N. ORD.—POLYGONACE&. | 142 
GENUS.—FAGOPYRU M ,* TOURN. 
SEX. SYST.—OCTANDRIA TRIGYNIA. 
FAGOPYRUM. 
BUCKWHEAT. 
SYN.—FAGOPYRUM ESCULENTUM, MOENCH.; POLYOGNUM FAGOPY- 
RUM, LINN. 
COM. NAMES.—BUCKWHEAT,;} BEECH-WHEAT; (FR.) LE BLE NOIR, LE 
BLE SARRASIN; (GER.) BUCHWHIZEN, HEIDEKORN, 
A TINCTURE OF THE MATURE PLANT, FAGOPYRUM ESCULENTUM, MOENCH. 
Description —This annual herb grows to a height of from eighteen inches to 
three feet. The stem is sub-cylindrical, delicate, smoothish, juicy, erect, and 
branched. The /eaves are triangular-cordate, cordate-sagittate, or halberd- -shaped, 
acute at the tip; the sheaths or ochre@ semi-cylindrical. nflorescence terminal, 
and axillary, corymbose racemes, or panicles; flowers octandrous, white, pinkish, 
or greenish. . Calyx petaloid, equally 5-parted, persistent, withering in fruit. Sva- 
mens 8; filaments filiform, arising from between the 8 honey-bearing glands; 
anthers innate, introrse, composed of 2 nearly separate cells. Styles 3, short, more 
or less persistent ; stigmas 3, capitate. Seed acute, entire, triquetrous, longer than, 
and situated in, the cup of the calyx ; a/éumen copious ; embryo large, dividing the 
albumen into two equal parts; cotyledons broad, foliaceous, plicate, and twisted. 
Read description of the N. Ord. under Polygonum, 141. 
History and Habitat.—The buckwheat plant is a native of Northern or Cen- 
tral Asia; it was introduced into Europe about the year 1440, and cultivated in 
England—according to Gerarde—in 1597. In the United States it is largely cul- 
tivated for fattening poultry, and for use as flour in breakfast-cakes ; the produc- 
tion in 1880 was estimated at 14,617,535 bushels, fully one-third of which was 
raised in New York State alone. Although buckwheat is far removed from the 
cereals, yet in the composition of its seed it is strikingly similar to them. Its 
nutritive value, however, is low as compared to the more important of the cereals, 
not quite half its weight being fecula, while wheat yields nearly three-fourths its 
weight. The seed is said to be employed in some parts of Germany in the manu- 
facture of beer. 
hes bryos, Phegos, the beech; vpés, pyros, wheat; the seed being shaped similarly to coe nut of the beech (Fagus 
Serruginea, Ait.), 
¢ From the Scottish word “ buck,” the beech ; and the English “ wheat.” 
