Subject: botanical names needed for food and other economic plants

From: [email-masked] (Jack Campin)
Date: 31 Mar 1997 23:56:26 GMT

I've been building a large list of food plant relationships, intended to
help people with allergies decide what foods (and other plants in their
environment) might be a problem.  There are still some plants I'd like to
list that I don't have a scientific name for (and hence not a botanical
family either).  Maybe somebody here can help with species/genus/family?

- Ferns - the bracken eaten in Japan or the fernroots eaten in New Zealand
- Galingale; the European herb used in mediaeval cooking, not Galangal
  (Alpinia galanga, Alpinia officinarum) or the supposed hallucinogen Maraba
  (Kaempferia galanga)
- Giant Hogweed (nobody eats it; common contact allergen in the UK)
- Ginkgo
- Guanabana (custard apple? guava?)
- Guernsey Babaco (melon? passionfruit?)
- Kizilcik (the redcurrant-like fruit used for juice in Turkey - may well
  just be redcurrant for all I know)
- Paan
- Palillo (Peruvian herb)
- Pontic Azalea (Turkish hallucinogen; dunno the Turkish common name either)
- Puha (same as New Zealand Spinach?)
- Palisander/Rosewood (the highly allergenic stuff they make musical
  instruments out of)
- Tinda (same as Chayote?)
- Tragacanth

The list is reachable via http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/Food/foodindex.html .
It's got every food plant I've ever heard of.  If I've left ANYTHING out
that was ever used as food anywhere at any period, I want to know about it.

I haven't mentioned this on rec.woodworking before; if there are any other
woods that are particular allergic hazards I'd like to know - rosewood is
so bad that some suppliers offer a money-back offer to people who develop
skin rashes from recorders (I've got no problem with mine - touch wood)
and I know of makers who have had to give up working with it for health
reasons.  Book, internet or journal references to toxic and allergic hazards
>from  woodworking would be welcome.  So far I have very little information
about woods in the list, I really don't know much about that side of the
problem yet.

Doesn't anybody eat mosses or liverworts?

Followups by email or to alt.support.food-allergies, please.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Campin   2 Haddington Place, Edinburgh EH7 4AE, Scotland   0131 556 5272
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html - includes food allergy/intolerance
resources, McCarrison Society pages, & freeware logic fonts for the Macintosh