Jaltomata procumbens
Jaltomata procumbens, the creeping false holly, is a plant species native to Arizona, USA, Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. It grows as a weed in agricultural fields and other disturbed locations, but in many places the people protect it because of the edible fruits it produces.
Jatropha curcas
Jatropha curcas is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, that is native to the American tropics: Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. It has been spread to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, becoming naturalized or invasive in many areas. The specific epithet, "curcas", was first used by Portuguese doc Garcia de Orta more than 400 years ago. Common names in English include physic nut, Barbados nut, poison nut, bubble bush or purging nut. In parts of Africa and areas in Asia such as India it is often known as "castor oil plant" or "hedge castor oil plant", but it is not the same as the castor oil plant, Ricinus communis.
Jimbu
Jimbu is an herb belonging to the onion family, used extensively in some regions of Nepal and in some central Himalayan states of India, such as Uttarakhand, where it is called jamboo or faran. It is composed of two species of Allium, A. hypsistum and A. przewalskianum. The herb, which has a taste in between onion and chives, is most commonly used dried. In the Mustang district of Nepal and Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, it is used to flavor vegetables, pickles, and meat. In the rest of Nepal it is most commonly used to flavor urad dal or lentils. The dried leaves are fried in ghee to develop their flavor. After harvest, people store jimbu dried for later use since it is a seasonal herb.
Juniper berry
A juniper berry is the female seed cone produced by the various species of junipers. It is not a true berry but a cone with unusually fleshy and merged scales called a galbulus, which gives it a berry-like appearance. The cones from a handful of species, especially Juniperus communis, are used as a spice, particularly in European cuisine, and also give gin its distinctive flavour. Juniper berries are among the few spices derived from conifers, along with spruce buds.
Kaempferia rotunda
Kaempferia rotunda, the asian ginger, is a flowering plant species in the ginger family. It is native to China, the Indian subcontinent, Indochina, and widely cultivated elsewhere. It is reportedly naturalized in Java, Malaysia and Costa Rica.
Kalanchoe pinnata
Kalanchoe pinnata, commonly known as cathedral bells, air plant, life plant, miracle leaf, and love bush, is a succulent plant native to Madagascar. It is a popular houseplant and has become naturalized in tropical and subtropical areas. The species is distinctive for the profusion of miniature plantlets that form on the margins of its leaves, a trait it has in common with some other members of Bryophyllum.
Khat
Khat, also known as Bushman's tea, especially in South Africa, is a flowering plant native to eastern and southeastern Africa. It has a history of cultivation originating in the Harar area and subsequently introduced at different times to countries nearby in East Africa and Southern Arabia, most notably Yemen. Cultivated by farmers, its leaves are sold on the market to be chewed as a recreational stimulant. The world's largest consumers are Eastern Africans, particularly Somalis, and nearby Yemen, with the largest producers/exporters being Ethiopia and Kenya.
Lactuca serriola
Lactuca serriola, also called prickly lettuce, milk thistle, compass plant, and scarole, is an annual or biennial plant in the tribe Cichorieae within the family Asteraceae. It has a slightly fetid odor and is commonly considered a weed of orchards, roadsides and field crops. It is the closest wild relative of cultivated lettuce.
Lactuca virosa
Lactuca virosa is a plant in the Lactuca (lettuce) genus, often ingested for its mild analgesic and sedative effects. It is related to common lettuce, and is often called wild lettuce, bitter lettuce, laitue vireuse, opium lettuce, poisonous lettuce, tall lettuce, great lettuce or rakutu-karyumu-so.
Lathyrus sativus
Lathyrus sativus, also known as grass pea, cicerchia, blue sweet pea, chickling pea, chickling vetch, Indian pea, white pea and white vetch, is a legume commonly grown for human consumption and livestock feed in Asia and East Africa. It is a particularly important crop in areas that are prone to drought and famine, and is thought of as an 'insurance crop' as it produces reliable yields when all other crops fail. The seeds contain a neurotoxin that causes lathyrism, a neurodegenerative disease, if eaten as a primary protein source for a prolonged period.
Laurus nobilis
Laurus nobilis is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glabrous (smooth) leaves. It is in the flowering plant family Lauraceae. According to Muer, Jahn, & Sauerbier, the stem can be 1 metre in diameter and the tree can be as high as 20 metres. It is native to the Mediterranean region and is used as bay leaf for seasoning in cooking. Its common names include bay tree, bay laurel, sweet bay, true laurel, Grecian laurel, or simply laurel. Laurus nobilis figures prominently in classical Greco-Roman culture.
Lavandula dentata
Lavandula dentata, the fringed lavender or French lavender, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae, native to the Mediterranean basin, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, and the Arabian Peninsula. Growing to 60 cm (24 in) tall, it has gray-green, linear or lance-shaped leaves with toothed edges and a lightly woolly texture. The long-lasting, narrow spikes of purple flowers, topped with pale violet bracts, first appear in late spring. The whole plant is strongly aromatic with the typical lavender fragrance.
Lemon balm
Lemon balm is a perennial herbaceous plant in the mint family. It has lemon-scented leaves, white or pale pink flowers, and contains essential oils and compounds like geranial and neral. It grows to a maximum height of 1 m. The species is native to south-central Europe, the Mediterranean, Central Asia, and Iran, is now naturalized worldwide and grows easily from seed in rich, moist soil.
