Taraxacum officinale has been used in Jordan folk medicine to treat male infertility. A recent study has proved a contradictory effect of the whole plant aqueous extract. The aim of the current study was to determine if the leaves of T. officinale have similar anti-fertility activities, and whether this effect is mediated through the regulation of spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs). Fifty adult m...

To study the influence of rhizobium inoculation on growth and yield of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) cultivars, an experiment was conducted at Kurram Agency, Pakistan during 2007. The rhizobium inoculation significantly enhanced the growth and yield parameters of groundnut cultivars. However, the maximum plant height (88.43 cm), number of shoots (19.9 plant), number of leaves (173.27 plant), num...

The effects of ethylene evolved from ethephon on leaf and whole plant photosynthesis in Xanthium strumarium L. were examined. Ethylene-induced epinasty reduced light interception by the leaves of ethephon treated plants by up to 60%. Gas exchange values of individual, attached leaves under identical assay conditions were not inhibited even after 36 hours of ethylene exposure, although treated l...

In a multiple-choice test, the preference of egg-laying Polygonia c-album (comma butterfly) females was studied for oviposition on plants bearing surrogate leaves treated with crude methanol extracts obtained from leaves of seven host-plant species: Humulus lupulus, Urtica dioica, Ulmus glabra, Salix caprea, Ribes nigrum, Corylus avellana, and Betula pubescens. The ranking order of surrogate le...

Castor oil plant seeds (Ricinus communis L.) were grown in spent lubricating oil (SLO) contaminated soil at concentrations of 1-6% (w/w, oil/soil). Plant height and stem girth were depressed by spent lubricating oil at concentrations of 2% (w/w) and above. One percent (1%) spent lubricating oil in soil promoted growth of plants when compared with control. Fresh and dry weights of R. communis pl...

The effectiveness of aqueous extract of seven locally available medicinal plants i.e. Trachyspermum ammi (seeds), Zingiber officinale (rhizome), Tinospora cordifolia (leaves), Cymbopogon citratus (leaves), Moringa oleifera (bark) were evaluated against the plant pathogenic fungus i.e. Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lini (causing wilt in linseed). The plant extracts were screened for their antagonist...

Leaf water potential, leaf relative water content, and relative transpiration of barley were determined daily under greenhouse conditions at 3 growth stages: tillering to boot, boot to heading, and heading to maturity. The leaf moisture characteristic curve (relative water content versus leaf water potential) was the same for leaves of the same age growing in the same environment for the first ...

The Funding statement is incorrect. The publisher apologizes for the error. The correct Funding statement is: This research was financially supported by the National Key Technologies R&D Program (2015BAD07B01), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31270656, http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/), the Scientific Research and Graduate Training Joint Programs from BMEC and the Schatz Center for Tre...

In this article we propose a novel tool that takes an initial segmented image and returns a more accurate segmentation that accurately captures sharp features such as leaf tips, twists and axils. Our algorithm utilizes basic a-priori information about the shape of plant leaves and local image orientations to fit active contour models to important plant features that have been missed during the ...

The J. curcas is considered as a biofuel plant, but the leaves are traditionally used as an antiinflammatory and anticoagulant. In present investigation, the detailed pharmacognostic study of J. curcas leaf is carried out to lay down the standards which could be useful in future experimental studies. The study includes macroscopy, microscopy, preliminary phytochemical screening and physicochemi...