HOPS. 



[Humulus lupulus L.) 



"A land of hops and poppy-ming-led fields." 



— Tennyson: Aylmer's Field. 



The hop plant is a creeping perennial 

 with several stems or branches attaining 

 a length of fifteen to twenty-five feet. It 

 has numerous opposite three to five 

 lobed, palmately veined, coarsely toothed 

 leaves with long leaf stalks (petioles). 

 Flowers unisexual, that is staminate and 

 pistillate flowers separate, either on sep- 

 arate plants (dioecious) or upon different 

 branches of the same plant (monoecious). 

 Flowers insignificant in loose, drooping 

 axillary panicles. Fruit a cone-like catkin 

 usually designated a strobile. 



The hop has been called the northern 

 vine. It is found in a wild state through- 

 out Europe, excepting the extreme north, 

 and extends east to the Caucasus and 

 through central Asia. It is a handsome 

 plant and not infrequently used as an ar- 

 bor plant. The lower or basal leaves are 

 very large, gradually decreasing in size 

 toward the apex. H. lupulus is the only 

 representative of the genus. 



It is rather remarkable that a plant so 

 widely distributed and familiar should 

 not have been known to the Greeks and 

 Romans. Its cultivation in Europe dates 

 back to the eighth and ninth centuries. 

 It was, however, not extensively culti- 

 vated until about the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries. 



The word hop (German, Hopfen) is of 

 very uncertain origin. According to 

 some authorities it is traceable to the old 

 English, hoppan, in reference to the habit 

 of the plant in climbing over hedges and 

 fences. Humulus is said to refer to its 

 habit of creeping over the soil. Lupulus 

 (diminutive of lupus, wolf) is said to re- 

 fer to the pernicious and destructive in- 

 fluence the hop plant has upon plants 

 which it uses as a support, especially the 

 willows. Plinius named it Lupus salic- 



tarius, that is, the willow wolf or willow 

 destroyer. 



Beside the countries above named hops 

 is also cultivated in Brazil and other 

 South American countries, Australia and 

 India. There are several cultivated va- 

 rieties. According to most authorities it 

 is not supposed to be indigenous to North 

 America, but Millspaugh expresses it as 

 his opinion that it is indigenous north- 

 ward and westward, growing in alluvial 

 soil, blossoming in July and fruiting in 

 September. 



The plants are planted in rows and the 

 rapidly growing branches trained upon 

 poles stuck into the soil. Three or four 

 male plants (with staminate flowers) are 

 grown in an acre patch to supply the nec- 

 essary pollen. Some authorities state, 

 however, that the female plants develop 

 enough staminate flowers to effect pol- 

 lination. It is extensively cultivated in 

 England, Germany and France. Also in 

 New England, New York, Michigan, and 

 in fact nearly every State in the Union. 



In Belgium the young, tender tops of 

 the plants are cut off in the spring and 

 eaten like asparagus, especially recom- 

 mended to the pale and anaemic and those 

 with scrofulous taints. 



The peculiar hop-like fruiting known 

 as strobiles are collected in the fall of the 

 year (September to October), dried and 

 tightly packed into bales. The base of 

 the scales of the strobile are covered with 

 a yellowish powder, consisting of resin- 

 bearing glands, known as lupulin. One 

 pound of hops yields about one ounce of 

 lupulin. Since the medicinal virtues of 

 hops reside in the lupulin it will be readily 

 understood that the hops from which the 

 glands have been removed is of little or 

 no medicinal value. Lupulin as well as 



