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76-510: A tumbleweed is a structural part of the above-ground anatomy of a number of species of plants . It is a diaspore that, once mature and dry, detaches from its root or stem and rolls due to the force of the wind . In most such species, the tumbleweed is in effect the entire plant apart from the root system, but in other plants, a hollow fruit or inflorescence might detach instead. Xerophyte tumbleweed species occur most commonly in steppe and arid ecosystems , where frequent wind and

152-448: A desolate and deserted place, or generally in a locale with little activity, tumbleweeds may be seen rolling across the scenery. This motif has become clichéd, with the result that it is nowadays primarily used with humoristic intent, for example when a short but embarrassing moment of silence occurs during a scene. One of the best-known uses of tumbleweed in cinema is in the opening sequence of The Big Lebowski (1998), where it symbolizes

228-407: A genus is determined by taxonomists . The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: Moreover, genera should be composed of phylogenetic units of

304-643: A later homonym of a validly published name is a nomen illegitimum or nom. illeg. ; for a full list refer to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants and the work cited above by Hawksworth, 2010. In place of the "valid taxon" in zoology, the nearest equivalent in botany is " correct name " or "current name" which can, again, differ or change with alternative taxonomic treatments or new information that results in previously accepted genera being combined or split. Prokaryote and virus codes of nomenclature also exist which serve as

380-621: A long time and redescribed as new by a range of subsequent workers, or if a range of genera previously considered separate taxa have subsequently been consolidated into one. For example, the World Register of Marine Species presently lists 8 genus-level synonyms for the sperm whale genus Physeter Linnaeus, 1758, and 13 for the bivalve genus Pecten O.F. Müller, 1776. Within the same kingdom, one generic name can apply to one genus only. However, many names have been assigned (usually unintentionally) to two or more different genera. For example,

456-583: A major contributor to native plant extinctions and wildfires , being highly flammable and bouncing over or rapidly growing in land cleared of vegetation between fields or areas of forest as firebreaks . Despite over a century of cooperation between Mexican, Canadian, and US governments to combat the species, tumbleweeds are found in most regions of North America. Some ruderal species that disperse as tumbleweeds are serious weeds that significantly promote wind erosion in open regions. Their effects are particularly harmful to dry-land agricultural operations where

532-545: A protective response. The first such plant receptors were identified in rice and in Arabidopsis thaliana . Plants have some of the largest genomes of all organisms. The largest plant genome (in terms of gene number) is that of wheat ( Triticum aestivum ), predicted to encode ≈94,000 genes and thus almost 5 times as many as the human genome . The first plant genome sequenced was that of Arabidopsis thaliana which encodes about 25,500 genes. In terms of sheer DNA sequence,

608-420: A range of physical and biotic stresses which cause DNA damage , but they can tolerate and repair much of this damage. Plants reproduce to generate offspring, whether sexually , involving gametes , or asexually , involving ordinary growth. Many plants use both mechanisms. When reproducing sexually, plants have complex lifecycles involving alternation of generations . One generation, the sporophyte , which

684-409: A reference for designating currently accepted genus names as opposed to others which may be either reduced to synonymy, or, in the case of prokaryotes, relegated to a status of "names without standing in prokaryotic nomenclature". An available (zoological) or validly published (botanical) name that has been historically applied to a genus but is not regarded as the accepted (current/valid) name for

760-427: A taxon; however, the names published in suppressed works are made unavailable via the relevant Opinion dealing with the work in question. In botany, similar concepts exist but with different labels. The botanical equivalent of zoology's "available name" is a validly published name . An invalidly published name is a nomen invalidum or nom. inval. ; a rejected name is a nomen rejiciendum or nom. rej. ;

836-455: A total of c. 520,000 published names (including synonyms) as at end 2019, increasing at some 2,500 published generic names per year. "Official" registers of taxon names at all ranks, including genera, exist for a few groups only such as viruses and prokaryotes, while for others there are compendia with no "official" standing such as Index Fungorum for fungi, Index Nominum Algarum and AlgaeBase for algae, Index Nominum Genericorum and

