Curated category
Tropical agriculture
- RiceIn the Yangtze River valley, people began cultivating rice between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago. This ancient process created a single domestication event for…
- MaizeIn the Balsas River valley of southwestern Mexico, a short bushy plant called teosinte grew wild. Its kernels fell off the cob naturally when ripe.
- PapayaThe word papaya derives from the Caribbean Taíno language as paapaía. Some etymologists argue that the word comes from the Mayan páapay-ya, which means…
- CassavaWild populations of Manihot esculenta subspecies flabellifolia live in west-central Brazil. These plants are the ancestors of all modern cassava crops.
- GrapefruitIn 1750, a Welshman named Rev. Griffith Hughes wrote about a strange citrus plant in his book The Natural History of Barbados.
- SorghumArchaeologists uncovered sorghum remains at a site near Kassala in eastern Sudan dating from 3500 to 3000 BCE. This discovery places the domestication of S.
- Orange (fruit)The sweet orange tree stands as a genetic compromise between two ancient citrus parents. Its full genome reveals it is Citrus × sinensis, a hybrid born from…
- Subsistence agricultureA Bakweri farmer works on his taro field on the slopes of Mount Cameroon in 2005. This image captures the core reality of subsistence agriculture where…
- SugarcaneThe tall, jointed stalks of Saccharum officinarum rise 2 to 6 meters above the soil in New Guinea. This specific region serves as the primary center for the…
- Sweet potatoThe sweet potato or sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas) is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae.
- Cooking bananaCarl Linnaeus originally classified bananas into two species based only on their uses as food. He named Musa paradisiaca for plantains and Musa sapientum for…
- BananaThe genus Musa was created by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. This name may be derived from Antonius Musa, physician to the Emperor Augustus, or Linnaeus may have…
- CoconutA fossilized fruit from New Zealand dates back to the Miocene epoch, roughly 23 million years ago. This specimen, named Cocos zeylandica, measured only about…
- AvocadoThe avocado tree stands as a living relic of an ancient world. Scientists describe its large seed and thick skin as an evolutionary mismatch for modern…