Where did tea originate

Botanists have confirmed that tea plant grows wild in Assam.  It is believed that it was taken from there to China for cultivation.  The earliest written records of the beverage belong to the Chinese.  they have enjoyed it for over 4000 years!  The Samurai (one who serves) warriors were responsible for popularising the famous Japanese tea ceremony, a calm ritual designed to stimulate feeling for simple things, a form of training for mental composure elegant manners and etiquette.  At the ceremony powdered tea is brewed.

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Tea was introduced into Europe in the early 18th century, and it was considered as a great luxury.  Tea drinking spread and trade with China flourished, as that country was the chief supplier!  Large tea plantations were organized in India and then in Srilanka.  At present Kerala accounts for about 10% of area under tea in India.  Tea is now extensively grown in Java, Sumatra and Formosa.
The social change which the habit of tea drinking introduced in England may be attributed to China and India.  Tea was the biggest item of British trade with China in the early days of the East India Company.  By the end of the 18th century, it had invaded the breakfast table of all classes and the fashion of drinking it in the afternoon had also started!  Raynal the French philosopher and historian, was so impressed that he declared that it had done more for British soberity than any laws, sermons or moral treatises. 

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What are Spores?

A flowering plant makes new plants by means of seeds.  But non flowering plants do that mainly by spores.  All fungi produce spores.  In most cases the output is prodigious.  A single mushroom may produce 1800 million spores!  The small group of primitive plants psilopsida are spore bearing.  So are many other ferns and mosses.

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In bacteriology spores are variations of form which certain organisms assume in order to resist adverse environmental conditions that would kill ordinary form.  they can resist temperatures up to about 100⁰C and can survive in the absence of animal or human hosts in dust and in the soil.
Spores are invisible and can be noticed only under microscopes.  They are everywhere, in the air all around, in water, and in the earth!

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Why is Coconut a Kalpavriksha

Widely cultivated in the tropics, the coconut has amassed a lot of legends about its origin, relevant to the places it has taken root!  So ancient and so wide are its cultivation that it is difficult to fix its original habitat.  But in spite of these problems, there are good reasons for placing its origin in Melanesian region.  Some scientists even suppose that its original home might be the submerged land to the north west of New Guinea!

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Scientists believe that the nuts were carried in ancient days by the ocean waves and tides to distant lands.  Later man took up this responsibility as he found the palm a “kalpavriksha” over 30 species are confined to Central and South America.

The queen palm (cocos plumosa) is indeed an enchanting palm with its golden or orange bunches of fruits.  In addition there are innumerable varieties differing in shapes and sizes of fruits, colour of the fronts, the heights to which it will grow!  Cocos yatay is a native of Argentina; Coco coronata is Brazilian.  While most of the dwarf varieties are Malayan!

Coconut water (it is called milk) is a delicious drink.  Though it is 95.5% water, it has in it protein (0.1) fat (0.1) mineral matter (0.4), carbohydrate (4.0), calcium (0.02), Iron (0.5 mg).  The percentage of arginine, alanine, cystine and serine in the protein are higher than protein of cows milk!

A whole book can be written on the uses of different parts of the coconut.  There is no other oil that can beat coconut oil for the variety of uses.  Sweet toddy tapped from its sheath is used not only as a drink but also used to produce jaggery, coco-vinegar etc.

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Who Began Weaving of Silk

Silk was known to, and highly prized by the ancients, being at one time paid for, weight for weight, with gold!  It was from time immemorial one of the most romantic and valuable textile materials.

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At least by 3000 BC the Chinese had discovered the art of making silk.  It passed from
China to India.  The silkworm, the larva of a species of moth Bombux mori, is a native of China.  It is reared in India.  Chinese Silk reached Rome in the reign of Tiberius.
It was not until the time of Justinian that silkworm eggs were smuggled into Europe by two monks from India.  The production of silk was established first in Greece, in Europe. 