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912-541: A tumbleweed, dispersing its seeds as the wind rolls it along. It is said to have arrived in the United States in shipments of flax seeds to South Dakota , perhaps about 1870. It now is a noxious weed throughout North America, dominating disturbed habitats such as roadsides, cultivated fields, eroded slopes, and arid regions with sparse vegetation. Though it is a troublesome weed, Kali tragus also provides useful livestock forage on arid rangelands. Other members of

988-404: Is diploid (with 2 sets of chromosomes ), gives rise to the next generation, the gametophyte , which is haploid (with one set of chromosomes). Some plants also reproduce asexually via spores . In some non-flowering plants such as mosses, the sexual gametophyte forms most of the visible plant. In seed plants (gymnosperms and flowering plants), the sporophyte forms most of the visible plant, and

1064-547: Is a similar process. Structures such as runners enable plants to grow to cover an area, forming a clone . Many plants grow food storage structures such as tubers or bulbs which may each develop into a new plant. Some non-flowering plants, such as many liverworts, mosses and some clubmosses, along with a few flowering plants, grow small clumps of cells called gemmae which can detach and grow. Plants use pattern-recognition receptors to recognize pathogens such as bacteria that cause plant diseases. This recognition triggers

1140-415: Is also a demonym for those born and residing in that capital city of Baja California . Plant See text Plants are the eukaryotes that form 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

1216-596: Is discouraged by both the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants , there are some five thousand such names in use in more than one kingdom. For instance, A list of generic homonyms (with their authorities), including both available (validly published) and selected unavailable names, has been compiled by the Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera (IRMNG). The type genus forms

1292-508: Is indigenous to tropical North and South America, has become nearly cosmopolitan largely as a weed, but like many other species of Amaranthus , it also is widely valued as animal forage and as human food, though it should be utilised with caution to avoid toxicity. Several Southern African genera in the family Amaryllidaceae produce highly optimised tumbleweeds; their inflorescences are globular umbels with long, spoke-like pedicels , either effectively at ground level, or breaking off once

1368-496: Is known as botany , a branch of biology . All living things were traditionally placed into one of two groups, plants and animals . This classification dates from Aristotle (384–322 BC), who distinguished different levels of beings in his biology , based on whether living things had a "sensitive soul" or like plants only a "vegetative soul". Theophrastus , Aristotle's student, continued his work in plant taxonomy and classification. Much later, Linnaeus (1707–1778) created

1444-506: Is naturalized in much of North America . Also in the Asteraceae, Lessingia glandulifera , native to America, sometimes forms tumbleweeds; it grows on sandy soils in desert areas, chaparral, and open pine forests of the western United States. In the Brassicaceae , Sisymbrium altissimum , Crambe maritima , Lepidium , and a resurrection plant , Anastatica form tumbleweeds. In

1520-460: Is somewhat arbitrary. Although all species within a genus are supposed to be "similar", there are no objective criteria for grouping species into genera. There is much debate among zoologists about whether enormous, species-rich genera should be maintained, as it is extremely difficult to come up with identification keys or even character sets that distinguish all species. Hence, many taxonomists argue in favor of breaking down large genera. For instance,

1596-474: Is the type species , and the generic name is permanently associated with the type specimen of its type species. Should the specimen turn out to be assignable to another genus, the generic name linked to it becomes a junior synonym and the remaining taxa in the former genus need to be reassessed. In zoological usage, taxonomic names, including those of genera, are classified as "available" or "unavailable". Available names are those published in accordance with

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1672-592: The Antarctic flora , consisting of algae, mosses, liverworts, lichens, and just two flowering plants, have adapted to the prevailing conditions on that southern continent. Plants are often the dominant physical and structural component of the habitats where they occur. Many of the Earth's biomes are named for the type of vegetation because plants are the dominant organisms in those biomes, such as grassland , savanna , and tropical rainforest . Genus The composition of

1748-478: The Caryophyllaceae , the garden plant "baby's-breath" ( Gypsophila paniculata ), produces a dry inflorescence that forms tumbleweeds. In parts of central and western North America, it has become a common weed in many locations including hayfields and pastures. In the legume family ( Fabaceae ), Baptisia tinctoria and some species of Psoralea produce tumbleweeds. In Psoralea the tumbleweed detaches from

