STURTEVANT S NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 29 1 



Glaucium flavum Crantz. Papaveraceae. 



Europe and the Mediterranean regions. This plant furnishes an inodorous and 

 insipid oil of a clear yellow color, sweet, edible and fit for burning. 



Gleditschia triacanthos Linn. Leguminosae. honey locust. 



North America. This tree, native of the region about the Mississippi and its tribu- 

 taries, is cultivated as an ornamental tree both in this country and in Europe. The pods 

 contain ntimerous seeds enveloped in a sweet, pulpy substance, from which a sugar is said 

 to have been extracted.^ Porcher ^ says a beer is sometimes made by fermenting the 

 sweet pods while fresh. 



Glyceria fluitans R. Br. Gramineae. float grass, manna grass, poland manna. 



Northern temperate regions. The seeds of this grass are collected on the continent 

 and sold as manna seeds for making puddings and gruel.' According to Von Hear,'' it 

 is ctdtivated in Poland. 



Glycine soja Sieb. & Zucc. Leguminosae. coffee bean, soja bean, soy bean. 



Tropical Asia. This bean is much cultivated in tropical Asia for its seeds, which 

 are used as food in India, China and Japan. It is an ingredient of the sauce known 

 as soy. Cf late, it has been cultivated as an oil plant. In 1854,^ two varieties, one 

 white- and the other red-seeded, were obtained from Japan and distributed through the 

 agency of the Patent Office. At the late Vienna Exposition, samples of the seed were 

 shown among the agricultural productions of China, Japan, Mongolia, Transcaucasia 

 and India. Professor Haberland ^ says this plant has been cultivated from early ages 

 and that it grows wild in the Malay Archipelago, Java and the East Indies. In Japan, 

 it is called miso.'' Of late, its seeds have appeared among the novelties in our seed cata- 

 logs. According to Bretschneider,' a Chinese writing of 163-85 B. C. records that Shen 

 nung, 2800 B. C, sowed the five cereals, and another writing of A. D. 127-200 explains 

 that these five cereals were rice, wheat, Panicum italicum Linn., P. miliaceum Linn, and 

 the soja bean. The use of this bean as a vegetable is also recorded in authors of the fifth, 

 fovirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first Eiu-opean mention of the soja bean is by 

 Kaempfer,' who was in Japan in 1690. In his accoimt of his travels, he gives consider- 

 able space to this plant. It also seems to be mentioned by Ray,'" 1704. This bean is 

 much cultivated in China and Cochin China." There are a large number of varieties. 



' Smith, A. Treas. Bol. 1:534. 1870. 



' Porcher, F. P. Res. So. Fields, Forest 229. 1869. 



Johnson, C. P. Useful Pis. Gl. Brii. 285. i8j2. 



* Heer Agr. Ohio 278. 1859. 



U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. XV. 1854. Preface. {Soja hispida) 



Rutgers Sci. School Rpl. 55. 1879. 



' Don, G. Hist. Dichl. Pis. 2:357. 1832. 



Bretschneider, E. Bol. Sin. 75, 78, 52, 59. 1882. 



Kaempfer, E. Amoen. 1712. 

 " Ray Hist. PL 438. 1704. 

 " Loureiro Fl. Cochin. 441. 1790. 



