Part 37

Aztec, Maya, the skin-wrapped Cro-Magnon all did their part in the darkness of pre-history to make possible the plates which are loaded so lavishly. They did better than they knew. Very few new vegetables have been introduced in historic times. In many cases little improvement has been made on the products of the ancients.

The story of potatoes alone contains enough romance and adventure for a good-sized novel. Its origin is unknown but its wanderings from America to Europe and back to America again constitute a fascinating story.

Cultivated lettuce never has been found wild. It is believed to have been derived from India or Central Asia. It is one of the oldest known vegetables. Herodotus, Hippocrates and Aristotle mention it in references to Greek gardens. Chaucer notes its cultivation in England in 1340. Sixteen varieties are listed as being grown in American gardens as early as 1806.

Celery is a biennial plant native to the marshlands of southern Europe, North Africa and southwestern Asia. It long was considered poisonous and was not used as food until modern times.

The Israelites complained to Moses in the Wilderness because they couldn’t have onions to which they had become accustomed during the captivity in Egypt. The cultivated onion probably originated in Afghanistan.

Pumpkins and squashes were grown in America long before white men came on the scene. Evidence of both have been found among ruins of settlements of the Basket Makers, about the earliest agricultural people on this continent. They probably came from Mexico. The Hubbard squash came to light in Marblehead, Mass., in 1855. It had been growing there for more than 50 years.

Peas are the oldest known vegetables. They are believed to have originated in Ethiopia but to have spread over Europe and Asia long before the dawn of history. They were eaten—perhaps even cultivated after a fashion—by men of Europe’s Stone Age. Columbus planted some in the West Indies in 1493. They spread rapidly among the Indians and became one of the chief crops of the Iroquois.

The species from which cabbage is derived grows wild in North Africa and along the European shore of the Mediterranean. It has been cultivated for 4,000 years. Greeks and Romans grew it in their gardens. Most of the American varieties, however, originated in North Europe.

The turnip is a native of central and western China. Seed probably was brought to America by some of the earliest European settlers.

The radish is a native of China and India. It was cultivated by both the Greeks and the Egyptians. The parsnip is another Asiatic root crop. It first was planted in Virginia in 1690. Only recently has it gotten away from the home garden to become a commercial crop.

Popcorn is peculiarly American. In early Spanish writings reference is made to a ritual of the Aztecs in which “one hour before dawn there sallied forth all these maidens crowned with garlands of maize, toasted and popped, the grains of which were like orange blossoms—and on their necks thick festoons of the same which passed under the left arm.”

Worms That Commit Mass Suicide

An entire generation of worms commits suicide every year. Every individual casts off its own head.

These worms are a Himalayan variety of naids, fresh water animals vaguely related to earthworms. They are reddish-brown and seldom more than an inch long. The majority of the worms live with their heads buried in the mud, tail ends waving freely in the air. Upon any alarm their bodies contract leaving no signs of life.

Early in the Spring these worms literally lose these heads and die. Compared with those of most worms, their regenerative powers are quite feeble. It is believed that the decapitation is due to the fact that egg-laying is accompanied by such violent contractions of the body that the front segments are disconnected.

Every few years there is a report from somewhere in the United States or Europe of enormous numbers of dead earthworms covering the ground. A correspondent of the British scientific journal, Nature, reported in 1921: “About the middle of March I saw millions of dead worms morning after morning on pavements, roads and paths. They were great and small, young and old, of every known species and genus. They lay prone and even when they were able to reach a grass plot alive they lacked the power to burrow.” The phenomenon is unexplained. Examination of the dead worms shows no unusual parasite or evidence of disease.

Fish That Survive Freezing

There is a realm of “supercooled life.” Its denizens are deep water fish that live long and happily in temperatures below the freezing point of their blood. But whenever one of them comes in contact with even a single crystal of ice it freezes almost instantly. This strange phenomenon of marine life has been observed by biologists of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

These particular fish live at the bottom of Hebron fjord in northern Labrador. The temperature there is about 1.7 below zero centigrade. Some have been caught, brought to the surface, and then plunged into a bath of sea water cooled to exactly the same temperature. They survived for several hours. When, however, one of them came in contact with an ice crystal, it froze stiff in a few seconds. The explanation, it appears, is that these fish normally live below the depth at which it is possible for ice crystals to form in water.

Very careful experiments have shown that water can be carried far below its normal freezing point if it is kept entirely motionless and is absolutely free from minute particles of any sort which are necessary for the formation of ice crystals. This is about the condition that exists at the fjord bottom. Eventually, if the temperature is taken lower and lower, such water will solidify, but into a form far different from ice. It is noncrystalline and can best be compared with glass. But even if this happened in the Hebron fjord it would not necessarily bother the fish. Their blood presumably would turn to glass. There would be no breaking of body cells such as results from the swelling of ice crystals. After an indefinite period the animals might be brought out of the solid state, if the thawing could be accomplished quickly enough, none the worse for their experience. This has been accomplished with very minute organisms, but any techniques which might be used with higher plants or animals have not yet been discovered.

The extent of life in the supercooled world is unknown. It hardly can be confined to fish. All sorts of mollusks, echinoderms and worms also are bottom dwellers in Arctic and Antarctic waters. It’s not cold, but ice, that kills.

Plants That Kill

The lethal dose Socrates was condemned to swallow by the stuffed-shirtism of ancient Athens was d-propyl-piperidine. This is the deadly alkaloid in the spotted hemlock, a common European weed which now grows extensively over most of the eastern United States. A closely related European species is the cowbane which cows instinctively will not nibble.

The devastating illness which fell upon 10,000 Greeks of the Anabasis, Xenophon would have been interested to know, was caused by andromedotoxin. This is a resinous substance common to plants of the heath family the world over. It is the poisonous constituent of rhododendron, mountain laurel and some kinds of azalgias. Honey from the blossoms of plants containing it is extremely poisonous.

When pioneers first pushed their way over the Appalachians their settlements were ravaged by epidemics of a fatal disease—milk sickness. Farms and villages were abandoned as terror-stricken settlers fled from the scourge. It was due to tremetol, a complex chemical which has been found in several plants—chiefly white snakeroot which causes the disease east of the Mississippi. When cows eat the snakeroot the poison passes into the milk.

By far the most virulent plant growing in the United States is very little known although it has caused many fatalities. This is the water hemlock or cicula—very different from the spotted hemlock whose extract was forced upon Socrates. It grows in low, swampy places nearly everywhere. When the ground is soft in the spring its roots can be pulled easily from the soil and have a pleasant odor that attracts children. It causes heavy losses of livestock.

Next in virulence of all American plants is the whorled milkweed which contains a closely allied resinous material not yet satisfactorily analyzed. It has caused the death of countless cattle.

Caterpillars That Pretend to be Snakes