black panther, colloquial term used to refer to large felines classified in the genus Panthera that are characterized by a coat of black fur or large concentrations of black spots set against a dark background. The term black panther is most frequently applied to black-coated leopards (Panthera

Black Panther, comic strip superhero created for Marvel Comics by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. The character first appeared in Fantastic Four no. 52 (July 1966). Seeking to address the dearth of Black characters in comics, Lee and Kirby created T’Challa, a member of the royal family of

Black Panther Party, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into

Black Panther Party, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into

Black Panther Ten-Point Program, document first published on May 15, 1967, in the second issue of The Black Panther, the newspaper of the militant Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Composed in October 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, the cofounders of the Black Panther Party, the

Black Panther Ten-Point Program, document first published on May 15, 1967, in the second issue of The Black Panther, the newspaper of the militant Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Composed in October 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, the cofounders of the Black Panther Party, the

Eusébio was a Portuguese football (soccer) player considered one of the greatest of all time. He was celebrated for his long runs through defenders and his deft scoring touch. Eusébio began his career playing on the Sporting Clube de Lourenço Marques in what was then the Portuguese territory of

Angela Bassett: >Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). For the latter she won a Golden Globe for best performance by an actress in a supporting role in any motion picture and received her second Oscar nomination.

My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade (2006), a bombastic rock opera about the reflections of a dying cancer patient, was produced by Rob Cavallo, who had worked previously with pop-punk group Green Day on its similarly ambitious American Idiot. The ensuing multicontinent concert tour found My Chemical Romance…

Matilda Sissieretta Jones was an American opera singer who was among the greatest sopranos in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jones early revealed her talent as a singer, and for a time she studied at the Providence (Rhode Island) Academy of Music. She may have undertaken further studies at

Matilda Sissieretta Jones: …called, to her distaste, the Black Patti Troubadors, a motley group whose performances included blackface minstrel songs and “coon” songs and featured acrobats and comedians. Madame Jones, as she preferred to be known, restricted herself to operatic selections, which over the years grew to include costumes and scenery. Performing almost…

bubble tea, beverage combining tea, milk, and “bubbles”—chewy gelatinous candies made of tapioca or fruit jelly. Bubble tea is a favourite in its homeland of Taiwan and is now popular worldwide. Bubble tea originated in the city of T’ai-nan, Taiwan, in the mid-1980s. Dozens of variations of the

Steve Biko: …of the founders of the Black People’s Convention, an umbrella organization of Black consciousness groups.

black pepper: Cultivation and harvest: …whole peppercorns, when ground, yield black pepper. White pepper is obtained by removing the dark outer part of the pericarp, and the flavor is less pungent than that of black pepper. The outer coating is softened either by keeping the berries in moist heaps for 2 or 3 days or…

black pepper, (Piper nigrum), perennial climbing vine of the family Piperaceae and the hot, pungent spice made from its fruits. Black pepper is native to the Malabar Coast of India and is one of the earliest spices known. Widely used as a spice around the world, pepper also has a limited usage in

peppermint: Black peppermint, also called English peppermint or mitcham mint, is extensively grown in the United States and has purplish stems. The white variety is less hardy and less productive, but its oil is considered more delicate in odour and obtains a higher price.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Literary archaeologist: …Gates became codirector of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Yale. In the years that followed he earned a reputation as a “literary archaeologist” by recovering and collecting thousands of lost literary works (short stories, poems, reviews, and notices) by African American authors dating from the early 19th to the…

tag: …wall-to-wall in Great Britain, and pom-pom-pullaway in the United States). In addition, there are also freeze tag and group tag. With freeze tag, the tagged person cannot move until someone from his team “unfreezes” him with a touch. In group tag the child touching a safe area (often known as…

Zwarte Piet is a character in Dutch folklore who serves St. Nicholas (in Dutch, Sinterklaas) in St. Nicholas Day (December 6 and its eve) festivities in the Netherlands. Usually performed in blackface, Zwarte Piet is widely considered a racist caricature, though some defend the character as part of

phoebe: …most widely distributed is the black phoebe (S. nigricans), which is found near water from the southwestern United States to Argentina. Measuring 16 cm (6.3 inches) long, S. nigricans is slightly smaller than S. phoebe, and it is dark above with a contrasting white belly.

