HOPS. 



(Humulus lupulus I/.) 



"A land of hops and poppy-mingled fields." 



Tennyson: Aylmer's Field. 



The hop plant is a creeping perennial tarius, that is, the willow wolf or willow 



with several stems or branches attaining destroyer. 



a length of fifteen to twenty-five feet. It Beside the countries above named hops 

 has numerous opposite three to five is also cultivated in Brazil and other 

 lobed, palmately veined, coarsely toothed South American countries, Australia and 

 leaves with long leaf stalks (petioles). India. There are several cultivated va- 

 Flowers unisexual, that is staminate and rieties. According to most authorities it 

 pistillate flowers separate, either on sep- is not supposed to be indigenous to North 

 arate plants (dioecious) or upon different America, but Millspaugh expresses it as 

 branches of the same plant (monoecious), his opinion that it is indigenous north- 

 Flowers insignificant in loose, drooping ward and westward, growing in alluvial 

 axillary panicles. Fruit a cone-like catkin soil, blossoming in July and fruiting in 

 usually designated a strobile. September. 



The hop has been called the northern The plants are planted in rows and the 



vine. It is found in a wild state through- rapidly growing branches trained upon 



out Europe, excepting the extreme north, poles stuck into the soil. Three or four 



and extends east to the Caucasus and male plants (with staminate flowers) are 



through central Asia. It is a handsome grown in an acre patch to supply the nec- 



plant and not infrequently used as an ar- essary pollen. Some authorities state, 



bor plant. The lower or basal leaves are however, that the female plants develop 



very large, gradually decreasing in size enough staminate flowers to effect pol- 



toward the apex. H. lupulus> is the only lination. It is extensively cultivated in 



representative of the genus. England, Germany and France. Also in 



It is rather remarkable that a plant so New England, New York, Michigan, and 



widely distributed and familiar should in fact nearly every State in the Union, 

 not have been known to the Greeks and In Belgium the young, tender tops of 



Romans. Its cultivation in Europe dates the plants are cut off in the spring and 



back to the eighth and ninth centuries, eaten like asparagus, especially recom- 



It was, however, not extensively culti- mended to the pale and anaemic and those 



vated until about the sixteenth and seven- with scrofulous taints, 

 teenth centuries. The peculiar hop-like fruiting known 



The word hop (German, Hopfen) is of as strobiles are collected in the fall of the 

 very uncertain origin. According to year (September to October), dried and 

 some authorities it is traceable to the old tightly packed into bales. The base of 

 English, hoppan, in reference to the habit the scales of the strobile are covered with 

 of the plant in climbing over hedges and a yellowish powder, consisting of resin- 

 fences. Humulus is said to refer to its bearing glands, known as lupulin. One 

 habit of creeping over the soil. Lupulus pound of hops yields about one ounce of 

 (diminutive of lupus, wolf) is said to re- lupulin. Since the medicinal virtues of 

 fer to the pernicious and destructive in- hops reside in the'lupulin it will be readily 

 fluence the hop plant has upon plants understood that the hops from which the 

 which it uses as a support, especially the glands have been removed is of little or 

 willows. Plinius named it Lupus salic- no medicinal value. Lupulin as well as 



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