1824-679: The Cretaceous so rapid that Darwin called it an " abominable mystery ". Conifers diversified from the Late Triassic onwards, and became a dominant part of floras in the Jurassic . In 2019, a phylogeny based on genomes and transcriptomes from 1,153 plant species was proposed. The placing of algal groups is supported by phylogenies based on genomes from the Mesostigmatophyceae and Chlorokybophyceae that have since been sequenced. Both

1900-621: The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ; the earliest such name for any taxon (for example, a genus) should then be selected as the " valid " (i.e., current or accepted) name for the taxon in question. Consequently, there will be more available names than valid names at any point in time; which names are currently in use depending on the judgement of taxonomists in either combining taxa described under multiple names, or splitting taxa which may bring available names previously treated as synonyms back into use. "Unavailable" names in zoology comprise names that either were not published according to

1976-799: The International Plant Names Index for plants in general, and ferns through angiosperms, respectively, and Nomenclator Zoologicus and the Index to Organism Names for zoological names. Totals for both "all names" and estimates for "accepted names" as held in the Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera (IRMNG) are broken down further in the publication by Rees et al., 2020 cited above. The accepted names estimates are as follows, broken down by kingdom: The cited ranges of uncertainty arise because IRMNG lists "uncertain" names (not researched therein) in addition to known "accepted" names;

2052-457: The carpels or ovaries , which develop into fruits that contain seeds . Fruits may be dispersed whole, or they may split open and the seeds dispersed individually. Plants reproduce asexually by growing any of a wide variety of structures capable of growing into new plants. At the simplest, plants such as mosses or liverworts may be broken into pieces, each of which may regrow into whole plants. The propagation of flowering plants by cuttings

2128-751: The glaucophytes , in the clade Archaeplastida . There are about 380,000 known species of plants, of which the majority, some 260,000, produce seeds . They range in size from single cells to the tallest trees . Green plants provide a substantial proportion of the world's molecular oxygen; the sugars they create supply the energy for most of Earth's ecosystems and other organisms , including animals, either eat plants directly or rely on organisms which do so. Grain , fruit , and vegetables are basic human foods and have been domesticated for millennia. People use plants for many purposes , such as building materials , ornaments, writing materials , and, in great variety, for medicines . The scientific study of plants

2204-419: The nomenclature codes , which allow each species a single unique name that, for animals (including protists ), plants (also including algae and fungi ) and prokaryotes ( bacteria and archaea ), is Latin and binomial in form; this contrasts with common or vernacular names , which are non-standardized, can be non-unique, and typically also vary by country and language of usage. Except for viruses ,

2280-404: The platypus belongs to the genus Ornithorhynchus although George Shaw named it Platypus in 1799 (these two names are thus synonyms ) . However, the name Platypus had already been given to a group of ambrosia beetles by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst in 1793. A name that means two different things is a homonym . Since beetles and platypuses are both members of the kingdom Animalia,

2356-1003: The "chlorophyte algae" and the "streptophyte algae" are treated as paraphyletic (vertical bars beside phylogenetic tree diagram) in this analysis, as the land plants arose from within those groups. The classification of Bryophyta is supported both by Puttick et al. 2018, and by phylogenies involving the hornwort genomes that have also since been sequenced. Rhodophyta [REDACTED] Glaucophyta [REDACTED] Chlorophyta [REDACTED] Prasinococcales   Mesostigmatophyceae Chlorokybophyceae Spirotaenia [REDACTED] Klebsormidiales [REDACTED] Chara [REDACTED] Coleochaetales [REDACTED] Hornworts [REDACTED] Liverworts [REDACTED] Mosses [REDACTED] Lycophytes [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Gymnosperms [REDACTED] Angiosperms [REDACTED] Plant cells have distinctive features that other eukaryotic cells (such as those of animals) lack. These include

Tumbleweed - Misplaced Pages Continue

2432-472: The "drifting" nature of the main character. Bramblin and Brambleghast are Pokémon based on tumbleweeds. Once dry and uprooted, tumbleweeds form steppe cursors that, driven by the wind, use to roll on the lands of Southern California; Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, northwestern Mexico, and most of the Mexican territory just south of the border. In the area of Mexicali they are called cachanillas , which

