URTICAGE^-NETTLE FAMILY 



COMMON HOP 



Hamulus mpulus. 



Humulus, a late Latin name of Teutonic origin. 



A perennial, twining vine, native to Europe and North America; 

 long cultivated for the hops, which are used in the brewing of beer. 

 Native to river banks and thickets at the north. 



Stems. — Growing twenty-five to thirty feet long in a single season; 

 rough, hairy. 



Leaves. — Opposite; ovate or orbicular-ovate in general outline, pal- 

 mately three-lobed, sometimes more, or the upper leaves not lobed; 

 margins strongly dentate; petioles long. 



Flowers. — Dioecious; staminate flowers with five erect stamens, and 

 a five-parted caljrx, in little, drooping, tassel-like racemes; pistillate 

 flowers with an entire perianth closely investing the ovary, which bears 

 two long stigmas. The flowers are in pairs under large overlapping 

 bracts, these making a cone-like catkin. 



Fruit. — Is the enlarged and mature pistillate catkin, oblong or 

 ovoid, loose and papery; straw-yellow; often two inches or more long, 

 glandular and fragrant. Seed is really an akene. 



The Wild. Hop is found trailing and climbing over the bushes 

 and in the thickets of river banks at the north throughout three 

 continents. 



The fruit is a beautiful straw-yellow sort of catkin, called hop, 

 abundantly sprinkled with yellow resinous grains which give it 

 the bitterness and aroma that make it valuable in the manufact- 

 ure of beer. 



Pliny mentions this as one of the garden plants of the Romans, 

 who, it appears, ate the young shoots as we eat asparagus. It is 

 said this is still done in some parts of England. 



103 



