jorganos <joe_at_QehykdlWWdeZVhQAaC_EUCahl0FFfNOjscLHKdbrXbvyXCvNdGB4ERW0iXyWDVTpXgB63kGXZyGc0Q.yahoo.invalid> Corn/Maize and sugarcane are not the same kind of grass as the common grains. They have a fast C8 metabolism rather than the slower C6 metabolism of common grains, resulting in the typical thick hollow stems we also know from e.g. sunflowers.
Sam:
C8? It was C4 in my day and, although maize is a C4
plant so capable of growing faster than C3's at high
temperatures, a number of dicot plants are also C4 as
far as I recall (are sunflowers C4? They are dicots).
Maize is not like other grasses because no-one knows
where it comes from; I believe it has no known wild
relatives :)
As it happens, my botany prof was dead keen on soybeans and maize. We sliced and diced them for months in our labs. Teosinte (Zea spp.) is definitely the wild ancestor for maize. Chromosome doubling and a lot of selective breeding has occurred; the earliest confirmed remains go back at least 5000 years, and there are suspicions that it's several thousand years before that.
C4 dicots - found in Amaranthaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Cyperaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Portulacaceae, Crassulaceae and Zygophyllaceae and about six others. Generally an adaptation to dry, hot climates. Includes pineapple, by the way.
Sam
> > Potatoes, yams and similar plants can be a source
for a grain-free
> > carbohydrate diet. It is possible to base
civilizations on these.
> > Having some sort of grain in addition makes
survival easier, since
> > (apart from locusts and drought or flooding) there
are few foes
> > that affect both crops at once.
Interestingly, I've just been told today that mental retardation is a common side effect of not processing your cassava well enough (not to mention cyanide poisoning). Oh, and of course traditional malnutrition among females at all times, much less during pregnancy, is also a factor. The one province in the Congo where my informant didn't note serious problems with memory and basic smarts was the one where they eat maize as their staple starch.
> Civilizations based on non-grain carbohydrates -
Ireland :) Also
> non-Andean South America, never very highly
developed though.
If you mean that non-Andean populations were never
highly developed, that is not the case. There were
very dense populations in the Amazon River valley, but
these collapsed a hundred years or so before Europeans
made it that far, I believe. Disease that got to them
before Europeans did is cited as the cause for their
collapse, but I've also heard soil degradation
posited. Check:
http://rainforests.mongabay.com/external/amazon_cities_before_columbus.html
50-foot wide paths? In a place where everything grows like mad? God, think of the weeding!
Alison
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