Excerpt from Edible Leaves of the Tropics Under tropical conditions, green leaves are everywhere, providing that nd water conditions are not limiting. These leaves can be considered as organized factories that convert local crude materials, carbon dioxide, and minerals, to food. Green plants are the beginning of the food and on them depends the life of other terrestrial organisms. Man, as an ple of an advanced or predator species of the food chain, would be pressed in the absence of green leaves. Green leaves in the tropics serve as direct food sources to man under ost civilized circumstances. The important species are grown and pre on both home and commercial scales. In primitive areas green leaves wild plants are used as regular and important items of the diet. In times ergency green leaves provide nutritious and readily available sources of Yet, these usages hardly touch on the potentials that exist in most en ments. The green factories are underutilized and neglected, or depre and destroyed. Among the reasons for such neglect are ignorance and prejudice. Both 1tions are hard to cure. Because many people live in cities, they have ad'the opportunity to try the wild herbs and other green leaves around The special knowledge often in the hands of a few wise members of ribe or society is not regularly passed down to the younger generations. Ermore, as dependence on market products increases, wild or weedy s become despised. In the interests of marketing, only a limited number vecies are propagated on a scale sufficiently grand to permit economy of ling operations. As pressures on the land increase, there is a growing dan )f extermination of minor species. Furthermore, experimentation ceases. Grand total of human knowledge can then decrease. Without doubt, some usages have already disappeared, and not even written records are left. Lost in this historical process are the techniques for discovering new ables. Surely usages were revealed only through experimentation. There always have been those who looked for, cooked, and ate new leaves for xcitement of discovery. In the process, the poisonous species were even discovered, the irritating types avoided, and the obnoxious rejected. Olated areas, interests may be maintained or restimulated. During the rian civil war, for example, starvation stimulated new experimentation e bush, the results of which will probably be lost again rapidly. Nevertheless, a new breed of explorers has arisen, those who are dis anted with the bland products of the supermarkets, those who still feel arimordial urge to plant, those whose tastes are adventurous. There are those whose pocketbooks are thin who can benefit from green leaves y grown at home. Finally, there are the few who recognize that the vege s we emphasize now are but a part of a larger, and mostly still available age, a heritage whose potentials have still not been fully realized. It is to the lovers of edible green leaves that we dedicate this book. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.