Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Paris green

(Encyclopedia)Paris green, also called Schweinfurt green, an extremely poisonous, bright green powder that was formerly used extensively as a pigment (e.g., in wallpaper) and that is sometimes used as an insecticid...

Berezniki

(Encyclopedia)Berezniki bĭryĕznyĭkēˈ [key], city, E European Russia, a port on the Kama River. Situated in an ...

rotation of crops

(Encyclopedia)rotation of crops, agricultural practice of varying the crops on a piece of land in a planned series, to save or increase the mineral or organic content of the soil, to increase crop yields, and to er...

carnivorous plants

(Encyclopedia)carnivorous plants: see bladderwort; pitcher plant; Venus's-flytrap. ...

parasite

(Encyclopedia)parasite, plant or animal that at some stage of its existence obtains its nourishment from another living organism called the host. Parasites may or may not harm the host, but they never benefit it. T...

Eder

(Encyclopedia)Eder āˈdər [key], river, c.110 mi (180 km) long, rising near Siegen, central Germany, and flowing E to the Fulda River. The Eder dam, at Hemfurth, impounds one of the largest reservoirs in Germany;...

heliotrope

(Encyclopedia)heliotrope hēˈlēətrōpˌ [key] [Gr.,=sun-turning] or turnsole, name for any plant that turns to face the sun, especially members of the genus Heliotropium of the family Boraginaceae. The garden he...

anther

(Encyclopedia)anther, pollen-bearing structure of the stamen of a flower, usually borne on a slender stalk called the filament. Each anther generally consists of two pollen sacs, which open when the pollen is matur...

Jipijapa

(Encyclopedia)Jipijapa hēpēhäˈpä [key], city (1990 pop. 32,225), W Ecuador, on the equatorial lowlands. A few miles inland from the Pacific, Jipijapa is famous for the manufacture of high-grade Panama hats, ma...

La Brea

(Encyclopedia)La Brea lə brāˈə [key], area, S Calif., formerly in Rancho La Brea. The La Brea asphalt pits, which yielded prehistoric animal and plant remains, are in Hancock Park, Los Angeles. The first fossil...