BUCKWHEAT. Fagopyrum esculentum, Mcench and F. Tataricum, Gmrtn. Polygonacex. Figs. 310-314.
By J. L. Stone.
The true or common buckwheat is of one species, Fagopyrum esculentum, Figs. 310, 311 (F. emargi natum is a variant form characterized by a notched akene), but the India-wheat (F. Tataricum), Fig. 313, is sometimes known as buckwheat. The buck wheat is an annual, grown for the flour that is made from the contents of the 3-cornered akene, native of Europe and northern Asia. Leaves tri angular or hastate in outline ; flowers white, fra grant, in dense terminal panicles or clustered racemes.
Buckwheat is of erect habit, under ordinary con ditions attaining about three feet in height. The root system consists of one primary root and sev eral branches, the former extending well downward to reach moist earth ; but the total development of roots is not large. The stem varies from one-fourth to five-eighths of an inch in diameter and from green to purplish red in color while fresh, chang ing to brown at maturity.
Only one stem is produced from each seed ; the plant, instead of tillering or producing suckers, branches more or less freely, depending on the thickness of seeding. It thus adapts itself to its environment even more completely than the cereals which tiller freely. The leaves are alternate, tri angular-heart-shaped, slightly longer than broad, varying from two to four inches in length, and borne on a petiole varying from very short to four inches in length. The flowers are white, tinged with red or pink, and are borne on the end of the stem or on a slender peduncle springing from the axil of the leaves. They are without petals, but the parts of the calyx have the appearance of petals and the bloom is so abundant that fields of buckwheat make a beautiful appearance. There are eight stamens and one three-parted pistil. On threshing the ripened grain, the calyx remains attached at the base of the seed. Two forms of flowers are produced : one with long stamens and short styles, and the other with short stamens and long styles. Though each plant bears but one form of flower, the seeds from either form will produce plants bearing both forms. This arrangement is thought to facilitate crossing by means of insect visitation. The grain of buckwheat consists of a
single seed enclosed in a pericarp which in botany is known as an akene. The pericarp or hull is thick, hard, smooth and shining, and varies in color from a silver gray to a brown or black. It sepa rates readily from its contents. In form the grain is a triangular pyramid with a rounded base. The usual length of the grain is three-sixteenths to three-eighths of an inch, and the width one-eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch. In states of chief production the legal weight of buckwheat is forty eight pounds per bushel. In some others it varies from forty to fifty-six pounds.
The name "buckwheat" seems to be a corruption of the German buchweisen, meaning beech-wheat, a name given to the plant because of the shape of the seeds, being similar to that of the beech-nut, while their food constituents are similar to those of wheat grains. Botanically, buckwheat is not a cereal, but since its seeds serve the same purposes as the cereal grains it is usually classed in market reports among the cereals. The family to which buckwheat belongs (Polygonace) includes several well - known trouble some weeds, as sorrel and dock (Rumex) and smartweed, knotweed and bindweed (Poly gonum).
The notch - seeded buckwheat (Fagopy rum emarginatum, no doubt only a form of F. esculentum) is not known to have been grown in this country but is reported as cul tivated in India and China. It is distinguished by having the angles of the hull extended into wide margins or wings.
The Tartary buckwheat or India-wheat (Fagopy rum Tataricum, Figs. 312, 313) is cultivated in the cooler and more mountainous regions of Asia and to some extent in Canada and Maine. It is recommended for superior hardiness. It has been tried in Pennsylvania but without satisfactory results. The grain is smaller than the common buckwheat, the plants are more slender and the leaves arrow-shaped. The flowers are small and greenish and are borne in axillary mostly simple racemes along the stem, so that a field of it does not have the white and floriferous appearance that a field of buckwheat does. It is earlier than com mon buckwheat. It has been sold as duckwheat.