The term kola nut usually refers to the seeds of certain species of plant of the genus Cola, placed formerly in the cocoa family Sterculiaceae and now usually subsumed in the mallow family Malvaceae. These cola species are trees native to the tropical rainforests of Africa. Their caffeine-containing seeds are used as flavouring ingredients in beverages – whence the name ‘cola’, applied to various carbonated soft drinks, originates.
Liriodendron tulipifera—known as the tulip tree, American tulip tree, tulipwood, tuliptree, tulip poplar, whitewood, fiddletree, and yellow-poplar—is the North American representative of the two-species genus Liriodendron, and the tallest eastern hardwood. It is native to eastern North America from Southern Ontario and possibly southern Quebec to Illinois eastward to southwestern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and south to central Florida and Louisiana. It can grow to more than 50 m (160 ft) in virgin cove forests of the Appalachian Mountains, often with no limbs until it reaches 25–30 m (80–100 ft) in height, making it a very valuable timber tree.
Aesculus hippocastanum, the horse chestnut, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is a large deciduous, synoecious (hermaphroditic-flowered) tree. It is sometimes called horse-chestnut, buckeye, conker tree, or Spanish chestnut.
Yucca schidigera, also known as the Mojave yucca or Spanish dagger, is a flowering plant that is native to the Mojave Desert, Chihuahuan Desert and Sonoran Desert of southeastern California, Baja California, New Mexico, southern Nevada and Arizona.
Yucca elata is a perennial plant, with common names that include soaptree, soaptree yucca, soapweed, and palmella. It is native to southwestern North America, in the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan Desert in the United States, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, and northern Mexico.
Ziziphus mauritiana, also known as Indian jujube, Indian plumChinese date, Chinee apple, and dunks is a tropical fruit tree species belonging to the family Rhamnaceae.
Napoleonaea is a genus of woody plant in the family Lecythidaceae first described as a genus in 1804, the same year its namesake crowned himself Emperor of the French. The genus is native to Africa.
Barringtonia asiatica is a species of Barringtonia native to mangrove habitats from islands of the Indian Ocean in the west to tropical Asia and islands of the western Pacific Ocean. It is grown along streets for decorative and shade purposes in some parts of India, for instance in some towns on the southeastern shore. It is also known as Box Fruit due to the distinct box-shaped fruit it produces. The local name futu is the source of the name for the Polynesian island Futuna. The type specimen was collected by botanist Pehr Osbeck on a sandy beach area on the island of Java, later to be described by Carl Linnaeus in his Species Plantarum in 1753.
Fish toxins or fish stupefying plants have historically been used by many hunter gatherer cultures to stun fish, so they become easy to collect by hand. Some of these toxins paralyse fish, which can then be easily collected. The process of documenting many fish toxins and their use is ongoing, with interest in potential uses from medicine, agriculture, and industry.
Balanites aegyptiaca is a species of tree, classified as a member of either the Zygophyllaceae or the Balanitaceae. This tree is native to much of Africa and parts of the Middle East.
Trema orientalis is a species of flowering tree in the hemp family, Cannabaceae. It is known by many common names, including charcoal-tree, Indian charcoal-tree, pigeon wood, Oriental trema, and in Hawaii, where it has become naturalized, gunpowder tree, or nalita. It has a near universal distribution in tropical and warm temperate parts of the Old World, with a range extending from South Africa, through the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and southern China to Southeast Asia and Australia.
Ceanothus herbaceus, also known as Jersey tea, is a species of shrub in the family Rhamnaceae and is similar to Ceanothus americanus and Ceanothus sanguineus. It is a perennial shrub which is native to North America.
Lecythis ampla is a species of woody plant in the family Lecythidaceae, which also includes the Brazil nut. Common names include coco, olla de mono, jicaro and salero. It is found in Central and South America. It has been considered an endangered species in Costa Rica.
Omphalocarpum elatum Miers is a tall, tropical African tree belonging to the family Sapotaceae, remarkable for the large fruits growing directly from the trunk, and in many ways resembling the Lecythidaceae genus Napoleonaea. It is found in Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ghana, the Central African Republic, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Angola in the south. The fruits are favoured by elephants, the only animals able to break through the hard shell. They do this by skewering the fruit with a tusk while using their trunk to brace it against the ground. Having passed through the elephant's digestive tract, seeds germinate more readily. Although not yet endangered, the tree's life cycle is tied to that of forest elephants, and may become threatened in regions where elephant populations are under pressure.
Strychnos madagascariensis, the black monkey orange, is an African tropical and sub-tropical tree belonging to the Loganiaceae family. It is a tree with characteristically large fruit but can confused with some other species of the genus.
Maerua angolensis is a 10m tall, occasionally deciduous tree of the Capparaceae or caper family, often growing on termitaria and in thickets fringing seasonal watercourses, up to 1800m. Though never common, it is widespread in tropical Africa and arid regions, being absent from high-rainfall regions.
Ficus exasperata, also called the sandpaper tree, forest sandpaper fig, white fig, or sandpaper leaf tree, is a deciduous, and dioecious species of plant in the mulberry family Moraceae, native to tropical Africa and southern Asia.
Balanites wilsoniana is a species of fruit-bearing tree from west and central Africa from the caltrop family (Zygophyllaceae).
Hypericum oblongifolium, known as Pendant St. John's wort, is a species of flowering plant in Hypericumsect. Ascyreia.
Garcinia pseudoguttifera, known as the mo'onia tree in its native range, is a species of flowering tree in the family Clusiaceae or Guttiferae.
