Curated playlist
Non-timber forest products
- CinnamonAncient writers thought cinnamon grew in Arabia, guarded by winged serpents. Traders kept the real source secret.
- Black pepperBlack pepper was found stuffed in the nostrils of Ramesses II. It was placed there during his mummification rituals.
- Vascular cambiumThe vascular cambium is a thin ring of cells that builds wood inward and bark outward.
- ChanterelleResearchers estimate 90% of French market chanterelles are not the true Cantharellus cibarius.
- CoconutEvery coconut on a remote Pacific island arrived because a person brought it. Ocean currents alone could not do it.
- NutmegBritain gave up a nutmeg island to the Dutch and got Manhattan. Run Island was traded in the Treaty of Breda.
- Cocoa beanThe cocoa bean, the dried and fermented seed of the cacao tree, once paid for rabbit dinners in Mesoamerica. Before the Spanish conquest, it served as common money across the region. Beans bought small items such as tamales and rabbit…
- ResinIn Southern Africa, people used plant resin as glue to bind stone tools to handles. It is the oldest known use of resin.
- CloveMinisters of a Han Dynasty emperor had to hold a clove in their mouths before speaking to him.
- Natural rubberIn 1876, Henry Wickham smuggled 70,000 rubber tree seeds out of Brazil. Only 2,400 of them germinated at Kew Gardens.
- Root beerRoot beer is a North American drink with a name that its most successful early marketer did not want. Charles Elmer Hires, a pharmacist, was a teetotaler. He wished to call his creation root tea. But he hoped to sell it to Pennsylvania…
- HoneyBees turn runny nectar into honey by passing it mouth to mouth and fanning it with their wings.
- JackfruitThe jackfruit, Artocarpus heterophyllus, can weigh as much as 55 kilograms, which makes it the largest fruit that grows on a tree. A mature tree produces around 200 of them each year, and older trees can bear up to 500. This giant belongs…
- VanillaVanilla, the flavor behind countless cakes, ice creams and perfumes, owes its place in the world to a 12-year-old boy on the island of Réunion. His name was Edmond Albius, and he was enslaved. In 1841 he worked out how to pollinate the…