Common Name: Celosia
Description
Celosia argentea, commonly known as plumed cockscomb, or the silver cock’s comb,is a herbaceous plant of tropical origin, and is known for its very bright colors. In India and China it is known as a troublesome weed.. . . .Read more
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Annuals
Ximenia caffra
Common Name: Sour plum
Description
Ximenia caffra is a sparsely branched shrub or small tree to 6 m tall with a shapeless, untidy crown. Branches and twigs are armed with stout axillary spines and are glabrous or dense tomentose. Bark is grayish-brown to black, longitudinally fissured bark, red slash and rough on older, larger species.
Leaves simple, alternate, elliptic to lanceolate, 2.5-9 cm long by 1.2-5 cm wide, leathery, blue-green, often fascicled on dwarf, lateral shoots, margin entire, apex rounded or notched, base broadly tapering to rounded, often hairy when young and turning to shiny green when getting older and petiole about 8 mm long. . . . .Read more
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Vicia faba
Common Name: Favabean
Description
Vicia faba, also known as the broad bean, fava bean, faba bean, field bean, bell bean, English bean, horse bean, Windsor bean, pigeon bean and tic(k) bean, is a species of flowering plant in the vetch and pea family Fabaceae. The origin of this legume is obscure, but it had been cultivated in the Middle East for 8,000 years before it spread to Western Europe. Fava or Broad beans have been found in the earliest human settlements. Remains are reported to have been found in Egyptian tombs.[citation needed] They probably originated in the Near East during the Neolithic Age and by the Bronze Age had spread to Northern Italy. They have been found in lakeside settlements in Switzerland and in Britain at Glastonbury. In Egypt, the beans were considered commoner food and were shunned by the upper classes. Fava beans were cultivated by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. In ancient Rome, they were used in funeral rites. Pythagoras forbade the eating of fava beans because they contained the souls of the dead. This once forbidden . . . . .Read more
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Citrullus lanatus
Common Name: Watermelon
Description
Citrullus lanatus is a plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, a vine-like (scrambler and trailer) flowering plant originally from West Africa. It is cultivated for its fruit. The subdivision of this species into two cultivars, watermelons (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) var. lanatus) and citron melons (Citrullus lanatus var. citroides (L. H. Bailey) Mansf.), originated with the erroneous synonymization of Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai and Citrullus vulgaris Schrad. by L.H.Bailey in 1930. Molecular data including sequences from the original collection of Thunberg and other relevant type material, show that the sweet dessert watermelon (Citrullus vulgaris Schrad.) and the bitter wooly melon . . . .Read more
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