parent_taxon zerene
Alfalfa , ___MASK16___ sativa also called lucerne , is a perennial flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world . It is used for grazing , hay , and silage , as well as a green manure and cover crop . The name alfalfa is used in North America . The name lucerne is the more commonly used name in the United Kingdom , South Africa , Australia , and New Zealand . The plant superficially resembles clover ( a cousin in the same family ), especially while young , when trifoliate leaves comprising round leaflets predominate . Later in maturity , leaflets are elongated . It has clusters of small purple flowers followed by fruits spiralled in 2 to 3 turns containing 10  20 seeds . Alfalfa is native to warmer temperate climates . It has been cultivated as livestock fodder since at least the era of the ancient Greeks and Romans . Alfalfa sprouts are a common ingredient in dishes made in South Indian cuisine . A weed is a ___MASK40___ considered undesirable in a particular situation , " a ___MASK40___ in the wrong place ". Examples commonly are plants unwanted in human - controlled settings , such as farm fields , gardens , lawns , and parks . Taxonomically , the term " weed " has no botanical significance , because a ___MASK40___ that is a weed in one context is " not " a weed when growing in a situation where it " is " in fact wanted , and where one species of ___MASK40___ is a valuable crop ___MASK40___ , another species in the same genus might be a serious weed , such as a wild bramble growing among cultivated loganberries . Many plants that people widely regard as weeds also are intentionally grown in gardens and other cultivated settings , in which case they are sometimes called beneficial weeds . The term " weed " also is applied to any ___MASK40___ that grows or reproduces aggressively , or is invasive outside its native habitat . More broadly " weed " occasionally is applied pejoratively to species outside the ___MASK40___ kingdom , species that can survive in diverse environments and reproduce quickly ; in this sense it has even been applied to humans . China , officially the People ' s Republic of China ( PRC ), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia . With a population of over 1 . 381 billion , it is the world ' s most populous country . The state is governed by the Communist Party of China , and its capital is Beijing . It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces , five autonomous regions , four direct - controlled municipalities ( Beijing , Tianjin , Shanghai , and Chongqing ), and two mostly self - governing special administrative regions ( Hong Kong and Macau ), and claims sovereignty over Taiwan . The country ' s major urban ___MASK9___ include Shanghai , Guangzhou , Beijing , Chongqing , Shenzhen , Tianjin and Hong Kong . China is a great power and a major regional power within Asia , and has been characterized as a potential superpower . ___MASK35___ , the sulphurs or yellows , are a subfamily of butterflies with about 300 described species . ___MASK24___ is a genus of butterflies in the family ___MASK72___ . They are usually called clouded yellows ; the North American name " sulphurs " is elsewhere used for ___MASK35___ in general . The closest living relative is the genus " Zerene ", which is sometimes included in " ___MASK24___ ". This genus occurs throughout the Holarctic , including the arctic regions . They are also found in South America , Africa , China and India . Their caterpillars feed on certain Fabaceae , for example vetches (" Vicia "). While most are thus beneficial by keeping weeds at bay , some occasionally become nuisance pests on crops like alfalfa . In some species , the wings of males have brilliant ultraviolet reflection , while those of females do not . Adults of both sexes have various colour forms . ___MASK89___ is a genus of butterflies in the family ___MASK72___ commonly called dogfaces . The closest living relative is the genus Colias . Binomial nomenclature ( also called binominal nomenclature or binary nomenclature ) is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts , both of which use Latin grammatical forms , although they can be based on words from other languages . Such a name is called a binomial name ( which may be shortened to just " binomial "), a binomen or a scientific name ; more informally it is also called a Latin name . The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs ; the second part identifies the species within the genus . For example , humans belong to the genus " ___MASK83___ " and within this genus to the species " ___MASK83___ sapiens ". The " formal " introduction of this system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus , effectively beginning with his work " Species Plantarum " in 1753 . But Gaspard Bauhin , in as early as 1623 , had introduced in his book " Pinax theatri botanici " ( English , " Illustrated exposition of plants ") many names of genera that were later adopted by Linnaeus . Caterpillar is the common name for the