2508-736: The Amaranthaceae (s.l.) that form tumbleweeds include Kochia species, Cycloloma atriplicifolium , and Corispermum hyssopifolium , which are called plains tumbleweed. Atriplex rosea is called the tumbling oracle or tumbling orach. Among the Amaranthaceae ( s.s. ) that form tumbleweeds, there are several species of Amaranthus , such as Amaranthus albus , native to Central America but invasive in Europe , Asia , and Australia ; and Amaranthus graecizans , native to Africa , but naturalized in North America. Amaranthus retroflexus , which

2584-504: The United States. In the Solanaceae , Solanum rostratum forms tumbleweeds. Wind dispersed fruits that tumble or roll on the ground, sometimes known as "tumble fruits", are rare. Some are technically achenes . Highly inflated indehiscent fruits that may facilitate tumbling include Alyssopsis , Coluteocarpus , Physoptychis , Sutherlandia , and Physaria . Very similar in habit to Anastatica , but practically unrelated, are

2660-611: The accumulation, but the weeds can also entangle each other until they form piles that can no longer roll. Such piles can be a serious threat to trapped vehicles or buildings and their occupants, particularly because they are dry and flammable. Examples of enveloped buildings and vehicles have been documented mainly in the Western regions of the US. In residential areas, an example was the town of Mobridge, South Dakota , where in 1989 tens of tons of large tumbleweeds ("Russian thistles") that had matured in

2736-801: The amount of cytoplasm stays the same. Most plants are multicellular . Plant cells differentiate into multiple cell types, forming tissues such as the vascular tissue with specialized xylem and phloem of leaf veins and stems , and organs with different physiological functions such as roots to absorb water and minerals, stems for support and to transport water and synthesized molecules, leaves for photosynthesis, and flowers for reproduction. Plants photosynthesize , manufacturing food molecules ( sugars ) using energy obtained from light . Plant cells contain chlorophylls inside their chloroplasts, which are green pigments that are used to capture light energy. The end-to-end chemical equation for photosynthesis is: This causes plants to release oxygen into

2812-431: The atmosphere. Green plants provide a substantial proportion of the world's molecular oxygen, alongside the contributions from photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria. Plants that have secondarily adopted a parasitic lifestyle may lose the genes involved in photosynthesis and the production of chlorophyll. Growth is determined by the interaction of a plant's genome with its physical and biotic environment. Factors of

2888-442: The base for higher taxonomic ranks, such as the family name Canidae ("Canids") based on Canis . However, this does not typically ascend more than one or two levels: the order to which dogs and wolves belong is Carnivora ("Carnivores"). The numbers of either accepted, or all published genus names is not known precisely; Rees et al., 2020 estimate that approximately 310,000 accepted names (valid taxa) may exist, out of

2964-461: The basis of the modern system of scientific classification , but retained the animal and plant kingdoms , naming the plant kingdom the Vegetabilia. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a specific group of organisms or taxa , it usually refers to one of four concepts. From least to most inclusive, these four groupings are: There are about 382,000 accepted species of plants, of which

3040-513: The cleanup as the influx of tumbleweeds presented both a safety and fire hazard. A similar incident occurred on 31 December 2019, when high winds dislodged a large number of tumbleweeds on the Hanford Reservation northwest of Richland, Washington . The tumbleweeds piled up 4.5 to 6 m (15 to 20 feet) deep in some areas, burying cars and trucks and closing Washington State Route 240 for ten hours while road crews used snowplows to remove

3116-483: The development of forests in swampy environments dominated by clubmosses and horsetails, including some as large as trees, and the appearance of early gymnosperms , the first seed plants . The Permo-Triassic extinction event radically changed the structures of communities. This may have set the scene for the evolution of flowering plants in the Triassic (~ 200  million years ago ), with an adaptive radiation in

Tumbleweed - Misplaced Pages Continue

3192-658: The dry bed of nearby Lake Oahe buried many houses so deeply that mechanical equipment was necessary to remove it, release occupants and counter the fire hazard. There was a significant outbreak of Panicum effusum in the Australian town of Wangaratta in February 2016 that attracted international attention. The seed heads of the weed, known locally as "hairy panic", had piled several meters deep in some places, forcing residents to spend several hours removing it to regain access to their homes. The local council subsequently indicated it

