The Alismatales (alismatids) are an order of flowering plants including about 4,500 species. Plants assigned to this order are mostly tropical or aquatic. Some grow in fresh water, some in marine habitats. Perhaps the most important food crop in the order is the taro plant, Colocasia esculenta.
The Dioscoreales are an order of monocotyledonous flowering plants, organized under modern classification systems, such as the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group or the Angiosperm Phylogeny Web. Among monocot plants, Dioscoreales are grouped with the lilioid monocots, wherein they are a sister group to the Pandanales. In total, the order Dioscoreales comprises three families, 22 genera and about 850 species.
The Laurales are an order of flowering plants. They are magnoliids, related to the Magnoliales.
Metasequoia, or dawn redwood, is a genus of fast-growing coniferous trees, one of three species of conifers known as redwoods. The living species Metasequoia glyptostroboides is native to Lichuan county in Hubei province, China. Although the shortest of the redwoods, it grows to at least 165 feet in height. Local villagers refer to the original tree from which most others derive as Shuǐshān (水杉), or "water fir", which is part of a local shrine. Since its rediscovery in 1944, the dawn redwood has become a popular ornamental, with examples found in various parks in a variety of countries. Metasequoia was dominant in northern latitudes during the early Cenozoic.
Burmanniaceae is a family of flowering plants, consisting of 99 species of herbaceous plants in eight genera.
Armen Leonovich Takhtajan or Takhtajian, was a Soviet-Armenian botanist, one of the most important figures in 20th century plant evolution and systematics and biogeography. His other interests included morphology of flowering plants, paleobotany, and the flora of the Caucasus. He was one of the most influential taxonomists of the latter twentieth century.
Ulmus rubra, the slippery elm, is a species of elm native to eastern North America. Other common names include red elm, gray elm, soft elm, moose elm, and Indian elm.
Lake Calumet is the largest body of water within the city of Chicago. Formerly a shallow, postglacial lake draining into Lake Michigan, it was transformed into an industrial harbor during the 20th century. Parts of the lake have been dredged, and other parts reshaped by landfill. Following the completion of the Cal-Sag Channel in 1922, which reversed the flow of the Calumet River, the lake drains into the Des Plaines River via the channel instead of Lake Michigan.
Nikolai Stepanovich Turczaninow was a Russian botanist and plant collector who first identified several genera, and many species, of plants.
Agave is a genus of monocots native to the arid regions of the Americas. The genus is primarily known for its succulent and xerophytic species that typically form large rosettes of strong, fleshy leaves. Agave now includes species formerly placed in a number of other genera, such as Manfreda, ×Mangave, Polianthes and Prochnyanthes.
Symphyotrichum pilosum is a perennial, herbaceous, flowering plant in the Asteraceae family native to central and eastern North America. It is commonly called hairy white oldfield aster, frost aster, white heath aster, heath aster, hairy aster, common old field aster, old field aster, awl aster, nailrod, and steelweed. There are two varieties: Symphyotrichumpilosum var.pilosum, known by the common names previously listed, and Symphyotrichumpilosum var.pringlei, known as Pringle's aster. Both varieties are conservationally secure globally and in most provinces and states where they are native.
Anna Amelia Mauve was a South African botanist who worked at the Botanical Research Institute in Pretoria. She catalogued more than 4,000 plant specimens from the Kalahari and Soutpansberg regions. She made major contributions to the journals Flowering Plants of Africa and Bothalia.
Ruth Mason was a New Zealand botanist specialising in the taxonomy and ecology of freshwater plants. She was employed at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research for 35 years undertaking research into aquatic plants, pioneering new techniques for plant preservation and collecting over 13,000 plant specimens in the field. She was awarded life membership by the New Zealand Ecological Society.
Teucrium racemosum, also commonly referred to as either the grey germander or forest germander, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae. It is endemic to Australia and is found in all mainland states, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. It grows in floodplains, dry lake beds and open woodlands. A perennial herb, it has four-sided, densely hairy stems, narrow egg-shaped leaves, and white flowers usually arranged singly in leaf axils. It grows to be between 15 and 40 cm tall.
Desmodium glabellum is a species of flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is native to the eastern and central United States. It is commonly called Dillenius' tick-trefoil in honor of Johann Dillenius, a British botanist of German birth. It is also known as the tall tick-trefoil.
William Albert Setchell was an American botanist and marine phycologist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where he headed the Botany Department. Among his publications are the Phycotheca Boreali-Americana, a multi-volume specimen collection of dried algae, and the Algae of Northwestern America, a reference work.
Thismia kobensis is a species of flowering plant from the Thismia genus in the myco-heterotrophic family Burmanniaceae.
Laura Rericha-Anchor is an American biologist with expertise in botany, ornithology, entomology, and ecology of the Midwestern United States.
Norma Etta Pfeiffer (1889–1989) was an American botanist who specialized in the study of lilies and Isoetes. She discovered and described the Chicago-endemic flowering plant species Thismia americana described in her doctoral thesis in 1913.
Symphyotrichum kentuckiense is a rare species of flowering plant in the Asteraceae family and is commonly known as Kentucky aster, Price's aster, Miss Price's aster, Sadie's aster, or lavender oldfield aster. It is a perennial, herbaceous plant that is endemic to broken limestone cedar glades and roadsides in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It blooms from August through October, reaches heights between 30 centimeters and 100 cm (3.3 ft), and has green to reddish-brown stems. It is a nearly hairless plant with blue to blue-violet ray florets.
