Flowering plant in the context of Corchorus

Oleaceae (/ˌoʊliˈeɪsi.iː, -ˌaɪ/), also known as the olive family or sometimes the lilac family, is a taxonomic family of flowering shrubs, trees, and a few lianas in the order Lamiales. It presently comprises 28 genera, one of which is recently extinct. The extant genera include Cartrema, which was resurrected in 2012. The number of species in the Oleaceae is variously estimated in a wide range around 700. The flowers are often numerous and highly odoriferous. The family has a subcosmopolitan distribution, ranging from the subarctic to the southernmost parts of Africa, Australia, and South America. Notable members include olive, ash, jasmine, and several popular ornamental plants including privet, forsythia, fringetrees, and lilac.

Olea (/ˈoʊliə/ OH-lee-ə) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae. It includes 12 species native to warm temperate and tropical regions of the Middle East, southern Europe, Africa, southern Asia, and Australasia. They are evergreen trees and shrubs, with small, opposite, entire leaves. The fruit is a drupe. Leaves of Olea contain trichosclereids.

For humans, the most important and familiar species is by far the olive (Olea europaea), native to the Mediterranean region, Africa, southwest Asia, and the Himalayas, which is the type species of the genus. The native olive (O. paniculata) is a larger tree, attaining a height of 15–18 m in the forests of Queensland, and yielding a hard and tough timber. The yet harder wood of the black ironwood O. capensis, an inhabitant of Natal, is important in South Africa.

Syringa vulgaris, the lilac or common lilac, is a species of flowering plant in the olive family, Oleaceae. Native to the Balkan Peninsula, it is widely cultivated for its scented flowers in Europe (particularly the north and west) and North America.

Forsythia /fɔːrˈsɪθiə/, /fɔːrˈsaɪθiə/ is a genus of flowering plants in the olive family Oleaceae. There are about 11 species, mostly native to Eastern Asia, but one native to Southeastern Europe. Forsythia – also one of the plant's common names – is named after the botanist William Forsyth.

In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering.

Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagated using the movements of humans and other animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; humans, and many other animals, have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Consequently, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the world's agricultural output, and some (such as the apple and the pomegranate) have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings.

A fruit tree is a tree which bears fruit that is consumed or used by animals and humans. All trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovaries of flowers containing one or more seeds. In horticultural usage, the term "fruit tree" is limited to those that provide fruit for human food. Types of fruits are described and defined elsewhere (see Fruit), but would include "fruit" in a culinary sense, as well as some nut-bearing trees, such as walnuts.

The scientific study and the cultivation of fruits is called pomology, which divides fruits into groups based on plant morphology and anatomy. Some of those groups are pome fruits, which include apples and pears, and stone fruits, which include peaches/nectarines, almonds, apricots, plums and cherries.

A leaf (pl.: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, flower, and fruit collectively form the shoot system. In most leaves, the primary photosynthetic tissue is the palisade mesophyll and is located on the upper side of the blade or lamina of the leaf, but in some species, including the mature foliage of Eucalyptus, palisade mesophyll is present on both sides and the leaves are said to be isobilateral. The leaf is an integral part of the stem system, and most leaves are flattened and have distinct upper (adaxial) and lower (abaxial) surfaces that differ in color, hairiness, the number of stomata (pores that intake and output gases), the amount and structure of epicuticular wax, and other features. Leaves are mostly green in color due to the presence of a compound called chlorophyll which is essential for photosynthesis as it absorbs light energy from the Sun. A leaf with lighter-colored or white patches or edges is called a variegated leaf.

Leaves vary in shape, size, texture and color, depending on the species The broad, flat leaves with complex venation of flowering plants are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them (the majority) as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants, which also include acrogymnosperms and ferns. In the lycopods, with different evolutionary origins, the leaves are simple (with only a single vein) and are known as microphylls. Some leaves, such as bulb scales, are not above ground. In many aquatic species, the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls and spines. Furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from leaves both in their structure and origin. Some structures of non-vascular plants look and function much like leaves. Examples include the phyllids of mosses and liverworts.