3268-446: The form "author, year" in zoology, and "standard abbreviated author name" in botany. Thus in the examples above, the genus Canis would be cited in full as " Canis Linnaeus, 1758" (zoological usage), while Hibiscus , also first established by Linnaeus but in 1753, is simply " Hibiscus L." (botanical usage). Each genus should have a designated type , although in practice there is a backlog of older names without one. In zoology, this

3344-471: The 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

3420-409: The gametophyte is very small. Flowering plants reproduce sexually using flowers, which contain male and female parts: these may be within the same ( hermaphrodite ) flower, on different flowers on the same plant , or on different plants . The stamens create pollen , which produces male gametes that enter the ovule to fertilize the egg cell of the female gametophyte. Fertilization takes place within

3496-727: The generic name (or its abbreviated form) still forms the leading portion of the scientific name, for example, Canis lupus lupus for the Eurasian wolf subspecies, or as a botanical example, Hibiscus arnottianus ssp. immaculatus . Also, as visible in the above examples, the Latinised portions of the scientific names of genera and their included species (and infraspecies, where applicable) are, by convention, written in italics . The scientific names of virus species are descriptive, not binomial in form, and may or may not incorporate an indication of their containing genus; for example,

3572-420: The genus Kali are tumbleweeds. They are thought to be native to Eurasia , but when their seeds entered North America in shipments of agricultural seeds, they became naturalized in large areas. In the cinema genre of Westerns , they have long been symbols of frontier areas. Kali tragus is the so-called "Russian thistle". It is an annual plant that breaks off at the stem base when it dies, and forms

3648-575: The great majority, some 283,000, produce seeds . The table below shows some species count estimates of different green plant (Viridiplantae) divisions . About 85–90% of all plants are flowering plants. Several projects are currently attempting to collect records on all plant species in online databases, e.g. the World Flora Online . Plants range in scale from single-celled organisms such as desmids (from 10  micrometres   (μm) across) and picozoa (less than 3 μm across), to

3724-510: 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

3800-517: The land 1,200  million years ago , but it was not until the Ordovician , around 450  million years ago , that the first land plants appeared, with a level of organisation like that of bryophytes. However, fossils of organisms with a flattened thallus in Precambrian rocks suggest that multicellular freshwater eukaryotes existed over 1000 mya. Primitive land plants began to diversify in

3876-412: The large water-filled central vacuole , chloroplasts , and the strong flexible cell wall , which is outside the cell membrane . Chloroplasts are derived from what was once a symbiosis of a non-photosynthetic cell and photosynthetic cyanobacteria . The cell wall, made mostly of cellulose , allows plant cells to swell up with water without bursting. The vacuole allows the cell to change in size while

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3952-628: The largest component, with 23,236 ± 5,379 accepted genus names, of which 20,845 ± 4,494 are angiosperms (superclass Angiospermae). By comparison, the 2018 annual edition of the Catalogue of Life (estimated >90% complete, for extant species in the main) contains currently 175,363 "accepted" genus names for 1,744,204 living and 59,284 extinct species, also including genus names only (no species) for some groups. The number of species in genera varies considerably among taxonomic groups. For instance, among (non-avian) reptiles , which have about 1180 genera,

4028-447: The largest trees ( megaflora ) such as the conifer Sequoia sempervirens (up to 120 metres (380 ft) tall) and the angiosperm Eucalyptus regnans (up to 100 m (325 ft) tall). The naming of plants is governed by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants and the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants . The ancestors of land plants evolved in water. An algal scum formed on

4104-656: The late Silurian , around 420  million years ago . Bryophytes, club mosses, and ferns then appear in the fossil record. Early plant anatomy is preserved in cellular detail in an early Devonian fossil assemblage from the Rhynie chert . These early plants were preserved by being petrified in chert formed in silica-rich volcanic hot springs. By the end of the Devonian, most of the basic features of plants today were present, including roots, leaves and secondary wood in trees such as Archaeopteris . The Carboniferous period saw

