In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.
Bromus tectorum, known as downy brome, drooping brome or cheatgrass, is a winter annual grass native to Europe, southwestern Asia, and northern Africa, but has become invasive in many other areas. It now is present in most of Europe, southern Russia, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, North America and western Central Asia. In the eastern US B. tectorum is common along roadsides and as a crop weed, but usually does not dominate an ecosystem. It has become a dominant species in the Intermountain West and parts of Canada, and displays especially invasive behavior in the sagebrush steppe ecosystems where it has been listed as noxious weed. B. tectorum often enters the site in an area that has been disturbed, and then quickly expands into the surrounding area through its rapid growth and prolific seed production.
Silviculture is the practice of controlling the growth, composition/structure, as well as quality of forests to meet values and needs, specifically timber production.
Cupressus pygmaea, the Mendocino cypress or pygmy cypress, is a taxon of disputed status in the genus Cupressus endemic to certain coastal terraces and coastal mountain ranges of Mendocino and Sonoma Counties in northwestern California. It is a variable tree, and closely related to Cupressus abramsiana and Cupressus goveniana, enough to sometimes be considered conspecific with them.
Theoretical production ecology tries to quantitatively study the growth of crops. The plant is treated as a kind of biological factory, which processes light, carbon dioxide, water, and nutrients into harvestable parts. Main parameters kept into consideration are temperature, sunlight, standing crop biomass, plant production distribution, nutrient and water supply.
Arundo donax is a tall perennial cane. It is one of several so-called reed species. It has several common names including giant cane, elephant grass, carrizo, arundo, Spanish cane, Colorado river reed, wild cane, and giant reed. Arundo and donax are respectively the old Latin and Greek names for reed.
Spergula arvensis, the corn spurry, stickwort, starwort or spurrey, is a species of plant in the genus Spergula.
Thlaspi arvense, known by the common name field pennycress, is a flowering plant in the cabbage family Brassicaceae. It is native to Eurasia, and is a common weed throughout much of North America and its home.
Miscanthus × giganteus, also known as the giant miscanthus, is a sterile hybrid of Miscanthus sinensis and Miscanthus sacchariflorus. It is a perennial grass with bamboo-like stems that can grow to heights of 3–4 metres (13 ft) in one season. Just like Pennisetum purpureum, Arundo donax and Saccharum ravennae, it is also called elephant grass.
Specific leaf area (SLA) is the ratio of leaf area to leaf dry mass. The inverse of SLA is Leaf Mass per Area (LMA).
Simarouba amara is a species of tree in the family Simaroubaceae, found in the rainforests and savannahs of South and Central America and the Caribbean. It was first described by Aubl. in French Guiana in 1775 and is one of six species of Simarouba. The tree is evergreen, but produces a new set of leaves once a year. It requires relatively high levels of light to grow and grows rapidly in these conditions, but lives for a relatively short time. In Panama, it flowers during the dry season in February and March, whereas in Costa Rica, where there is no dry season it flowers later, between March and July. As the species is dioecious, the trees are either male or female and only produce male or female flowers. The small yellow flowers are thought to be pollinated by insects, the resulting fruits are dispersed by animals including monkeys, birds and fruit-eating bats and the seeds are also dispersed by leaf cutter ants.
Psathyrostachys juncea is a species of grass known by the common name Russian wildrye. It was formerly classified as Elymus junceus. It is native to Russia and China, and has been introduced to other parts of the world, such as Canada and the United States. Psathyrostachys juncea is a great source of food for grazing animals, as it has high nutrition value in its dense basal leaves, even in the late summer and autumn seasons. This species can grow and prosper in many harsh environments, making it an ideal candidate for improvement as it can grow in areas were farming is difficult. This species is a drought-resistant forage plant and can survive during the cool seasons. It is also a cross-pollinator and is self-sterile. This means that P. juncea cannot self-fertilize; it must find another plant of the same species with which to exchange gametes. Self-sterilization increases the genetic diversity of a species.
Biomass partitioning is the process by which plants divide their energy among their leaves, stems, roots, and reproductive parts. These four main components of the plant have important morphological roles: leaves take in CO2 and energy from the sun to create carbon compounds, stems grow above competitors to reach sunlight, roots absorb water and mineral nutrients from the soil while anchoring the plant, and reproductive parts facilitate the continuation of species. Plants partition biomass in response to limits or excesses in resources like sunlight, carbon dioxide, mineral nutrients, and water and growth is regulated by a constant balance between the partitioning of biomass between plant parts. An equilibrium between root and shoot growth occurs because roots need carbon compounds from photosynthesis in the shoot and shoots need nitrogen absorbed from the soil by roots. Allocation of biomass is put towards the limit to growth; a limit below ground will focus biomass to the roots and a limit above ground will favor more growth in the shoot.
Zostera novazelandica Setchell is a species of seagrass in the family Zosteraceae found on the shores of New Zealand. It is regarded as a distinct species by some authors but considered as a synonym of Zostera muelleri Irmisch ex Ascherson by others. The Maori names for Zostera novazelandica are karepō, nana, rehia, and rimurehia.
Daily light integral (DLI) describes the number of photosynthetically active photons that are delivered to a specific area over a 24-hour period. This variable is particularly useful to describe the light environment of plants.
Pherosphaera hookeriana, or Mount Mawson pine, is a dwarf conifer endemic to Tasmania, at altitudes above 600 meters. There are roughly 30 known sites, with population numbers in the tens of thousands. The species occurs in a range of habitats typically in areas near water bodies, mostly on dolerite derived soils. The species is highly fire sensitive and an increase in fire events associated with climate change may lead to local extinction and fragmentation of habitat.
The photothermal ratio (PTR), also named photothermal quotient, is a variable that characterizes the amount of light available to plants relative to the temperature level. It is used in plant biology to characterize the growth environment of plants.
Construction costs is a concept in biology that conveys how much glucose is required to construct a unit of plant biomass, given the biosynthetic pathways and starting from glucose and mineral constituents. It includes the sugars required to provide the carbon skeletons for the formation of e.g. lipids, lignin and proteins, but also the glucose required to produce energy (ATP) and reducing power to drive the metabolic pathways.
Biomass allocation is a concept in plant biology which indicates the relative proportion of plant biomass present in the different organs of a plant. It can also be used for whole plant communities.
Plant growth analysis refers to a set of concepts and equations by which changes in size of plants over time can be summarised and dissected in component variables. It is often applied in the analysis of growth of individual plants, but can also be used in a situation where crop growth is followed over time.