phosphorus: Properties and reactions: …is converted to a flaky black crystalline form, which somewhat resembles graphite. This may prove to be the most stable form of phosphorus, despite the relative difficulty in its preparation. In both the red and the black forms, each phosphorus atom forms three single bonds, which are spread apart sufficiently…

red pill and blue pill: The term black pill, first popularized in the 2010s on the incel blog Omega Virgin Revolt, refers to accepting the futility of fighting against a feminist system. Blackpilled incels are encouraged to either commit suicide or “go ER”/be a “hERo,” referencing Elliot Rodger’s 2014 Isla Vista murder…

pine: Major Eurasian pines: The Austrian, or black, pine (P. nigra) grows to a height of 30 or even 45 metres (98 to 148 feet), with a straight trunk and branches in regular whorls, forming in a large tree a pyramidal head. It derives its name from the sombre aspect…

cypress pine: Major species: …columellaris), found throughout Australia; the black cypress pine (C. endlicheri) of eastern Australia, locally also called black pine, red pine, and scrub pine; the Port Macquarie pine, or stringybark (C. macleayana), of southeastern Australia; and the common cypress pine (C. preissii) of southern Australia, often shrubby near the seacoast, with…

yellowwood: …elatus) of southeastern Australia; the black pine, or matai (P. spicatus), the kahikatea, or white pine (P. dacrydioides), the miro (P. ferrugineus), and the totara (P. totara), all native to New Zealand; kusamaki, or broad-leaved podocarpus (P. macrophyllus), of China and Japan; real yellowwood (P. latifolius),

Douglas Fairbanks: …The Thief of Bagdad (1924), The Black Pirate (1926), The Iron Mask (1929), and The Taming of the Shrew (1929), in which he costarred with Mary Pickford, the popular leading lady to whom he was married from 1920 to 1935.

Georgia O’Keeffe: New Mexico: …Place (1940), Pelvis IV (1944), Black Place III (1944), and numerous other paintings of the area’s distinctive natural and architectural forms. Such paintings of what she saw allowed her to continue to explore the abstract language she had identified as her own in the 1910s in that its abstract shapes…

cacao: Pests and diseases: A pod rot called black pod is caused by a fungus (Phytophthora) that spreads rapidly on the pods under conditions of excessive rain and humidity, insufficient sunshine, and temperatures below 21 °C (70 °F). Control requires timely treatment with copper-containing fungicides and constant removal of infected pods. Witches’ broom…

poplar: Common species: The black poplar, or black cottonwood (P. nigra), has oval fine-toothed leaves, is long-trunked, and grows to a height of 35 metres (115 feet). Columnar black poplars are widely used in ornamental landscape plantings, particularly among the villas of Italy and elsewhere in southern Europe. White…

Longshan culture, Neolithic culture of central China, named for the site in Shandong province where its remains were first discovered by C.T. Wu. Dating from about 2600 to 2000 bce, it is characterized by fine burnished ware in wheel-turned vessels of angular outline; abundant gray pottery;

black powder, first type of explosive mixture invented for use in firearms and for blasting (see

African Americans: Urban upheaval: “Black Power” became popular in the late 1960s. The slogan was first used by Carmichael in June 1966 during a civil rights march in Mississippi. However, the concept of Black power predated the slogan. Essentially, it refers to all the attempts by African Americans to…

Mississippi: Relief and soils: …Central Prairie, separated from the Black Prairie by a section of hills and woods. The two prairies, with fertile black soil that is excellent for many types of agriculture, were once the site of large cotton plantations. East of the Black Prairie, in the extreme northeast, are the Tennessee Hills.…

Black Prince’s ruby, large red gem set in the Maltese cross in the front of the imperial state crown of England. It is not a ruby but is one of the world’s largest gem-quality red spinels, a polished lump 5 cm (2 inches) long, pierced and partly filled with a small ruby. The stone was given to

Shirley Ann Grau: Grau’s first book, The Black Prince, and Other Stories (1955), had considerable success. Her first novel, The Hard Blue Sky (1958), concerns Cajun fishermen and their families. This was followed by The House on Coliseum Street (1961), which examines the lives of a mother and her five daughters,…

