Cuscuta in the context of "Parasitic plant"

The Babylonian astronomical diaries are a collection of Babylonian cuneiform texts written in Akkadian language that contain systematic records of astronomical observations and political events, predictions based on astronomical observations, weather reports, and commodity prices, kept for about 600 years, from around 652 BCE to 61 BCE.

The commodity prices are included for six items (barley, dates, mustard (cuscuta), cress (cardamom), sesame, and wool) for particular dates.

In botany, a tendril is a specialized stem, leaf or petiole with a thread-like shape used by climbing plants for support and attachment, as well as cellular invasion by parasitic plants such as Cuscuta. There are many plants that have tendrils; including sweet peas, passionflower, grapes and the Chilean glory-flower. Tendrils respond to touch and to chemical factors by curling, twining, or adhering to suitable structures or hosts. Tendrils vary greatly in size from a few centimeters up to 27 inches (69 centimeters) for Nepenthes harryana. The chestnut vine (Tetrastigma voinierianum) can have tendrils up to 20.5 inches (52 centimeters) in length. Normally there is only one simple or branched tendril at each node (see plant stem), but the aardvark cucumber (Cucumis humifructus) can have as many as eight.

A cotyledon (/ˌkɒtɪˈliːdən/ KOT-ih-LEE-dən; from Latin cotyledon; from Ancient Greek κοτυληδών (kotulēdṓn) 'cavity, small cup, any cup-shaped hollow';gen. κοτυληδόνος (kotulēdónos), from κοτύλη (kotúlē) 'cup, bowl') is a "seed leaf" – a significant part of the embryo within the seed of a plant – and is formally defined as "the embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants, one or more of which are the first to appear from a germinating seed." Botanists use the number of cotyledons present as one characteristic to classify the flowering plants (angiosperms): species with one cotyledon are called monocotyledonous ("monocots"); plants with two embryonic leaves are termed dicotyledonous ("dicots"). Many orchids with minute seeds have no identifiable cotyledon, and are regarded as acotyledons. The Dodders (Cuscuta spp) also lack cotyledons, as does the African tree Mammea africana (Calophyllaceae). A very small number of Dicots have more than two cotyledons, with perhaps Psittacanthus schiedeanus being the most extreme, having up to twelve.

In the case of dicot seedlings whose cotyledons are photosynthetic, the cotyledons are functionally similar to leaves. However, true leaves and cotyledons are developmentally distinct. Cotyledons form during embryogenesis, along with the root and shoot meristems, and are therefore present in the seed prior to germination. True leaves, however, form post-embryonically (i.e. after germination) from the shoot apical meristem, which generates subsequent aerial portions of the plant.