Plants & Trees Encyclopedia

Papaya — The papaya (from Carib via Spanish), is the fruit of the plant Carica papaya, in the genus Carica. It is native to the tropics of the Americas, and was cultivated in Mexico several centuries before the emergence of the Mesoamerican classic cultures. However the North American pawpaw is a different species, in the genus Asimina. It is a …

Palm, Florida Royal — Roystonea (Royal Palm) is a genus of 10 species of monoecious palms, native to tropical regions of Florida, the Caribbean, and the adjacent coasts of Central and South America. Named for Roy Stone, a U.S. Army engineer, the genus contains some of the most recognizable and commonly cultivated palms (R. regia) in tropical and subtropical regions. …

Palm, Desert Fan — Washingtonia filifera (filifera – Latin “thread-bearing”, also known as Desert Fan Palm’, American Cotton palms, or Arizona fan Palm, or California fan Palm) is a palm native to the desert oases of Central, southern and southwestern Arizona, southern Nevada, extreme northwest Mexico and inland deserts of southern California. It grows up to 23 m (exceptionally 30 …

Papaw — Pawpaw (Asimina) is a genus of eight or nine species of small trees with large leaves and fruit, native to eastern North America. The genus includes the largest edible fruit indigenous to the continent. They are understory trees found in deep fertile bottomland and hilly upland habitat. Pawpaw is in the same family (Annonaceae) as the custard-apple, cherimoya, …

Pansy — The pansy or pansy violet is a plant cultivated as a garden flower. Pansies are derived from Viola tricolor also called the Heartsease or ‘Johnny Jump Up’. However, many garden varieties are hybrids and are referred to as Viola × wittrockiana but sometimes they are listed under the name Viola tricolor hortensis. The name “pansy” also appears as …

Osage Orange — The Osage orange (sometimes hyphenated) or Osage apple or simply Osage (Maclura pomifera) is an ornamental plant in the mulberry family Moraceae. It is also locally known as mock orange, “wild orange”, hedge-apple, horse-apple, hedge ball, bois d’arc, bodark (mainly in Oklahoma and Texas), bodart (in northwest Louisiana) and bow wood. “Osage” derives from the Native American …

Orchid — Orchidaceae, also called the Orchid family, is the largest family of the flowering plants (Angiospermae). Its name is derived from the genus Orchis. The Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew list 880 genera and nearly 22,000 accepted species, but the exact number is unknown (perhaps as many as 25,000) because of taxonomy disputes. The number of orchid species equals …

Orange — An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus tree Citrus sinensis (syn. Citrus aurantium L. var. dulcis L., or Citrus aurantium Risso) and its fruit. The orange is a hybrid of ancient cultivated origin, possibly between pomelo (Citrus maxima) and tangerine (Citrus reticulata). It is a small flowering tree growing to about 10 m tall with evergreen leaves, which …

Onion — Many plants in the genus Allium are known by the common name onion but, used without qualifiers, it usually refers to Allium cepa. Allium cepa is also known as the ‘garden onion’ or ‘bulb’ onion and ‘shallot’. Onions, as one of the oldest vegetables known to mankind are to be found as an ingredient in a bewildering array …

Olive — The Olive (Olea europaea) is a species of small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean region, from Syria and the maritime parts of Asia Minor and northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea. Its fruit, the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the Mediterranean region as the …