Edward The Black Prince was the son and heir apparent of Edward III of England and one of the outstanding commanders during the Hundred Years’ War, winning his major victory at the Battle of Poitiers (1356). His sobriquet, said to have come from his wearing black armour, has no contemporary

Peter Jackson was an outstanding professional boxer. A victim of racial discrimination (Jackson was black), he was denied a chance to fight for the world heavyweight championship while in his prime. Jackson won the Australian heavyweight championship in 1886 and the British Empire title in 1892. On

Iris Murdoch: …Nice and the Good (1968), The Black Prince (1973), Henry and Cato (1976), The Sea, the Sea (1978, Booker Prize), The Philosopher’s Pupil (1983), The Good Apprentice (1985), The Book and the Brotherhood (1987), The Message to the Planet (1989), and

black pudding, a sausage incorporating blood, popular in the British Isles and typically eaten as a breakfast food. Black pudding has been a recorded item of British cuisine since at least the 1400s, although it is certainly far older. The Odyssey of Homer mentions a sausage “filled with fat and

Ozzy Osbourne: Later music: …studio album in six years, Black Rain. He followed with Scream (2010), Ordinary Man (2020), and Patient Number 9 (2022). The latter won the Grammy for best rock album, and its single “Degradation Rules” (featuring Tony Iommi) was named best metal performance. In 2023 Osbourne canceled his upcoming concerts because…

Ridley Scott: …Watch Over Me (1987) and Black Rain (1989); again, these were admired for their visual styling. While Scott’s settings in Thelma & Louise (1991) were no less notable, the film’s lead characters (played by Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon) and feminist theme were the focus of critical attention, and he…

Ibuse Masuji: …the novel Kuroi ame (1966; Black Rain), which deals with the terrible effects of the bombing of Hiroshima during World War II.

Black Range, mountain range extending 100 miles (160 km) north to south, through Catron and Sierra counties, southwestern New Mexico, U.S. The range follows the Continental Divide for much of its length. Most of the range lies within the Gila National Forest, near the headwaters of the Gila River.

raspberry: Cultivation: Two North American species of black raspberries (R. occidentalis and R. leucodermis) are also grown commercially in some areas, though production is limited. Raspberry plants are fairly resistant to disease and pests but must be staked or trellised to control their wild growth. Red varieties are usually propagated by suckers…

rat: …the Norway rat), and the house rat, R. rattus (also called the black rat, ship rat, or roof rat), live virtually everywhere that human populations have settled; the house rat is predominant in warmer climates, and the brown rat dominates in temperate regions, especially urban areas. Most likely originating in…

rat snake: The black rat snake, or pilot black snake (Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta), of the eastern United States usually is about 1.2 m (about 4 feet) long but may exceed 2.5 m (8 feet). It is black, with whitish chin and throat—like the true black snake (see racer)—but…

Sam Houston was an American lawyer and politician, a leader in the Texas Revolution (1834–36) who later served as president of the Republic of Texas (1836–38; 1841–44) and who was instrumental in Texas’s becoming a U.S. state (1845). In his youth Houston moved with his family to a farm in rural

W.E.B. Du Bois: Black nationalism and later works: Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880 (1935) was an important Marxist interpretation of Reconstruction (the period following the American Civil War during which the seceded Southern states were…

redshank: The slightly larger spotted redshank (T. erythropus), also called dusky or black redshank, has reddish brown legs and a straight red bill with a brown tip. In breeding season, its plumage is black; in winter, gray. It breeds across sub-Arctic Eurasia and winters from the Mediterranean region into…

Queen Latifah: …with Motown Records, she released Black Reign in 1993. The album was a critical and commercial success, and the single “U.N.I.T.Y.,” which decried sexism and violence against women, earned a Grammy Award.