Plants are the eukaryotes that comprise the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water, using the green pigment chlorophyll. Exceptions are parasitic plants that have lost the genes for chlorophyll and photosynthesis, and obtain their energy from other plants or fungi. Most plants are multicellular, except for some green algae.

Historically, as in Aristotle's biology, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi. Definitions have narrowed since then; current definitions exclude fungi and some of the algae. By the definition used in this article, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (green plants), which consists of the green algae and the embryophytes or land plants (hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, conifers and other gymnosperms, and flowering plants). A definition based on genomes includes the Viridiplantae, along with the red algae and the glaucophytes, in the clade Archaeplastida.

A eucalyptus (/ˌjuːkəˈlɪptəs/) is a plant in the genus Eucalyptus, which consists of more than 700 species of flowering plants in the family Myrtaceae. Most species of eucalyptus are trees, often mallees, and a few are shrubs. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including Corymbia and Angophora, they are commonly known as eucalypts or "gum trees". Eucalyptuses have bark that is either smooth, fibrous, hard, or stringy and leaves that have oil glands. The sepals and petals are fused to form a "cap" or operculum over the stamens, hence the name from Greek eû ("well") and kaluptós ("covered"). The fruit is a woody capsule commonly referred to as a "gumnut".

Most species of eucalyptus are native to Australia, and every state and territory has representative species. About three-quarters of Australian forests are eucalypt forests. Many eucalypt species have adapted to wildfire, are able to resprout after fire, or have seeds that survive fire.

A seagrass meadow or seagrass bed is an underwater ecosystem formed by seagrasses. Seagrasses are marine (saltwater) plants found in shallow coastal waters and in the brackish waters of estuaries. Seagrasses are flowering plants with stems and long green, grass-like leaves. They produce seeds and pollen and have roots and rhizomes which anchor them in seafloor sand.

Seagrasses form dense underwater meadows which are among the most productive ecosystems in the world. They provide habitats and food for a diversity of marine life comparable to that of coral reefs. This includes invertebrates like shrimp and crabs, cod and flatfish, marine mammals and birds. They provide refuges for endangered species such as seahorses, turtles, and dugongs. They function as nursery habitats for shrimps, scallops and many commercial fish species. Seagrass meadows provide coastal storm protection by the way their leaves absorb energy from waves as they hit the coast. They keep coastal waters healthy by absorbing bacteria and nutrients, and slow the speed of climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide into the sediment of the ocean floor.

The Cenozoic Era (also known as Caenozoic, Kainozoic, or Neozoic Era; /ˌsiːnəˈzoʊ.ɪk, ˌsɛn-/; SEE-nə-ZOH-ik, SEN-ə-; lit. 'new life') is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66 million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon, preceded by the Mesozoic and Paleozoic. The Cenozoic started with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, when many species, including the non-avian dinosaurs, became extinct in an event attributed by most experts to the impact of a large asteroid or other celestial body, the Chicxulub impactor.

The Cenozoic is also known as the Age of Mammals because the terrestrial animals that dominated both hemispheres were mammals – the eutherians (placentals) in the Northern Hemisphere and the metatherians (marsupials, now mainly restricted to Australia and to some extent South America) in the Southern Hemisphere. The extinction of many groups allowed mammals and birds to greatly diversify so that large mammals and birds dominated life on Earth. The continents also moved into their current positions during this era.

Botany, also called phytology or plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology that studies plants, especially their anatomy, taxonomy, and ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who specialises in this field. "Plant" and "botany" may be defined more narrowly to include only land plants and their study, which is also known as phytology. Phytologists or botanists (in the strict sense) study approximately 410,000 species of land plants, including some 391,000 species of vascular plants (of which approximately 369,000 are flowering plants) and approximately 20,000 bryophytes.

