Ironwood is a common name for many woods or plants that have a reputation for hardness, or specifically a wood density that is heavier than water, although usage of the name ironwood in English may or may not indicate a tree that yields such heavy wood.
Olea is a genus of about 40 species in the family Oleaceae, native to warm temperate and tropical regions of the Middle East, southern Europe, Africa, southern Asia, and Australasia. They are evergreen trees and shrubs, with small, opposite, entire leaves. The fruit is a drupe. Leaves of Olea contain trichosclereids.
Carpinus caroliniana, the American hornbeam, is a small hardwood tree in the genus Carpinus. American hornbeam is also known as blue-beech, ironwood, musclewood and muscle beech. It is native to eastern North America, from Minnesota and southern Ontario east to Maine, and south to eastern Texas and northern Florida. It also grows in Canada. It occurs naturally in shaded areas with moist soil, particularly near the banks of streams or rivers, and is often a natural constituent understory species of the riverine and maritime forests of eastern temperate North America.
Mentha longifolia is a species in the genus Mentha (mint) native to Europe excluding Britain and Ireland, western and central Asia, and northern and southern Africa. It is a very variable herbaceous perennial plant with a peppermint-scented aroma. Like many mints, it has a creeping rhizome, with erect to creeping stems 40–120 cm tall. The leaves are oblong-elliptical to lanceolate, 5–10 cm long and 1.5–3 cm broad, thinly to densely tomentose, green to greyish-green above and white below. The flowers are 3–5 mm long, lilac, purplish, or white, produced in dense clusters (verticillasters) on tall, branched, tapering spikes; flowering in mid to late summer. It spreads via rhizomes to form clonal colonies.
Quercus faginea, the Portuguese oak, is a species of oak native to the western Mediterranean region in the Iberian Peninsula. Similar trees in the Atlas Mountains of northwest Africa are usually included in this species, or sometimes treated as a distinct species, Quercus tlemcenensis. It occurs in mountains from sea level to 1,900 metres above sea level, and flourishes in a variety of soils and climates. Out of all the oak forests in the Iberian Peninsula, the southern populations of Portuguese oak were found to have the highest diversity and endemism of spider species.
Ostrya virginiana, the American hophornbeam, is a species of Ostrya native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia west to southern Manitoba and eastern Wyoming, southeast to northern Florida and southwest to eastern Texas. Populations from Mexico and Central America are also regarded as the same species, although some authors prefer to separate them as a distinct species, Ostrya guatemalensis. Other names include eastern hophornbeam, hardhack, ironwood, and leverwood.
Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata is a subspecies of the well-known olive tree, which until recently was considered a separate species and is still mentioned as such in many sources. Native to northeast of Africa and the drier parts of subtropical Asia, it has various common names, including wild olive, African olive, brown olive and Indian olive.
Tsuga chinensis, commonly referred to as the Taiwan or Chinese hemlock, or in Chinese as tieshan, is a coniferous tree species native to China, Taiwan, Tibet and Vietnam. The tree is quite variable and has many recognised varieties, though some are also maintained to be separate species by certain authorities. The tree was recently discovered in the mountains of northern Vietnam, making that the southernmost extension of its range.
Monodora myristica, the calabash nutmeg, is a tropical tree of the family Annonaceae or custard apple family of flowering plants. It is native to Angola, Benin, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda. In former times, its seeds were widely sold as an inexpensive nutmeg substitute. This is now less common outside its region of production. Other names of calabash nutmeg include Jamaican nutmeg, African nutmeg, ehuru, ariwo, awerewa, ehiri, airama, African orchid nutmeg, muscadier de Calabash and lubushi.
Melaleuca lanceolata commonly known as black paperbark, moonah, Rottnest Island teatree and western black tea tree is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is native to Australia where it occurs in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. It is a densely foliaged tree with rough bark, which flowers prolifically in summer.
Olea paniculata, commonly known as the native olive, is a plant of the genus Olea and a relative of the olive. It grows natively in Pakistan and southwestern China (Yunnan) through tropical Asia to Australia and the Pacific islands of New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Lord Howe Island.
Dendrobium tetragonum, commonly known as the tree spider orchid, is a variable species of epiphytic or lithophytic orchid endemic to eastern Australia. Tree spider orchids are unusual in having pendulous pseudobulbs that are thin and wiry near the base then expand into a fleshy, four-sided upper section before tapering at the tip. There are only a few thin but leathery leaves at the end of the pseudobulbs and up to five flowers on relatively short flowering stems. To allow for the variations in the species there are five subspecies and a variety, some with a unique common name.
Bulbophyllum weinthalii, commonly known as the wax orchid, is a species of epiphytic orchid that forms dense clumps on hoop pine. It has crowded pseudobulbs each with a single thin, leathery, dark green leaf and a single white, green or cream-coloured flower with red or purplish markings. It occurs from south-eastern Queensland to Dorrigo National Park in New South Wales.
Chionanthus foveolatus, commonly known as the pock ironwood or bastard ironwood, is a medium-sized, evergreen, Afromontane tree that is native to South Africa, Eswatini and Malawi.
Psychotria capensis, the bird-berry, is a southern African evergreen shrub or small tree. It belongs to a genus which is used medicinally in many regions, 'Psychotria' being from the Greek for 'rejuvenating', in reference to the healing properties of certain species. Kew lists some 2,000 species of Psychotria growing throughout the warmer regions of both hemispheres, but only two of them occur in southern Africa, namely P. capensis and P. zombamontana.
Olea capensis subsp. macrocarpa is a subspecies of tree of the family Oleaceae. Like the related species Olea welwitschii, it grows in sandy desert regions of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. It is an inconspicuous plant that does not attain great height, in contrast to O. welwitschii which can attain a height of 25 metres.
Salix pedicellata is a species of willow. It is a shrub or small tree to about 6–8 m tall, native around the Mediterranean Sea from Portugal to Lebanon and Syria in the north and from the Canary Islands to Tunisia in the south. Salix canariensis may be treated as a subspecies of S. pedicellata.
Prunus himalayana, called jyokun shin in Tibetan and 喜马拉雅臭樱 in Chinese, is a species of Prunus native to Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Tibet. It prefers to grow 2,800 to 4,200 m above sea level in the Himalayas. As Maddenia himalaica it was the type species for the now unrecognized genus Maddenia.
Strombosia pustulata is a species of tree in the family Olacaceae. It is native to the rainforests of tropical West and Central Africa. Common names for this tree include itako in Nigeria, afina in Ghana, poé in Abé spoken in Côte d'Ivoire and mba esogo in Equatorial Guinea.
Barringtonia edulis is a species of tree with edible fruits from the southwestern Pacific region, being found on Fiji and Vanuatu. Common names include cut nut, pao nut, boxfruit tree, heart tree, and yum-yum tree.