Narodnik: …Tsar Alexander II (1881), and Chorny Peredel (“Black Repartition”), a party that continued to emphasize work among the peasantry until its members shifted their attention to the urban proletariat in the 1880s. The populist ideology of the Narodnik movement was revived by its 20th-century ideological descendant, the Socialist Revolutionary Party…

Mary Frances Berry: …racial and gender inequality, including Black Resistance/White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America (1971, expanded ed. 1994), which concluded that high-level government officials implemented laws that undermined minorities; Long Memory: The Black Experience in America (1982); and The Politics of Parenthood: Child Care, Women’s Rights, and the Myth…

black rhinoceros, (Diceros bicornis), the third largest rhinoceros and one of two African species of rhinoceros. The black rhinoceros typically weighs between 700 and 1,300 kg (1,500 and 2,900 pounds); males are the same size as females. It stands 1.5 metres (5 feet) high at the shoulder and is 3.5

Robert Wilson: The series began with The Black Rider (1990) and continued with Alice (1992), a retelling of the Lewis Carroll books, both with music by Tom Waits. The final installment, Time Rocker (1996), had more to do with Wilson’s minimalist decor and lighting and less with music (by Lou Reed)…

Black River, river that rises in central Wisconsin, U.S., and flows south and southwest for some 160 miles (260 km) to enter the Mississippi River near La Crosse. The river’s final stretch of 1.5 miles (2.5 km) has a depth maintained at 9 feet (3 metres) for seasonal barge

Lorain, city, Lorain county, northern Ohio, U.S. It is located on Lake Erie at the mouth of the Black River, about 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Elyria and 25 miles (40 km) west of Cleveland. Moravian missionaries camped briefly on the site in 1787, but the first permanent settler was Nathan Perry,

Black River, one of the chief tributaries of the Red River (Song Hong) in southeastern Asia. Nearly 500 miles (800 km) long, the river rises in central Yunnan province in southwestern China and flows southeastward into northwestern Vietnam on a course parallel to the Red River. Near the city of Hoa

Jamaica: Drainage and soils: The Black River in the west and the Rio Cobre near Kingston are each longer than 30 miles (50 km).

Salt River: …at the confluence of the Black and White rivers on a plateau in eastern Gila county. It flows 200 miles (320 km) in a westerly direction and empties into the Gila River 15 miles (24 km) west-southwest of Phoenix. The Salt River and its main tributary, the Verde River, are…

Black River, river in southeastern Missouri and eastern Arkansas, U.S., rising in the Ozark Mountains in Reynolds county, Mo. It flows southeasterly to Poplar Bluff, Mo., and then continues southwest to enter the White River near Newport, Ark., after a course of 280 miles (450 km). Limited

C.K. Stead: Stead composed the poems in The Black River (2007) after suffering a stroke. The Yellow Buoy: Poems 2007–2012 (2013) deals largely with his European travels.

Niagara River: The Black Rock Canal, from Buffalo Harbor to a point a few miles down the Niagara River, extends the navigation period locally through a greater part of the winter, when the river itself becomes jammed with Lake Erie ice. The principal shipping between Lakes Erie and…

Black Rock Desert, arid region of lava beds and alkali flats composing part of the Basin and Range Province and lying in Humboldt and Pershing counties of northwestern Nevada, U.S. With an area of about 1,000 square miles (2,600 square km), the desert is 70 miles (110 km) long and up to 20 miles

Black Rod, an office of the British House of Lords (the upper house in Parliament), instituted in 1350. Its holder is appointed by royal letters patent, and the title is derived from the staff of office, an ebony stick surmounted with a gold lion. Black Rod is a personal attendant of the sovereign

sugar beet: Diseases and pests: Black root rot, a fungus disease characterized by lesions in the stem near the soil surface, and Cercospora leaf spot, a fungus infection in which the leaves become greenish yellow and root weight and sugar content are reduced, are most serious and can cause great…

Thomas B. Costain: …best known of which are The Black Rose (1945), whose medieval English hero ranges as far as Kublai Khan’s China, and The Silver Chalice (1952), about the early Christians in Rome.

cereal farming: Fungus diseases: …chief damage is caused by black rust. Because this fungus spends part of its life on cereals and part on the barberry bush, these bushes are often eradicated near wheat fields as a preventive measure. Black rust causes cereal plants to lose their green colour and turn yellow. The grain…

Black Sabbath, British band whose bludgeoning brand of rock defined heavy metal in the 1970s. The principal members were Ozzy Osbourne (byname of John Osbourne; b. December 3, 1948, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England), Terry (“Geezer”) Butler (b. July 17, 1949, Birmingham), Tony Iommi (b. February

black sand, accumulation of fragments of durable heavy minerals (those with a density greater than that of quartz), usually of a dark colour. These accumulations are found in streambeds or on beaches where stream and wave energy was sufficient to carry away low-density material but not the heavy

sapote: Black sapote (Diospyros nigra), also known as chocolate pudding fruit, is a member of the family Ebenaceae and is found throughout the Caribbean and Central America. White sapote, or casimiroa (Casimiroa edulis), ranges from Mexico to Costa Rica and is in the Rutaceae family.

