Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 staff. Its board of trustees is chaired by Dame Amelia Fawcett.
Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World and the New World, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.
Lactuca, commonly known as lettuce, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. The genus includes at least 50 species, distributed worldwide, but mainly in temperate Eurasia.
Selenicereus, sometimes known as moonlight cactus, is a genus of epiphytic, lithophytic, and terrestrial cacti, found in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and northern South America. The term night-blooming cereus is also sometimes used, but this is also used for many night-blooming cacti, including Epiphyllum and Peniocereus. In 2017, the genus Hylocereus was brought into synonymy with Selenicereus. A number of species of Selenicereus produce fruit that is eaten. The fruit, known as pitaya or pitahaya in Spanish or as dragon fruit, may be collected from the wild or the plants may be cultivated.
Ephedra is a genus of gymnosperm shrubs. The various species of Ephedra are widespread in many arid regions of the world, ranging across southwestern North America, southern Europe, northern Africa, southwest and central Asia, northern China and western South America. It is the only extant genus in its family, Ephedraceae, and order, Ephedrales, and one of the three living members of the division Gnetophyta alongside Gnetum and Welwitschia.
Ephedra sinica is a species of Ephedra native to Mongolia, Russia, and northeastern China.
Mellissia was formerly a monotypic genus in the family Solanaceae with the single species, Mellissia begoniifolia, endemic to the island of Saint Helena. It was named by Joseph Dalton Hooker in honour of John Charles Melliss, a 19th-century engineer and amateur naturalist who worked on Saint Helena. The plant is now known correctly as Withania begoniifolia (Roxb.) Hunz. & Barboza, the genus Mellissia having been subsumed in the genus Withania.
Ephedra alata is a species of Ephedra. These plants are perennial and xerophytic gymnosperm shrubs.
Ephedra przewalskii is a species of Ephedra that is native to Central Asia, Mongolia, Pakistan, and parts of China.
Ephedra strobilacea is a species of Ephedra that is native to Iran and Central Asia.
Ephedra cutleri, the Navajo ephedra or Cutler's jointfir, is a species of Ephedra that is native to the Southwestern United States.
Ephedra altissima is a species of Ephedra that is native to the western Sahara, and also to the Canary Islands.
Ephedra fragilis, commonly named the joint pine, is a species of Ephedra that is native to the western Mediterranean region of southern Europe and Northern Africa, and from Madeira and the Canary Islands in the Atlantic.
Ephedra intermedia, with the Chinese common name of Zhong Ma Huang, is a species of Ephedra that is native to Siberia, Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the western Himalayas, Tibet, Mongolia, and China.
Baphiopsis parviflora is an African species of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is the sole species in genus Baphiopsis. It is a shrub or tree which ranges from Cameroon to Tanzania and Angola.
John Dransfield is an honorary research fellow and former head of palm research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom, as well as being an authority on the phylogenetic classification of palms.
Aponogeton natans is a species of aquatic plant in the family Aponogetonaceae.
Hippeastrum mirum is a species of herbaceous perennial bulbous flowering plants in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. It was formerly treated as Tocantinia mira, the only species in the monotypic genus Tocantinia.
Retanilla is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rhamnaceae, native to Chile, Peru, and Argentina. The species in this genus are actinorhizal plants.
Kimnachia is a monotypic genus of cacti. Its only species is Kimnachia ramulosa, synonym Pseudorhipsalis ramulosa, which is native from southern Mexico to northern South America and also found in Jamaica.
