454 BIOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS 



Notice the different spellings: COCOA, beverage, chocolate; 

 COCONUT, food product, palm; COCA, plant, cocaine. 



Another valuable group of seed products includes many spices, 

 such as mustard, nutmeg, mace, anise, celery, and caraway, while 

 castor oil and strychnine are important medicines obtained from 

 seeds. 



Many seeds produce useful oils among which should be mentioned 

 cotton-seed, peanut, and almond, which are used for food; cocoa 

 and corn oils for soap and linseed (flax) oil for paints. 



In all these important foods that man obtains from seeds, he has 

 been using the store of nourishment intended for use by the em- 

 bryo plant. Most seeds " keep " well and have a very concen- 

 trated store of food, an adaptation for reproduction of the plant, 

 which man has utilized for his own benefit. 



Root Food Materials. Roots furnish a large part of one of man's 

 most valuable foods, namely, sugar. Sugar beets now produce 

 over half the world's supply of " granulated " or " white " sugar; 

 the rest comes from the stem of the sugar cane. Other products 

 from the beet-sugar industry are potash for glass-making, fodder 

 for cattle, and waste for fertilizer. 



Among our common garden vegetables we have the roots of beet, 

 turnip, carrot, radish, parsnip, and sweet potato (not the common 

 potato, which is an underground stem). 



Ginger, licorice, rhubarb, marshmallow, tapioca, and aconite 

 are all root products, used for food or medicines. 



Stem Food Materials. Stems provide many forms of food among 

 which the sugar cane takes the lead and the potato comes next in 

 order. 



Potatoes are used directly as food, and also furnish starch and 

 dextrine, the latter being the gum used on stamps, labels, etc., 

 and also for finishing many kinds of cloth. 



The pith of a certain palm stem furnishes sago starch and pearl 

 tapioca while arrow-root starch is from the underground stem of 

 a West Indian plant and is the most easily digested of all starches. 

 Cinnamon bark, asparagus, camphor, and witch hazel are food and 

 drug products also derived from stems. 



