PART IV. 



BUCKWHEAT AND ITS ALLIES. 



The Cock's Comb, Prince's Feather, and Love-lies-bleeding, 

 the Spinach and Beet, the Rhubarb, Sorrel, and Dock, may be 

 cited as familiar examples of the three types of plants which we 

 have grouped together in the present part of this handbook. 

 These plants are generally of weedy habit and rapid growth, and 

 delight in soils containing much nitrogenous matter. Indeed, 

 the succulent stems of many of the species contain at one time 

 or another of their growth —generally just before flowering — 

 an extraordinary amount of nitrates ; in the case of some species 

 of Amarantus nearly 15 per cent, of these salts has been 

 found. The fruits or seeds of these plants do not, so far as we 

 know, widely differ in their chemical composition from the 

 millets considered in the previous part of the present work, but 

 complete analyses of several different kinds are still wanting. 

 However, as might be expected from the extreme richness of 

 the succulent parenchymatous tissues of these plants in nitrates 

 just before they flower and the disappearance of those salts 

 afterwards, the percentage of albuminoids (which are formed 

 from nitrates) in the seeds is high, ranging between 13 and 19. 

 Taken as a whole, this group of food grains shows a nutrient- 

 ratio between the albuminoids and starch which closely approaches 

 that demanded in a perfect food, while the proportion of oil 

 and of useful mineral matter is also quite satisfactory. 



It should be noted that the seeds of Celosia, Amarantus, and 

 Chenopodium are not enclosed, as are those of Fagopyriim, in a 

 very thick husk or pericarp. 