Leonotis leonurus
Leonotis leonurus, also known as wild dagga and lion's ear, is a plant species in the mint family Lamiaceae. It is a broadleaf evergreen shrub, native to South Africa, where it is very common, with a wide altitudinal range from 5 m up to 1980 m. It is known for its medicinal properties. The main psychoactive component of Leonotis leonurus is hypothesized to be related to the presence of leonurine or labdanes; Leonotis leonurus has been confirmed to contain leonurine according to peer reviewed journal published phytochemical analysis. Like other plants in the mint family, it also contains marrubin. The word "dagga" comes from Afrikaans, and derives in turn from the Khoikhoi "dachab". The word "dagga" has been extended to include cannabis in Afrikaans and South African English, so the use of "wild" serves to distinguish Leonotis leonurus from this.
Leonotis nepetifolia
Leonotis nepetifolia,, is a species of plant in the genus Leonotis and the family Lamiaceae (mint), It is native to tropical Africa. It can also be found growing abundantly in much of Latin America, Southeast Asia, the West Indies, and the Southeastern United States. It grows to a height of 3 metres and has whorls of striking lipped flowers, that are most commonly orange, but can vary to red, white, and purple. It has drooping dark green, very soft serrated leaves that can grow up to 10 centimetres (4 in) wide. Sunbirds and ants are attracted to the flowers. It has been found growing on roadsides, rubbish heaps or waste land.
Leontodon saxatilis
Leontodon saxatilis is a species of hawkbit known by the common names lesser hawkbit, rough hawkbit, and hairy hawkbit. It is native to Europe and North Africa but can be found in many other places across the globe as an introduced species and often a noxious weed. This is a dandelion-like herb growing patches of many erect, leafless stems from a basal rosette of leaves. The leaves are 2 to 15 centimeters long, 0.5 to 2.5 centimeters wide, entire or lobed, and green in color. Atop the stems are solitary flower heads which are ligulate, containing layered rings of ray florets with no disc florets. The florets are yellow with toothed tips. The fruit is a cylindrical achene with a pappus of scales. Fruits near the center of the flower head are rough, while those growing along the edges of the head are smooth.
Leonurus cardiaca
Leonurus cardiaca, known as motherwort, is an herbaceous perennial plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae. Other common names include throw-wort, lion's ear, and lion's tail. Lion's tail is also a common name for Leonotis leonurus, and lion's ear, a common name for Leonotis nepetifolia. Originally from Central Asia and southeastern Europe, it is now found worldwide, spread largely due to its use as a herbal remedy.
Lepidium campestre
Lepidium campestre, the field pepperwort, field peppercress, field peppergrass, field pepperweed or field cress, is usually a biennial with some form of annual plant in the Brassicaceae or mustard family, native to Europe, but commonly found in North America as an invasive weed. The most notable characteristic of field pepperweed is the raceme of flowers which forks off of the stem. These racemes are made up of first small white flowers and later green, flat and oval seedpods each about 6 mm long and 4 mm wide. Each seedpod contains two brown, 2.5 mm long seeds.
Lessertia frutescens
Lessertia frutescens is a southern African legume in the family Fabaceae. It is also known as cancer bush, balloon pea, Cape bladder pea, sutherlandia; and phetola in seTswana, and insiswa in isiZulu. It is a shrub with bitter, aromatic leaves, with red-orange flowers appearing in spring to mid-summer. These are followed by inflated, air-filled pods containing the seeds.
Lettuce leaf basil
Lettuce leaf basil is a large-leaf variety of Ocimum basilicum. The large, crinkled leaves, which grow on the short, wide plant, are sweet, but not as strong as other sweet basils. This makes them particularly suitable for tossing into salads or wrapping fish, chicken or a rice stuffing for grilling.
Lilium lancifolium
Lilium lancifolium is an Asian species of lily, native to China, Japan, Korea, and the Russian Far East. It is widely planted as an ornamental because of its showy orange-and-black flowers, and sporadically occurs as a garden escapee in North America, particularly the eastern United States including New England, and has made incursions into some southern states such as Georgia.
Limnocharis flava
Limnocharis flava is a species of aquatic flowering plant which is native to Mexico, Central America, South America, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic but widely naturalized in southern and southeastern Asia: India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and southern China.
Lippia
Lippia is a genus of flowering plants in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. It was named after Augustin Lippi (1678–1705), a French naturalist and botanist. He was killed in Abyssinia. The genus contains roughly 200 species of tropical shrubs that are found around the world. Plants are fragrant due to their essential oils, which vary between species but may include estragole, carvacrol, linalool or limonene. The leaves of certain species, such as L. graveolens, can be used as a culinary herb similar to oregano.
Lippia graveolens
Lippia graveolens, a species of flowering plant in the verbena or vervain family, Verbenaceae, is native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Central America as far south as Nicaragua. Common names include: Mexican oregano, redbrush lippia, orégano cimarrón, scented lippia, and scented matgrass. The specific epithet is derived from two Latin words: gravis, meaning 'heavy', and olens, meaning 'smelling'. It is a shrub or small tree, reaching 1–2.7 m (3.3–8.9 ft) in height. Fragrant white or yellowish flowers can be found on the plant throughout the year, especially after rains.
Long pepper
Long pepper, sometimes called Indian long pepper or pippali, is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. Long pepper has a taste similar to, but sweeter and more pungent than, that of its close relative Piper nigrum – from which black, green and white pepper are obtained.
Lycium chinense
Lycium chinense is one of two species of boxthorn shrub in the family Solanaceae. Along with Lycium barbarum, it produces the goji berry ("wolfberry"). Two varieties are recognized, L. chinense var. chinense and L. chinense var. potaninii. It is also known as Chinese boxthorn, Chinese matrimony-vine, Chinese teaplant, Chinese wolfberry, wolfberry, and Chinese desert-thorn.