Fagopyrum-Ferula (Sturtevant, 1919)

Polygonaceae. PERENNIAL BUCKWHEAT.

Himalayas and China. This is a common Himalayan plant which forms an excellent spinach and is called pullop-bi. It occurs also in China. The plant seeds badly and hence is not valued as a cereal.

BRANK. BUCKWHEAT. NOTCH-SEEDED BUCKWHEAT.

Europe and northern Asia. Buckwheat seems to have been unknown to the Greeks and Romans. It grows wild in Nepal, China and Siberia and is supposed to have been brought to Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century from northern Asia. According to Buckman, it is mentioned in a German Bible printed in 1522. It is mentioned by Tragus, 1552, as cultivated in the Odenwald under the name of heydenkorn. Caesalpinus, 1583, describes it as cultivated, probably in Italy under the name of formentone aliis saresinum. Dodoenaeus, 1616, says it was much cultivated in Germany and Brabant. It must have secured early admittance to America, for samples of American growth were sent to Holland by the colony of Manhattan Island as early as 1626. It is at present cultivated in the United States as a field crop, as also in northern Europe, in China, Japan and elsewhere. Eraser found large fields of it at 11,405 feet elevation near the temple of Milun in the Himalayas. In northern India and Ceylon, it is of recent introduction and its cultivation is confined to narrow limits. Notchseeded buckwheat is a native of the mountainous districts of China and Nepal, where it is cultivated for its seeds.

TARTARIAN BUCKWHEAT.

Europe and northern Asia. Tartarian buckwheat is of the same origin as buckwheat, though it is much less widely distributed and was introduced at a much later period into Europe. It has been cultivated from time immemorial in Nepal and on the confines of China.

Cupuliferae. AMERICAN BEECH.

North America. The nuts are esteemed delicious and are found in season in the Boston markets. Porcher says the young leaves are used by the common people of the South as a potherb. In Maine, the buds are eaten by the Indians.

EUROPEAN BEECH.

Europe. In Hanover, the oil of the nut is used as a salad oil and as a substitute for coffee. Sawdust of beech wood is boiled in water, baked and then mixed with flour to form the material for bread in Norway and Sweden.

Cruciferae.

Southern Europe and the Orient. This plant has the same properties as the cresses.

Valerianeae. HORN-OFPLENTY. VALERIAN.

Mediterranean region. According to Robinson, this species is grown in France as a salad plant. It is also grown in flower gardens.

Rutaceae. ELEPHANT APPLE. WOOD APPLE.

East Indies. The fruit is of the size of a large apple and is covered with a hard, gray, scabrous, woody rind. The pulp is universally eaten on the coast of Coromandel. The interior of the fruit, says Firminger, is filled with a brown, soft, mealy substance, rather acid and smelling of rancid butter. Brandis says a jelly is made of it in India, and Wight says that this very pleasant jelly resembles black-currant jelly. Dutt says it is cultivated in India for its fruit, the pulp of which is eaten and made into a ckatni.

Umbelliferae. ASAFETIDA. FOOD-OF-THE-GODS.

Persia and Afghanistan. Asafetida is called food-of-the-gods by the Persians, who hold the juice in high esteem as a condiment, eat the leaves as greens and the root when roasted. Gerarde says it is reported to be eaten in Apulia. The young shoots and heads are considered by the Khirgis as a great delicacy. The fetid odor disappears on boiling.

South Russia. The aromatic, long roots are esteemed as a vegetable.

ASAFETIDA.

Baltistan. Kaempfer says that in Afghanistan and Khorassan there are two varieties, one called Kama-i-gawi, which is grazed by cattle and used as a potherb and the other called Kama-i-anguza, which affords the asafetida of commerce. Among the Mohammedan and Hindu population of India, the gum is generally used as a condiment and, in regions where the plant grows, the fresh leaves are cooked as an article of diet.