4180-428: The latter case, many species of tumbleweed open mechanically, releasing their seeds as they swell when they absorb water. The tumbleweed diaspore disperses seeds, but the tumbleweed strategy is not limited to the seed plants ; some species of spore-bearing cryptogams —such as Selaginella —form tumbleweeds, and some fungi that resemble puffballs dry out, break free of their attachments and are similarly tumbled by

4256-403: The most (>300) have only 1 species, ~360 have between 2 and 4 species, 260 have 5–10 species, ~200 have 11–50 species, and only 27 genera have more than 50 species. However, some insect genera such as the bee genera Lasioglossum and Andrena have over 1000 species each. The largest flowering plant genus, Astragalus , contains over 3,000 species. Which species are assigned to a genus

4332-428: The name could not be used for both. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach published the replacement name Ornithorhynchus in 1800. However, a genus in one kingdom is allowed to bear a scientific name that is in use as a generic name (or the name of a taxon in another rank) in a kingdom that is governed by a different nomenclature code. Names with the same form but applying to different taxa are called "homonyms". Although this

4408-415: The open environment permit rolling without prohibitive obstruction. Apart from its primary vascular system and roots, the tissues of the tumbleweed structure are dead; their death is functional because it is necessary for the structure to degrade gradually and fall apart so that its seeds or spores can escape during the tumbling, or germinate after the tumbleweed has come to rest in a moist location. In

4484-566: The outside application of additional moisture is not practicable. One study showed that a single Russian thistle can remove up to 170 L (44 US gallons) of water from the soil in competition with a wheat crop in one year. The amount of water removed from fallow land more subject to erosion would be even more damaging. It sometimes happens that species of large tumbleweed, especially if thorny, can form aggregations that are physically hazardous and can block roads and cover buildings and vehicles. This can happen where fences and similar obstacles cause

4560-501: The physical or abiotic environment include temperature , water , light, carbon dioxide , and nutrients in the soil. Biotic factors that affect plant growth include crowding, grazing, beneficial symbiotic bacteria and fungi, and attacks by insects or plant diseases . Frost and dehydration can damage or kill plants. Some plants have antifreeze proteins , heat-shock proteins and sugars in their cytoplasm that enable them to tolerate these stresses . Plants are continuously exposed to

4636-764: The plant by abscission of the stem. In the Plantaginaceae , Plantago cretica forms tumbleweeds. Inflorescences that act as tumbling diaspores occur in some grasses , including Schedonnardus paniculatus and some species of Eragrostis and Aristida . In these plants, the inflorescences break off and tumble in the wind instead of the whole plant, much as happens in some of the Apiaceae and Amaryllidaceae. The species of Spinifex from Southeast Asia are prominent examples of this dispersal adaptation. These grasses are often called tumble-grasses, including such species as Panicum capillare and Eragrostis pectinacea in

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4712-526: The provisions of the ICZN Code, e.g., incorrect original or subsequent spellings, names published only in a thesis, and generic names published after 1930 with no type species indicated. According to "Glossary" section of the zoological Code, suppressed names (per published "Opinions" of the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature) remain available but cannot be used as the valid name for

4788-505: The rolling diaspore is a very effective dispersal strategy for such plants. Genera with this means of seed dispersal include Ammocharis , Boophone , Crossyne and Brunsvigia . Some species of the Apiaceae form tumbleweeds from their flower umbels, much as some Amaryllidaceae do. In the Asteraceae , the knapweed Centaurea diffusa forms tumbleweeds. It is native to Eurasia and

4864-466: The same kind as other (analogous) genera. The term "genus" comes from Latin genus , a noun form cognate with gignere ('to bear; to give birth to'). The Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus popularized its use in his 1753 Species Plantarum , but the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708) is considered "the founder of the modern concept of genera". The scientific name (or

4940-408: The scientific epithet) of a genus is also called the generic name ; in modern style guides and science, it is always capitalised. It plays a fundamental role in binomial nomenclature , the system of naming organisms , where it is combined with the scientific name of a species : see Botanical name and Specific name (zoology) . The rules for the scientific names of organisms are laid down in

