Rhubarb

Plant Characteristics

Cultivation

Scientific Names

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Read about Rhubarb in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Rhubarb. A garden vegetable, perennial, grown for the thick acid leaf-stalks which are used in spring for sauces and pies: Rheum Rhaponticum, which see, page 2927. Rhubarb, known also as pie-plant, is a hardy plant and will withstand considerable neglect, yet, like most cultivated vegetables, it responds readily to proper care and good treatment. The large fleshy leaf-stems desired in culinary use are produced in part by the great store of plant-food held in reserve by the many big roots. Everything should be done to increase this supply of reserve food. Tillage and fertilizing, therefore, are fundamentals. In the choosing of a site a southern exposure is preferred, with sufficient slope to give good drainage. Plow the ground 6 to 8 inches deep, draw furrows 5 feet apart, set the plants 3 feet apart, with the buds 1 inch below the level of the ground. In home grounds, spade or trench the land deep, and set about 4 feet apart each way; or if in only one row or line with plenty of room on either side, the plants may go 3 feet or even as close as 2 1/2 feet if they are well manured and often renewed. If the soil lacks in fertility, mix compost with the earth that is placed about the roots; never put fresh manure next to the roots. As soon after planting as possible, start the cultivator, and give a thorough stirring at intervals of six to eight days up to the middle or last of August. After the ground is frozen, cover the rows 3 to 4 inches deep with manure that is as free as possible from weed and grass seed. As early in the spring as the ground can be worked to advantage, start the cultivator and work the manure into the soil. Each alternate season the surface of the soil should have a good dressing of manure. For garden culture, a similar practice should be undertaken with the hoe or other hand tools. In field culture, the third or fourth year after planting the hills should be divided. Remove the earth from one side of the hill and with a sharp spade cut through the crown, leaving three or four buds in the hill undisturbed. This work should be done in the fall or early in the spring. In garden culture, the teds should be similarly renewed, at least as often as every four or five years, but more pains may be taken in dividing the plants. The clumps of roots grow so large, and have so many eyes, that the stalks soon become more numerous than desirable, and run down in size. Take up the entire roots and cut them in pieces, leaving only one strong eye to the piece, and plant the pieces in a newly prepared bed (or even in the old one if properly enriched and prepared)4 feet apart each way as before. Seed-stems are produced freely the entire season These should be promptly pulled up, unless seed is wanted. The growth of these stems and the production of seed tend to lessen the vitality of the plant and to reduce the yield. Propagation of rhubarb is commonly by division the roots, and this is the only method by which a par-ticular type can be increased. Propagation from seed, however, sometimes proves satisfactory, and always interesting as the seedlings vary greatly. The seed germinates easily, and if started early the plant become fairly large and strong the same season. The may be started in any good clean garden soil. Sow seed in early spring, in rows a foot apart and not over an inch deep. Thin the plants promptly to stand a few inches apart in the rows, and give the same thorough tillage allowed to other garden crops. In the following fall or spring take the seedlings up, and set them in the well-prepared per-manent patch, not less than 4 feet apart each way, and till frequently the entire season. In spring of the next year the stalks may be pulled freely. From ten to twenty good plants should supply the needs of the usual family, and probably with something to spare for the neighbors. Sometimes an early supply is secured by placing a bottomless barrel or box over the plant and piling warm horse-manure about it. If the barrel, keg, or box is not too broad, the petioles will make a straight upright growth and will be partially blanched and very tender. Victoria and Linnaeus are the leading varieties. L. H. B. Forcing of rhubarb. In the winter and early spring months, the forcing of rhubarb in the vicinity of many city markets is a profitable industry. The plant may be forced either in the field where the roots were grown or lifted and placed in hotbeds, under greenhouse benches or in cellars. The bulk of the rhubarb forced for market and sold during the winter months is grown in cheap structures placed over the plants in the field. These houses may be of the lean-to type, although they are more commonly even-span post and rafter construction, the roof being covered with hotbed sash which is not needed for other purposes at the time. The side walls are 4 to 5 feet high, made of rough boards and covered with cheap building-paper. The even-span houses are mostly 24 to 36 feet wide and the lean-to house half that width. Heat is usually applied in an overhead system, steam being the most popular, although late in the season the sun is depended upon to supply the required amount of heat. When forced in the field in limited quantities, coldframes are often used, the outside walls being well banked with hot manure and the surface of the ground within the frames covered with 3 to 6 inches of the same material. Beds intended for early spring forcing should be thoroughly cultivated in the fall and an application made of high-grade commercial fertilizer of 800 to 1,000 pounds to the acre. When growth starts, a dressing of nitrate of soda at the rate of one-half pound to a crown should be given. In field forcing, the moisture of the soil is usually sufficient so that no water is applied. When it is the intention to use a field for forcing for several years, the plants are usually set 2 by 3 feet and the land fertilized heavily each spring with a compost, one made from cow- and hog-manure being preferred. The sash are placed upon the first houses as soon as the roots have been frozen, five to seven weeks being necessary to bring the plants to maturity. In field forcing, the cost of production is often greatly reduced by growing spinach or dandelion between the rows, the price obtained for these fillers usually being sufficient to pay labor and maintenance costs. The stalks are usually pulled twice, returning to the grower from $1 to $2 a sash, depending upon the season when placed upon the market. Roots for forcing in the dark should be healthy and vigorous; the larger the roots the more satisfactory the results as a general rule. Crowns three to five years of age are mostly used, although satisfactory results are often obtained from one-year-old plants which have been grown on very rich land and have made an unchecked growth during the season. The roots should be dug early in the fall before the ground freezes and allowed to remain exposed to the weather until they are frozen solid when they should either be removed to a shed or covered with litter in the field to prevent alternate freezing and thawing. Thorough freezing is necessary, whatever the method of forcing, if the best resulte are to be obtained. With one-year roots very satisfactory results are sometimes secured if the roots are thoroughly dried before forcing. Anesthetics have been tried as a substitute for freezing but with unsatisfactory results. When used upon frozen roots they stimulate growth, resulting in the production of earlier and larger stalks with greater total weight of product. If the greatest benefit is to be derived from the anesthetic, it must be used in the early part of the resting-period. The most satisfactory results have been obtained by the use of 10 cubic centimeters of sulfuric ether to a cubic foot of space, exposing the roots to the fumes for forty-eight hours. Well-grown two-year-old roots seem to respond to this treatment in the most satisfactory way. As soon as the roots are placed in position, whether it be under the greenhouse benches or in the cellar, all spaces should be filled with soil or ashes to prevent evaporation. If placed on a concrete floor, 2 or 3 inches of soil should be placed under the roots and sufficient material should be added completely to cover the roots. The bed as soon as completed should be thoroughly watered, the plants kept supplied with an abundance of moisture, which will necessitate water being applied about once a week. Care should be taken to guard against over-watering as this will result in the production of light-colored stalks, lacking in flavor and texture. In order to obtain the most attractive product, rhubarb should not be forced in full light or total darkness. If grown in diffused light, the development of the leaf-blade is very slight and the color of the stalk, instead of being green, is a beautiful dark cherry-red, giving to the product a very attractive appearance. In quality the product is superior to that forced in light, being more tender, less acid, with a skin so thin and tender as to make it unnecessary to peel the stalks. The temperature may range from 45° to 75°, the lower the temperature the greater the yield and higher the quality of the product. The time required for bringing a crop to maturity in darkness is practically the same as that required for forcing in the field. Local market demands to a certain extent govern the method which is used in growing this crop for the winter market. When grown by any method which requires the lifting of the roots, it must be remembered that they are worthless after having produced a crop. Therefore, this method cannot be practised with as great profit upon expensive land as can the method of field forcing or when roots were used for forcing which otherwise would be destroyed. Rhubarb-forcing in house cellars should receive more attention, as it adds at slight expense a pleasing vegetable to the winter dietary. Whatever the method practised, success will be attained only when healthy well-developed roots, which have been allowed to freeze, are used. G. E. Adams. The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