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What is Coffee

No one really knows who had the first thrill of consuming a cup of coffee.  The legend is that, more than a thousand years ago, an Abyssinian was attracted to the clinging fragrance that came from a certain wild shrub that was burning.  He chewed a few berries of this plant and was impressed.  He later brewed a beverage from the berries -  and thus discovered coffee!  This goes to prove that the Abyssinians were the first to use this drink.

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From Abyssinia the coffee plant was taken into Arabia and then to various countries of the tropics.  In the 17th century the Dutch began growing this shrub in Java and other places.  This was to profit from this commodity, as by the 16th century, the beverage was introduced into Europe.  The first London coffee shop was opened in 1652.
Most of the coffee consumed in Europe came originally from Arabia.  They had a virtual monopoly for about half a century.  It was the Dutch who made a serious effort to cultivate coffee on a large scale.  Later it reached West Indies from where to Brazil.  Brazil now supplies than half of this commodity to the world.  We find the largest coffee plantations there.  It is also grown in several other countries as well.
Coffee cultivation in India is mainly confined to Karnataka, Kerala and Tamilnadu.
Years of experience go into the blending of good coffee sold in the market.  Usually a blend requires a number of coffees from different countries to get the desired flavour, and aroma.  There are twenty five species of coffee that grow in the tropics.  Only two produce fruit with the distinctive flavour appreciated by people.

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What are Weeds

Innumerable plants are produced in nature.  But a farmer cultivates only those plants that are needed by him.  So far as nature is concerned there is no such preference.  It is when plants grow where they are not required by man that it becomes a weed!  But in nature a weed and a favourite plant may be the same thing!
In several instances weeds have a special ability for rapid and luxuriant growth.  Weeds cause an annual agricultural loss of many millions of Rupees.
The best way to eliminate them is to use weed-free seed.  There are other methods too to control them effectively by farmers.  They are crop rotation, clean cultivation, use of  herbicide etc.

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But we should not forget that most of the plants that exist in nature are unwanted, wild varieties.  The beauty of the countryside is mainly due to them.  They help to retain moisture of the soil and prevent soil erosion.

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How is Nitrogen Use Ensured

Four fifths of the atmosphere is Nitrogen, existing in free form.  It can be used by living things in a combined form only, to meet essential needs.  Only plants belonging to Legumes family are capable of utilizing nitrogen in a free state.
Nitrogen is found in quantity within all plant and animal bodies, not as elemental nitrogen but as essential part of proteins and certain other types of organic molecules.

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  Plants and animals, along with their waste products, eventually undergo decomposition.  Nitrogen may become temporarily unavailable at some point of the cycle.  Nitrogen of waste products and dead bodies finally appears in the form of ammonia.  Further bacterial action makes possible, the formation of nitrites and nitrates.  In the latter form, nitrogen becomes available to green plants, which combine it with photosynthetic products in the synthesis of plant proteins.
It should be noted that a lesser cycle occurs between nitrates and atmospheric nitrogen; nitrates may be decomposed by certain bacteria in soil and water, to release gaseous nitrogen to the atmosphere, which is of a loss to the main cycle.
However this loss is compensated for, by the phenomenon that lighting converts gaseous nitrogen to nitric acid.  Nitrogen get deposited in the soil, by the ability of certain bacteria and algae, to fix gaseous nitrogen in the form of organic compounds.  Nitrate nitrogen become incorporated into plant proteins and thus complete the nitrogen cycle.
Plants get simple nitrogen compounds from the soil and unite them with carbon to make proteins.  Animals get the nitrogen they need by eating the plants.

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Phototropism

Most plant behaviour is influenced by the production of hormones.  Of the several types of hormones, the auxins, have been studied extensively.  Auxins are a group of substances that affect growth.  They produce cellular elongation as well.

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One of the most important environmental factors to which auxins are sensitive, is light.  If a potted plant is set on a window sill in such a way as to receive light chiefly from one direction, it grows toward the source of light.  This response is called tropism.  The factor initiating this is light.  Hence it is called phototropism.
Where a stem receives light principally from one direction, there is a migration of auxins from the lighted side to the shaded side.  The cells of the stem on shaded side exhibit, as a result, a greater degree of elongation.  The result will be a bending towards the light.
We do not think of plants as moving at all.  But if we could see certain plants on a fast motion film, we can see this clearly.  Some plants move quickly.  A pumpkin or cucumber vine may form a complete coil around a string support in ten minutes!