Helen Zille: Education and early career: …in several organizations, including the Black Sash civil rights group, the philanthropic Open Society Foundation, and the Independent Media Diversity Trust. During the early 1990s, as the policies of apartheid were being unraveled, she served as a technical adviser to the Democratic Party (DP)—a small, liberal, white South African party…

Black Saturday bushfires, series of bushfires in 2009 that killed 173 people, injured 500, and destroyed thousands of homes in the Australian state of Victoria. With its abundant forests and hot dry climate, Australia has often suffered from deadly bushfires, notably the 1939 “Black Friday” blaze

scoter: The black scoter is the least abundant in the New World. All three species of scoter feed mainly on marine animals such as clams; only about 10 percent of their diet is plant material. The three species may be seen feeding in mixed flocks.

Black Sea, large inland sea situated at the southeastern extremity of Europe. It is bordered by Ukraine to the north, Russia to the northeast, Georgia to the east, Turkey to the south, and Bulgaria and Romania to the west. The roughly oval-shaped Black Sea occupies a large basin strategically

sea bass: …and sport are grouper; the black sea bass (Centropristis striata), a gray, brownish, or blackish species of the western Atlantic; and the graysby (Petrometopon cruentatus), of tropical western Atlantic waters.

Ukraine: State building and diplomacy: …Ukraine over control of the Black Sea Fleet and Sevastopol, the Crimean port city where the fleet was based, was particularly acrimonious. Early in 1992 Ukraine laid claim to the entire fleet, which had been an important naval asset of the Soviet Union. Russia responded unequivocally that the fleet always…

Dnieper River: Physiography: …Dnieper basin lies within the Black Sea Lowland, in the black-soil steppe area, which has now been completely plowed up. The grassy steppe vegetation has been preserved only in the nature reserves and preserves and in old ravines and gullies. Near the Black Sea there is wormwood–fescue vegetation of the…

Ukraine: Plant and animal life: The Black Sea Nature Reserve shelters many species of waterfowl and is the only Ukrainian breeding ground of the Mediterranean gull (Larus melanocephalus). Also located on the Black Sea, the Danube Water Meadows Reserve protects the Danube River’s tidewater biota. Other reserves in Ukraine preserve segments…

turbot: Among them are the Black Sea turbot (Scophthalmus maeoticus), a relative of the European species, and certain right-sided, Pacific Ocean flatfish of the genus Pleuronichthys and the family Pleuronectidae.

black cumin, (Nigella sativa), annual plant of the ranunculus family (Ranunculaceae) grown for its pungent seeds, which are used as a spice and in herbal medicine. The black cumin plant is found in southwestern Asia and parts of the Mediterranean region and Africa, where it has a long history of

Black Seminoles, a group of free blacks and runaway slaves (maroons) that joined forces with the Seminole Indians in Florida from approximately 1700 through the 1850s. The Black Seminoles were celebrated for their bravery and tenacity during the three Seminole Wars. The Native American Seminoles

Saʿīd Ḥammāmī: …(a confrontation known as “Black September”). The PLO was defeated, and Ḥammāmī moved to Beirut, Lebanon, where he remained involved in Palestinian politics, envisaging compromise with Israel. Though a fervent nationalist, Ḥammāmī was regarded as a “moderate” because of his willingness to consider the establishment of an independent Palestinian…

Black September, breakaway militant faction of the Palestinian organization Fatah. The group was founded in 1971 to seek retribution on Jordan’s military and to assassinate Jordan’s King Hussein after they forcefully confronted the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during an attempt to seize

Black September, breakaway militant faction of the Palestinian organization Fatah. The group was founded in 1971 to seek retribution on Jordan’s military and to assassinate Jordan’s King Hussein after they forcefully confronted the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during an attempt to seize

