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.
Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs of northern temperate regions that belong to the family Cupressaceae. The word cypress is derived from Old French cipres, which was imported from Latin cypressus, the latinisation of the Greek κυπάρισσος (kyparissos). Cypress trees are a large classification of conifers, encompassing the trees and shrubs from the cypress family (Cupressaceae) and many others with the word “cypress” in their common name. Many cypress trees have needle-like, evergreen foliage and acorn-like seed cones.
Hyacinthus is a small genus of bulbous, spring-blooming perennials. They are fragrant flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae and are commonly called hyacinths. The genus is native to the area of the eastern Mediterranean from the south of Turkey to Palestine, although naturalized more widely.
Guzmania is a genus of over 120 species of flowering plants in the botanical family Bromeliaceae, subfamily Tillandsioideae. They are mainly stemless, evergreen, epiphytic perennials native to Florida, the West Indies, southern Mexico, Central America, and northern and western South America. They are found at altitudes of up to 3,500 m (11,483 ft) in the Andean rainforests.
Caryocaraceae is a small family of flowering plants consisting of two genera with 26 species. The family is native to tropical regions of Central and South America, as well as the West Indies.
Copernicia is a genus of palms native to South America and the Greater Antilles. Of the known species and nothospecies (hybrids), 22 of the 27 are endemic to Cuba. They are fan palms, with the leaves with a bare petiole terminating in a rounded fan of numerous leaflets. The species are small to medium-sized trees growing to 5–30 m tall, typically occurring close to streams and rivers in savanna habitats.
Brahea is a genus of palms in the family Arecaceae. They are commonly referred to as hesper palms and are endemic to Mexico and Central America. All Hesper Palms have large, fan-shaped leaves. The generic name honours Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601).
The World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) is a biogeographical system developed by the international Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) organization, formerly the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases. The WGSRPD standards, like other standards for data fields in botanical databases, were developed to promote "the wider and more effective dissemination of information about the world's heritage of biological organisms for the benefit of the world at large". The system provides clear definitions and codes for recording plant distributions at four scales or levels, from "botanical continents" down to parts of large countries. Current users of the system include the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), and the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP).
Bactris major is a small to medium-sized spiny palm which ranges from Mexico, through Central America into northern South America and Trinidad. The species is divided into three or four varieties, although the boundaries between varieties is not always clearly defined.
Reinhardtia is a genus in the palm family native to the northern Neotropics. It is a primarily Central American genus with five species distributed between southern Mexico and the extreme north of Colombia, and one isolated species, Reinhardtia paiewonskiana in the southwest of the Dominican Republic.
Asterogyne is a genus of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae native to Central America and northern South America, with three of the five known species endemic to Venezuela.
Marojejya is a genus of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae. It contains the following two species, both endemic to Madagascar:
Masoala is a genus of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae. It contains the following species, both endemic to Madagascar:
Oncosperma is a genus of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae. It contains the following species, native to Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka:
Parajubaea is a genus of flowering plant in the family Arecaceae.
Iriartella is a genus of two species of palms found in northern and northwestern South America. The Nukak people of Colombia use Iriartella setigera to fashion blowguns.
Welfia is a genus of palms found in Central America and northwestern South America. Only two species are currently recognized: Welfia regia and Welfia alfredii.
Dipentodontaceae is a family of flowering plants containing two genera.
- DipentodonDunn - southern China, Assam, Myanmar
- PerrottetiaKunth in F.W.H.von Humboldt - southern China, Southeast Asia, Papuasia, Queensland, Hawaii, Latin America.
The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families is an "international collaborative programme that provides the latest peer reviewed and published opinions on the accepted scientific names and synonyms of selected plant families." Maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, it is available online, allowing searches for the names of families, genera and species, as well as the ability to create checklists.
Plants of the World Online (POWO) is an online database published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was launched in March 2017 with the ultimate aim being "to enable users to access information on all the world's known seed-bearing plants by 2020". The initial focus was on tropical African Floras, particularly Flora Zambesiaca, Flora of West Tropical Africa and Flora of Tropical East Africa.