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What is Carbon Cycle

Carbon is one of the most important elements to living forms, since it figures so prominently in organic compounds as an energy carrier.  Carbon dioxide serves as the carbon source for the synthesis of organic compounds in plants.  They do this by a process called photosynthesis.  During this process the plant, gives off oxygen into the air.

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Rabbits, for example, eat the plant and breathe the air, obtaining both oxygen and food, minerals and vitamins.  Further changes may occur which keep carbon trapped with-in organic compounds.  Eventually the trapped carbon may be returned to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide.  Ordinarily, carbon gets back into circulation within a relatively short period of time, through respiration of plants and animals and through the process of decomposition.  Through the interaction of these various process, which we may term as a cycle, carbon is used over time and time again, by living forms.
We use carbon compounds in various forms, constantly in our daily life.  As such carbon is one of the most important element for us and other life forms too!

Is Coral an Animal

There are many instance to prove, immense performances of very humble beings.  The coral is a typical example.
The coral is a small marine animal closely related to the Sea anemone, but differing from it in their ability to develop a tiny skeleton!  When alive, the coral is known as a polyp.  It is a soft, jelly like mass with an interior sac, which serves as a stomach.
The structure of coral secretions, assumes a variety of forms, fanlike, treelike, mushroom like etc.  The hard limestone skeletons form coral reefs found in the sea.  The colonial corals are made up of a sheet of tissue formed by hundreds and thousands of polyps, covering a chalky skeleton.

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Thousands of miles of tropical shores, especially in the Indian ocean, are edged with reef.  Barrier reefs are formed many miles off shore, like the Great Barrier Reef which has a length of about 1200 miles off the coast of Australia.
The most important coral formations are called fringing reefs, barrier reefs and atols.  Atols are coral islands, shaped like a ring.  Islands of the Union territory of Lakshadweep are Coral islands off the coast of Kerala.

The History of Tapioca

What we call tapioca is usually known all over the world as cassava. (Scientific name is Maninot esculanta) It is a native of Latin America -  especially of Brazil.  This plant of the Euphorbiacae family, has about 150 species, one of which is rubber tree!
For a long time the cradle of agriculture was thought to be sited in the “fertile crescent” of West Asia.

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The agricultural system based on potato started up independently in South American Andes, some 8000 years ago.  In the warmer areas of South America tapioca (cassava) was clearly being cultivated as early as three millennium BC.  This is in fact, one of the earliest plant domesticated by man, in the Western Hemisphere.  It was introduced to Europe by Spaniards and to Africa by Portuguese in 1600 AD.

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Tapioca was introduced as a cultivating crop in erstwhile State of Travancore, by the then ruler, Sri Vishakom Thirunal.  Ever since, it has served the people as a menu.  There is a total of over 2.5 lakh hectares under its cultivation at present.
Tapioca plant can be divided into sweet and bitter varieties.  Both contain cyanogenetic glucoside, which produce prussic acid – a poison.  It is volatile and can be removed by heating.

What are ice ages

In the history of the earth,  there were periods when the continents were partly or largely covered by ice-sheets and glaciers.  These periods are called the Ice Ages.  These glaciers, the geologist believe, have sculptured much of the earth’s surface.  They have covered roughly the northern half of North America.  They gouged out lake beds and built hills.

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The present day ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are relics of the most recent ice age.  This was one of the eight major ones during the past 700,000 years.  It ended about 10,000 years ago.
During this last glaciation, ice sheets covered the northern part of Europe, Asia and North America.
There is strong evidence that periodic changes in the earth’s orbit around the sun caused ice ages.
Great changes affected the earth.  Air and ocean temperature fell.  Places that are deserts now were well watered and covered with plant life.  Sea level fell over 100 meters.
According to experts the earth is now in one of its warm periods.