5016-465: The smallest published genome is that of the carnivorous bladderwort ( Utricularia gibba) at 82 Mb (although it still encodes 28,500 genes) while the largest, from the Norway spruce ( Picea abies ), extends over 19.6 Gb (encoding about 28,300 genes). Plants are distributed almost worldwide. While they inhabit several biomes which can be divided into a multitude of ecoregions , only the hardy plants of

5092-497: The specific name particular to the wolf. A botanical example would be Hibiscus arnottianus , a particular species of the genus Hibiscus native to Hawaii. The specific name is written in lower-case and may be followed by subspecies names in zoology or a variety of infraspecific names in botany . When the generic name is already known from context, it may be shortened to its initial letter, for example, C. lupus in place of Canis lupus . Where species are further subdivided,

5168-521: The spore-bearing Selaginella lepidophylla (a lycopod ) and earthstar mushroom family ( Geastraceae ). All of these curl into a ball when dry and uncurl when moistened. Bovista , a genus of puffball, uses essentially the same dispersal strategy. The United States Department of Agriculture classified the ubiquitous tumbleweeds as a non-native and extremely invasive plant in the United States. They are considered noxious in nature and detrimental in many ways. Tumbleweeds thrive in disturbed soil and are

5244-412: The standard format for a species name comprises the generic name, indicating the genus to which the species belongs, followed by the specific epithet, which (within that genus) is unique to the species. For example, the gray wolf 's scientific name is Canis lupus , with Canis ( Latin for 'dog') being the generic name shared by the wolf's close relatives and lupus (Latin for 'wolf') being

5320-521: The stems are dry. When the seeds are about ripe, the fruit remain attached to the peduncles , but the stem of the umbel detaches, permitting the globes to roll about in the wind. The light, open, globular structures form very effective tumbleweed diaspores, dropping their seeds usually within a few days as the follicles fail under the wear of rolling. The seeds are fleshy, short-lived, and germinate rapidly where they land. Being poisonous and distasteful, they are not attractive to candidate transport animals, so

5396-403: The taxon is termed a synonym ; some authors also include unavailable names in lists of synonyms as well as available names, such as misspellings, names previously published without fulfilling all of the requirements of the relevant nomenclatural code, and rejected or suppressed names. A particular genus name may have zero to many synonyms, the latter case generally if the genus has been known for

5472-492: The tumbleweeds. Tumbleweeds have been observed causing problems with wastewater treatment plants. In some cases of inadequate fencing, they can get entangled in electromechanical equipment such as clarifiers and mechanical aerators leading to increased energy use and labor cost associated with operating and cleaning. Originating in the Western genre, tumbleweeds are frequently used as a trope in films and TV shows. In shots set in

5548-566: The values quoted are the mean of "accepted" names alone (all "uncertain" names treated as unaccepted) and "accepted + uncertain" names (all "uncertain" names treated as accepted), with the associated range of uncertainty indicating these two extremes. Within Animalia, the largest phylum is Arthropoda , with 151,697 ± 33,160 accepted genus names, of which 114,387 ± 27,654 are insects (class Insecta). Within Plantae, Tracheophyta (vascular plants) make up

5624-429: The virus species " Salmonid herpesvirus 1 ", " Salmonid herpesvirus 2 " and " Salmonid herpesvirus 3 " are all within the genus Salmonivirus ; however, the genus to which the species with the formal names " Everglades virus " and " Ross River virus " are assigned is Alphavirus . As with scientific names at other ranks, in all groups other than viruses, names of genera may be cited with their authorities, typically in

5700-435: The wind, dispersing spores as they go. The tumbleweed dispersal strategies are unusual among plants; most species disperse their seeds by other mechanisms. Many tumbleweeds establish themselves on broken soil as opportunistic agricultural weeds . Tumbleweeds have been recorded in the following plant groups: In the family Amaranthaceae s.l. (i.e. broadly defined to include Chenopodiaceae ), several annual species of

5776-414: Was considering attaching large vacuums to street-sweepers in an attempt to control the outbreak. On 18 April 2018, strong winds and neglected maintenance of neighboring private land brought a large number of tumbleweeds into Victorville, California . Approximately 100 to 150 homes required help from public services after their entryways were at least partly blocked. The local fire department participated in

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