Ginger is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is a herbaceous perennial which grows annual pseudostems about one meter tall bearing narrow leaf blades. The inflorescences bear flowers having pale yellow petals with purple edges, and arise directly from the rhizome on separate shoots.
Symphytum is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae. There are up to 35 species, known by the common name comfrey. Some species and hybrids, particularly S. officinale and S. × uplandicum, are used in gardening and herbal medicine. They are not to be confused with Cynoglossum virginianum, known as wild comfrey, another member of the borage family.
Melanthiaceae, also called the bunchflower family, is a family of flowering herbaceous perennial plants native to the Northern Hemisphere. Along with many other lilioid monocots, early authors considered members of this family to belong to the family Liliaceae, in part because both their sepals and petals closely resemble each other and are often large and showy like those of lilies, while some more recent taxonomists have placed them in a family Trilliaceae. The most authoritative modern treatment, however, the APG III system of 2009, places the family in the order Liliales, in the clade monocots. Circumscribed in this way, the family includes up to 17 genera.
Watercress or yellowcress is a species of aquatic flowering plant in the cabbage family Brassicaceae. Its botanical name is Nasturtium officinale.
Lovage, Levisticum officinale, is a tall perennial plant, the sole species in the genus Levisticum in the family Apiaceae, subfamily Apioideae. It has been long cultivated in Europe, the leaves being used as a herb, the roots as a vegetable, and the seeds as a spice, especially in southern European cuisine.
Melanthieae is a tribe of flowering plants within the family Melanthiaceae. Molecular phylogenetic studies in the 21st century have resulted in a large-scale reassignment of many of its species to different genera; in particular the genus Zigadenus (deathcamases) has been restricted to a single species, Zigadenus glaberrimus. Plants contain alkaloids, making them unpalatable to grazing animals; many are very poisonous to both animals and humans.
Xerophyllum is a genus of perennial plants from the family Melanthiaceae. The genus is native to North America.
Sisymbrium officinale, the hedge mustard, is a plant in the family Brassicaceae.
A pseudanthium, also called a flower head, composite flower, or capitulum, is a special type of inflorescence, in which anything from a small cluster to hundreds or sometimes thousands of flowers are grouped together to form a single flower-like structure. Pseudanthia take various forms. The individual flowers of a pseudanthium commonly are called florets. The real flowers are generally small and often greatly reduced, but the pseudanthium itself can sometimes be quite large.
Rheum officinale, the Chinese rhubarb, or Indian rhubarb is a rhubarb from the family Polygonaceae native to China. In Chinese it is called yào yòng dà huáng, literally meaning medicinal rhubarb.
Kaempferia galanga, commonly known as kencur, aromatic ginger, sand ginger, cutcherry, or resurrection lily, is a monocotyledonous plant in the ginger family, and one of four plants called galangal. It is found primarily in open areas in Indonesia, southern China, Taiwan, Cambodia, and India, but is also widely cultivated throughout Southeast Asia.
Taraxacum officinale, the common dandelion, is a flowering herbaceous perennial plant of the family Asteraceae (Compositae).
Cynoglossum officinale is a herbaceous plant of the family Boraginaceae.
Symphytum officinale is a perennial flowering plant in the family Boraginaceae. Along with thirty four other species of Symphytum, it is known as comfrey. To differentiate it from other members of the genus Symphytum, this species is known as common comfrey or true comfrey. Other English names include Quaker comfrey, cultivated comfrey, boneset, knitbone, consound, and slippery-root. It is native to Europe, growing in damp, grassy places. It is locally frequent throughout Ireland and Britain on river banks and ditches. It occurs elsewhere, including North America, as an introduced species and sometimes a weed. The flowers are mostly visited by bumblebees. Internal or long-term topical use of comfrey is discouraged due to its strong potential to cause liver toxicity.
Officinalis, or officinale, is a Medieval Latin epithet denoting organisms – mainly plants – with uses in medicine and herbalism. It commonly occurs as a specific epithet - the second term of a two-part botanical name. Officinalis is used to modify masculine and feminine nouns, while officinale is used for neuter nouns.
Taraxacum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, which consists of species commonly known as dandelions. The genus is native to Eurasia and North America, but the two commonplace species worldwide, T. officinale and T. erythrospermum, were introduced from Europe and now propagate as wildflowers. Both species are edible in their entirety. The common name dandelion is given to members of the genus. Like other members of the family Asteraceae, they have very small flowers collected together into a composite flower head. Each single flower in a head is called a floret. In part due to their abundance along with being a generalist species, dandelions are one of the most vital early spring nectar sources for a wide host of pollinators. Many Taraxacum species produce seeds asexually by apomixis, where the seeds are produced without pollination, resulting in offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant.
Veracevine is an alkaloid that occurs in the seeds of Schoenocaulon officinale. It is used as an insecticide in veterinary medicine.
Schoenocaulon is a North American genus of perennial herbaceous flowering plants, ranging from the southern United States to Peru. It is a member of the Melanthiaceae, according to the APG III classification system, and is placed in the tribe Melanthieae. Unlike other genera in the tribe, the flowers are arranged in a spike; depending on the species the flower stalks for each flower are either very short or completely absent. Feathershank is a common name, the medicinally used S. officinale is called Sabadilla.
Jasminum officinale, known as the common jasmine or simply jasmine, is a species of flowering plant in the olive family Oleaceae. It is native to the Caucasus, northern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Himalayas, Tajikistan, India, Nepal and western China. The species is also widely cultivated in many places, and is reportedly naturalized in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Algeria, Florida and the West Indies.
Peucedanum officinale is a herbaceous perennial plant in the family Apiaceae found mainly in Central Europe and Southern Europe. It is also native to the UK, where it has the common names hog's fennel and sulphurweed, but it is a rare plant there, occurring only in certain localities in the counties of Essex and Kent. It was formerly also found near the town of Shoreham-by-Sea in the county of West Sussex, but has long been extinct there.
