General Stress Powder

Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World, 1919, was edited by U. P. Hedrick. - Gingko

aloba Ginkgo biloba Linn. Coniferae. Ginko. Maiden-Hair Tree. China and Japan. The fruit of the ginko is sold in the markets in all Chinese towns and is not unlike dried almonds, only whiter, fuller and more round. The natives seem very fond of it, although it is rarely eaten by Europeans. In Japan, the seeds furnish an oil used for eating and burning. The fruit of the maiden-hair tree is called in China pa-kwo. The Chinese consume the nuts of this tree at weddings, the shells being dyed red; they have a fishy taste. This tree is largely cultivated as an ornamental in Europe, Asia and North America.

Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World, 1919, was edited by U. P. Hedrick. - Oat Straw

Avena sativa Linn. Haver. Oat. The native land of the common oat is given as Abyssinia by Pickering. Unger says the native land is unknown, although the region along the Danube may pass as such. The oat is probably a domesticated variety of some wild species and may be A. strigosa Schreb., found wild in grain fields throughout Europe. Professor Buckman believed A. fatua Linn., to be the original species, as in eight years of cultivation he changed this plant into good cultivated varieties. Unger says the Celts and the Germans, as far as can be ascertained, cultivated this oat 2000 years ago, and it seems to have been distributed from Europe into the temperate and cold regions of the whole world. It was known to the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks and Romans. De Candolle, however, writes that the oat was not cultivated by the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the ancient Greeks or the Romans and is now cultivated in Greece only as an object of curiosity. The oat is not cultivated for human food in India. This grain is not mentioned in Scripture and hence would seem to be unknown to Egypt or Syria. The plant is noticed by Virgil in his Georgics with the implication that its culture was known. Pliny mentions the plant. It is, hence, quite probable that the Romans knew the oat principally as a forage crop. Pliny says that the Germans used oatmeal porridge as food. Dioscorides and Galen make similar statements, but the latter adds that although it is fitter food for beasts than men yet in times of famine it is used by the latter. From an investigation of the lacustrine remains of Switzerland, Heer finds that during the Bronze age oats were known, the oat-grain being somewhat smaller than that produced by our existing varieties. Turner observes, in 1568, that the naked oat grew in Sussex, England. The bearded oat was brought from Barbary and was cultivated in Britain about 1640; the brittle oat came from the south of Europe in 1796; the Spanish oat was introduced in 1770; the Siberian, in 1777; the Pennsylvanian, in 1785; the fan-leaved, from Switzerland in 1791. In Scotland, the oat has long been a bread grain and, about 1850, Peter Lawson gives 40 varieties as cultivated. This cereal was sown by Gosnold on the Elizabeth Islands, Massachusetts, in 1602; is recorded as cultivated in Newfoundland in 1622; was growing at Lynn, Mass., in 1629-33. It was introduced into New Netherland prior to 1626 and was cultivated in Virginia previous to 1648. The Egyptian, or winter oat, was known in the South in 1800. In 1880, 36 named kinds were grown in the state of Kansas. The oat grows in Norway and Sweden as far north as 64° to 65° but is scarcely known in the south of France, Spain or Italy, and in tropical countries its culture is not attempted.