Botany originated as prehistoric herbalism to identify and later cultivate plants that were edible, poisonous, and medicinal, making it one of the first endeavours of human investigation. Medieval physic gardens, often attached to monasteries, contained plants that possibly had medicinal benefits. They were forerunners of the first botanical gardens attached to universities, founded from the 1540s onwards. One of the earliest was the Padua botanical garden. These gardens facilitated the academic study of plants. Efforts to catalogue and describe their collections were the beginnings of plant taxonomy and led in 1753 to the binomial system of nomenclature of Carl Linnaeus that remains in use to this day for the naming of all biological species.

Myrtus communis, the common myrtle or true myrtle, is a species of flowering plant in the myrtle family Myrtaceae. It is an evergreen shrub native to southern Europe, North Africa, Western Asia, Macaronesia, and the Indian subcontinent, and also cultivated.

The plant is an evergreen shrub or small tree, growing to 5 metres (16 ft) tall. The leaves are 2–5 centimetres (1–2 in) long, with a fragrant essential oil.

Fraxinus excelsior, known as the ash, or European ash or common ash to distinguish it from other types of ash, is a flowering plant species in the olive family Oleaceae. It is native throughout mainland Europe east to the Caucasus and Alborz mountains, and west to Great Britain and Ireland, the latter determining its western boundary. The northernmost location is in the Trondheimsfjord region of Norway. The species is widely cultivated and reportedly naturalised in New Zealand and in scattered locales in the United States and Canada. The wood has many uses as it is flexible, workable, strong and lightweight.

In botany, the term perennial (per- + -ennial, "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also loosely used to distinguish plants with little or no woody growth (secondary growth in girth) from trees and shrubs, which are also technically perennials. An estimated 94% of plant species are perennials.

Perennials (especially small flowering plants) that grow and bloom over the spring and summer, die back every autumn and winter, and then return in the spring from their rootstock or other overwintering structure, are known as herbaceous perennials. However, depending on the rigours of the local climate (temperature, moisture, organic content in the soil, microorganisms), a plant that is a perennial in its native habitat, may be treated by a gardener as an annual and planted out every year, from seed, from cuttings, or from divisions. Tomato vines, for example, live several years in their natural tropical/ subtropical habitat but are grown as annuals in temperate regions because their above-ground biomass does not survive the winter.

Trunks, also called boles, are the stems of woody plants and the main structural element of trees. The woody part of the trunk consists of dead but structurally significant heartwood and living sapwood, which is used for nutrient storage and transport. Separating the wood from the bark is the cambium, from which trunks grow in diameter. Bark is divided between the living inner bark (the phloem), which transports sugars, and the outer bark, which is a dead protective layer.

The precise cellular makeup of these components differs between non-flowering plants (gymnosperms) and flowering plants (angiosperms). A variety of specialised cells facilitate the storage of carbohydrates, water, minerals, and transport of water, minerals, and hormones around the plant. Growth is achieved by division of these cells. Vertical growth is generated from the apical meristems (stem tips), and horizontal (radial) growth, from the cambium. Growth is controlled by hormones, which send chemical signals for how and when to grow.

The Arecaceae (/ˌærəˈkeɪsi.iː, -ˌaɪ/) are a family of perennial, flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are colloquially called palm trees. Currently, 181 genera with around 2,600 species are known, most of which are restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at the top of an unbranched stem, except for the Hyphaene genus, which has branched palms. However, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts.

Palms are among the best known and most extensively cultivated plant families. They have been important to humans throughout much of history, especially in regions like the Middle East and North Africa. A wide range of common products and foods are derived from palms. In contemporary times, palms are also widely used in landscaping. In many historical cultures, because of their importance as food, palms were symbols for such ideas as victory, peace, and fertility.

Musa is one of three genera in the family Musaceae. The genus includes 83 species of flowering plants producing edible bananas and plantains (also known as cooking bananas), and fiber (abacá), used to make paper and cloth. Though they grow as high as trees, banana and plantain plants are not woody and their apparent "stem" is made up of the bases of the huge leaf stalks. Thus, they are technically gigantic herbaceous plants.