RHUBARB 185 



THE BUCKWHEAT FAMILY (Order Polygonaceae) 



The Buckwheat Family includes herbs with alternate 

 entire leaves, and stipules in the form of sheaths above the 

 swollen joints of the stem. Flowers mostly perfect, with a 

 one-celled ovary bearing two or three styles or stigmas. 

 Fruit usually an achene, either flattened or three-or four- 

 angled or winged. Sometimes agreeably acid, as sorrel, 

 and sometimes cathartic, as the roots of rhubarb. Only 

 rhubarb is here discussed, but other familiar plants that 

 belong to this order are sorrel, bitter curled and other docks, 

 knotwood, smartweed, bindweed, or wild buckwheat, and 

 field buckwheat. 



RHUBARB, OR PIE PLANT (Rheum rhaponticum) 



Description. The cultivated varieties of rhubarb are gen- 

 erally supposed to have come from Mongolia, though it is 

 quite possible that some varieties may have sprung from 

 a North American species. The plant is an herbaceous 

 perennial whose leaf stalks are used for sauce, pies, etc. 

 It sends up a flower stalk often four feet high, and produces 

 a large amount of seed each year. It is perfectly hardy 

 in gardens, even in very severe situations, and when once 

 planted continues to yield abundant crops for many years. 

 The seeds are large and triangular. 



Culture. Rhubarb is readily increased from the seed, 

 which germinates quickly. Seedlings vary considerably 

 but not enough to prevent this method of propagation 

 from being the one most commonly practiced. They 

 attain good transplanting size in one year. It is customary 

 to sow the seed in rows three feet apart early in the spring, 

 and to set out the plants when one year old where they are 

 to grow; the plants may be also be thinned out and a few 

 allowed to remain where the seeds are sown. When it is 



