Plant products

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Plant products

• Proteins, carbohydrates, fats, . . .
• Secondary compounds
• natural dyestuffs, gums, resins, flavorings,
  essential oils, and alkaloids

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Spices

• Our definition plant part such as a seed, stem,
  or root.
• Around 50 spices/herbs in supermarkets
• Sensation a result of taste and smell
• Early spice trails brought wealth to the
  Mediterranean
• Trails were well established by 400 B.C.

Nutmeg Mace
Bay leaf tree
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Nabateans

• Controlled the spice routes, exacting tolls
• Routes later ruled by the Romans

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Romans

• Shipped from Aeden to India and cut transport
  time from two years to one
• Use of spices in Rome sharply increased
• Expanded to Northern Europe created increased
  demand
• Aleric (Goth) - peppercorns as tribute

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Muslims

• Expanded as Rome lost power
• Invented distillation
• Crusades partly to procure spices and eastern
  riches
• Jerusalem freed in 1099 - Europe exposed to
  undreamed of riches

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Sea route

• Portugal (Henry the Navigator)
• route around the Cape of Good Hope
• New world exploration included search for spices
• Columbus Allspice, red peppers, tobacco
• Dutch took over by the 1600s
• British and Dutch fought over routes until a
  treaty in 1824

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Opium alkaloids

• Exudate of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum)
  capsule
• Include morphine, codeine, and thebaine
• Chemists altered the morphine molecule to produce
  heroin (1898)
• was used in cough medicines

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Opium Wars (1839-1842)

• Britain financed trade for tea, silks, spices,
  and porcelain with opium from India.
• Chinese emperor in 1839 seized the opium stored
  in Canton and destroyed it.
• Punitive action took 500 British and 30,000
  Chinese lives
• Cost of war to be born by China
• 21 million indemnity to Britain
• Hong Kong to become Crown colony

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The Quina tree (Cinchona officinalis)

• Bark holds a cure for Malarial fevers (quinine)
• Jesuits developed a monopoly which became
  official in 1650.
• Use of powder fell out of favor along with the
  Jesuits
• Robert Talbot cured Charles II, Louis XIV
  family, Queen of Spain, and others

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White lady of Peru

• Erythroxylon coca - large shrub or small tree
• Mature plants leaves stripped several times/yr.,
  brings 1 million in street value of cocaine/acre
• Part of South American Indians culture for at
  least 2000 years.
• Inca population from 10 million to 4 million over
  about 100 years.

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Erythroxylon coca
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Tomato family (Solanacea)

• Jimson weeds (Datura), belladonna - deadly
  nightshades (Atropa), henbanes (Hyoscyamus), and
  mandrakes (Mandragora)
• Tropine series of alkaloids
• Atropine - central nervous system depresses
  paraympathetic
• Scopolamine - for sea sickness truth serum
• Hyoscyamine - relatively low dose is fatal
• Plant products used as poisons and cosmetics
• Datura
• Belladona

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