Seto-guro ware, Japanese ceramic ware created at Mino during 1573–96. A black ware, it stands in contrast to the contemporary pure-white Shino ware. Seto-guro (“black Seto”) was produced by a process that involved firing the iron-glaze ware in an oxidizing kiln from which it was suddenly removed

black shale, variety of shale that contains abundant organic matter, pyrite, and sometimes carbonate nodules or layers and, in some locations, concentrations of copper, nickel, uranium, and vanadium. Fossils are rare in the shale and either are replaced by pyrite or are preserved as a film of

black shark, either of two Asian species of river fishes. See

Chris Farley: Movies: Billy Madison and Tommy Boy: …two comedians then appeared in Black Sheep (1996), about a political aide (Spade) who must babysit a candidate’s bumbling brother (Farley). Farley made two more films, Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), a martial arts comedy, and Almost Heroes (1998), about 19th-century explorers. He was also cast to voice the title role…

Kara Koyunlu, Turkmen tribal federation that ruled Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Iraq from about 1375 to 1468. The Kara Koyunlu were vassals of the Jalāyirid dynasty of Baghdad and Tabrīz from about 1375, when the head of their leading tribe, Kara Muḥammad Turmush (reigned c. 1375–90), ruled Mosul. The

Pappy Boyington: …organized Squadron 214, called the Black Sheep Squadron, one of the most renowned fighting units of the war, operating mostly in the Solomon Islands. On his last mission, on January 3, 1944, he shot down three Japanese aircraft but was himself shot down in Rabaul harbour, New Britain, and was…

Brigid Brophy: ” Her nonfiction treatise Black Ship to Hell (1962), which examines human destructive and self-destructive instincts, owes much to her study of psychoanalysis. Flesh (1962), In Transit (1969), Pussy Owl: Superbeast (1976), Palace Without Chairs (1978), and other novels portray the subtleties of modern relationships. Later nonfiction works include…

Japanese music: Composers in Western styles: His opera Kurobune (1940; The Black Ships) deals with the opening of Japan to the West and reflects his knowledge of Wagnerian style. Attempts at nationalistic operas can be represented better by the work Yuzuru (1952; Twilight Crane) by Ikuma Dan. The plot is a Japanese folktale, and, although…

skimmer: The largest skimmer is the black skimmer (Rynchops nigra; see photograph) of America, which grows to 50 cm (20 inches) long. The African skimmer (R. flavirostris) and the Indian skimmer (R. albicollis) are smaller.

Pomeranian: Care and upkeep: …from a painless disorder called alopecia X, or black skin disease. It first appears as areas of hair loss, and the exposed skin may eventually turn black. Affected dogs should wear shirts or sunscreen to prevent sunburn. In addition, some Poms that have had their coat clipped may not regrow…

Frantz Fanon: …Peau noire, masques blancs (1952; Black Skin, White Masks) is a multidisciplinary analysis of the effect of colonialism on racial consciousness. Integrating psychoanalysis, phenomenology, existentialism, and Negritude theory, Fanon articulated an expansive view of the psychosocial repercussions of colonialism on colonized people. The publication shortly before

Fernando Ortiz: …the subject, and in 1916 Los negros esclavos (“Black Slaves”), in which he studies Cuban blacks according to the region of Africa from which they came. His Un catauro de cubanismos (1923; “A Load of Cubanisms”) identifies the African origins of many words used in Cuba, as well as the…

black snake, any of about a dozen species of snakes that are all black or nearly so. Australia has two species of black snakes, Pseudechis porphyriacus and P. guttatus. P. porphyriacus is a small-headed member of the cobra family, Elapidae. It is blue-black with a red belly, and its average length

bugbane: …(4 feet) tall, and the black cohosh, or black snakeroot (C. racemosa; see photograph), about 180 cm (5.91 feet) tall, have roots that have been used medicinally. C. foetida, native to Europe and Siberia, is used medicinally by the Chinese. These species are sometimes grown in the shady woodland garden…

primate: Distribution and abundance: …(Rhinopithecus roxellana) and black (R. bieti), are confined to high altitudes (up to 3,000 metres in the case of the former and to 4,500 metres in the latter), where the temperature drops below 0 °C (32 °F) every night and often barely rises above it by day.

India: Soils: …black soils known locally as regur. After those the alluvial soil is the third most-common type. Also significant are the desert soils of Rajasthan, the saline soils in Gujarat, southern Rajasthan, and some coastal areas, and the mountain soils of the Himalayas. The type of soil is determined by numerous…