behind the eyes. Anaxyrus hemiophrys displays the typical toad characteristics: it lacks a tail and teeth, it has a horizontal pupil, and its dry skin is thick and warty.
Amorphophallus paeoniifolius, the elephant foot yam or whitespot giant arum, is a tropical plant native to Island Southeast Asia. It is cultivated for its edible tubers in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Madagascar, New Guinea, and the Pacific islands. Because of its production potential and popularity as a vegetable in various cuisines, it can be raised as a cash crop.
Amorphophallus preussii is a species of plant in the family Araceae. It is endemic to Cameroon. Its natural habitats are lowland tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests and subtropical and montane tropical and subtropical coniferous forests. It is a Vulnerable species threatened by habitat loss.
Amorphophallus titanum, the titan arum, is a flowering plant in the family Araceae. It has the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. The inflorescence of the talipot palm, Corypha umbraculifera, is larger, but it is branched rather than unbranched. A. titanum is endemic to rainforests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Bufo eichwaldi, commonly known as Eichwald's toad or the Talysh toad, is a species of true toads in the family Bufonidae. It was first described by Litvinchuk, Borkin, Skorinov and Rosanov in 2008 and is found in the Talysh and Elburz Mountains in Azerbaijan and parts of northern Iran. It was previously considered to be a subspecies of the Caucasian toad.
Bufotes, the Eurasian green toads or Palearctic green toads, is a genus of true toads. They are native to Europe, western and central Asia and northern Africa; a region roughly equalling the western and central Palearctic. Historically they were included in the genus Bufo and then for a few years placed in Pseudepidalea, which is a synonym of the currently accepted name Bufotes.
Eulophia obtusa, a showy and distinctive species of orchid, popularly known as the ground orchid, recorded from Bangladesh, North India and Nepal. This orchid growing in seasonally in grassland. It is a grass associated orchid species. A Bangladesh based renowned botanist and ornithologist Md Sharif Hossain Sourav first described this rare species from Bangladesh in 2017. There are only three collections in the Kew Herbarium dates from 1902, which suggests that it is quite a rare species. It is assessed as critically endangered (CR) in Bangladesh according to the IUCN Red Listing criteria. Very recently this species was rediscovered in India after 118 years.
Amorphophallus margaritifer is a species of plant in the arum family Araceae, native from India to Myanmar.
