522 



USEFUL PLANTS AND PLANT PRODUCTS 



Arrowroot is a very pure starchy food obtained from the 

 rootstocks of plants of two or three tropical families, espe- 

 cially the arrowroot family 

 (Marantacecc). 



Sugar is largely manu- 

 factured in Europe and to 

 some extent in the United 

 States from the juice of the 

 sugar beet. The remainder 

 of the world's supply of 

 sugar comes from the stem 

 of the sugar cane, a grass 

 which grows to a height 

 of ten feet or more. It is 

 somewhat cultivated in 

 Louisiana, but much more 

 extensively in the West 

 Indies, Java, and the 

 Hawaiian Islands. 



2. MEDICINAL PLANTS 

 AND PLANT PROD- 

 UCTS 



499. The study of me- 

 dicinal plants is a special 

 subject, forming an im- 

 portant part of the course 

 in every college of phar- 

 macy. Only a few words can be given to the topic in this 

 chapter. 



Very many of the families of angiosperms contain species 



used in medicine. 1 In some cases, as in the lily family, the 



pea family (which furnishes sixteen remedies), the mint family, 



1 In the United States Pharmacopoeia sixty-seven families are represented. 



FIG. 387. Sugar cane (Saccharum) 

 Much reduced. After Wossidlo 