larvae of members of the order ___MASK2___ ( the insect order comprising butterflies and moths ). The Holarctic is the name for the biogeographic realm that encompasses the majority of habitats found throughout the northern continents of the world , combining Wallace ' s Palearctic zoogeographical region , consisting of North Africa and all of Eurasia ( with the exception of the southern Arabian Peninsula , Southeast Asia , and the Indian subcontinent ), and the Nearctic zoogeographical region , consisting of North America north of Southern Mexico . These regions are further subdivided into a variety of ecoregions . Many ecosystems , and the ___MASK80___ and ___MASK40___ communities that depend on them , are found across multiple continents in large portions of this realm . The continuity of these ecosystems results from the shared glacial history of the realm . The floristic Boreal Kingdom corresponds to the Holarctic realm . A genus ( genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms in biology . In the hierarchy of biological classification , genus comes above species and below family . In binomial nomenclature , the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus . Africa is the world ' s second - largest and second - most - populous continent . At about 30 . 3 million km² ( 11 . 7 million square miles ) including adjacent islands , it covers 6 % of Earth ' s total surface ___MASK8___ and 20 . 4 % of its total land ___MASK8___ . With 1 . 1 billion people as of 2013 , it accounts for about 15 % of the world ' s human population . The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north , both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast , the Indian Ocean to the southeast , and the Atlantic Ocean to the west . The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos . It contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states ( countries ), nine territories and two " de facto " independent states with limited or no recognition . India , officially the Republic of India (" Bhrat Gaarjya "), is a country in South Asia . It is the seventh - largest country by ___MASK8___ , the second - most populous country ( with over 1 . 2 billion people ), and the most populous democracy in the world . It is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south , the Arabian Sea on the southwest , and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast . It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west ; China , Nepal , and Bhutan to the northeast ; and Myanmar ( Burma ) and Bangladesh to the east . In the Indian Ocean , India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives . India ' s Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia . Its capital is New Delhi ; other metropolises include Mumbai , Kolkata , Chennai , Bangalore , Hyderabad and Ahmedabad . The ___MASK4___ , Leguminosae or Papilionaceae , commonly known as the legume , pea , or bean family , are a large and economically important family of flowering plants . It includes trees , shrubs , and perennial or annual herbaceous plants , which are easily recognized by their fruit ( legume ) and their compound , stipulated leaves . The family is widely distributed , and is the third - largest land ___MASK40___ family in terms of number of species , behind only the ___MASK30___ and ___MASK61___ , with about 751 genera and some 19 , 000 known species . The five largest of the genera are " Astragalus " ( over 3 , 000 species ), " ___MASK62___ " ( over 1000 species ), " Indigofera " ( around 700 species ), " Crotalaria " ( around 700 species ) and " Mimosa " ( around 500 species ), which constitute about a quarter of all legume species . The ___MASK22___ . 19 , 000 known legume species amount to about 7 % of flowering ___MASK40___ species . ___MASK4___ is the most common family found in tropical rainforests and in dry forests in the Americas and Africa . The ___MASK72___ are a large family of butterflies with about 76 genera containing about 1 , 100 species , mostly from tropical Africa and tropical Asia with some varieties in the more northern regions of North America . Most pierid butterflies are white , yellow , or orange in coloration , often with black spots . The pigments that give the distinct coloring to these butterflies are derived from waste products in the body and are a characteristic of this family . In biology , an organism is any contiguous living system , such as an ___MASK80___ , ___MASK40___ , fungus , archaeon , or bacterium . All known types of organisms are capable of some degree of response to stimuli , reproduction , growth and development and homeostasis . An organism consists of one or more cells ; when it has one cell it is known as a unicellular organism ; and when it has more than one it is known as a multicellular organism . Most unicellular organisms are of microscopic scale and are thus loosely described as microorganisms . Humans are multicellular organisms composed of many trillions of cells grouped into specialized tissues and organs .