For other uses see Rhubarb (disambiguation)

? Rhubarb
Plant Info
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Caryophyllales Family: Polygonaceae Genus: Rheum L.
Species
About 60, including: R. nobile R. officinale R. palmatum R. rhabarbarum R. rhaponticum

Rhubarb is a perennial plant that grows from thick short rhizomes, comprising the genus Rheum. This genus is in the family Polygonaceae, along with dock, sorrel, knotweeds, knotgrasses and buckwheat. The large, somewhat triangular leaf blades are elevated on long, fleshy petioles. The flowers are small, greenish-white, and borne in large compound leafy inflorescences.

Rhubarb is actually a vegetable, but is often used in food as a fruit. In the United States until the 1940s it was considered a vegetable. It was reclassified as a fruit when US customs officials, baffled by the foreign food, decided it should be classified according to the way it was eaten.

Cultivation and use

Rhubarb displayed for sale at a grocery in Boston

The plant is indigenous to Asia, and many suggest that it was often used by the Mongolians; particularly, the Tatars tribes of the Gobi. The plant has grown wild along the banks of the Volga for centuries; it may have been brought there by Eurasian tribes, such as the Scythians, Huns, Magyars or Mongols. Varieties of rhubarb have a long history as medicinal plants in traditional Chinese medicine, but the use of rhubarb as food is a relatively recent innovation, first recorded in 17th century England, after affordable sugar became available to common people.

Rhubarb is now grown in many areas, primarily for its fleshy petioles, commonly known as rhubarb sticks or stalks. In temperate climates rhubarb is one of the first food plants to be ready for harvest, usually in mid to late Spring (April/May in the Northern Hemisphere, October/November in the Southern). The petioles can be cooked in a variety of ways. Stewed, they yield a tart sauce that can be eaten with sugar and other stewed fruit or used as filling for pies (see rhubarb pie), tarts, and crumbles. This common use led to the slang term for rhubarb, "pie plant". In Germany, this slang term is also used; the common name being Rhabarber in German. Cooked with strawberries as a sweetener, rhubarb makes excellent jam. It can also be used to make wine. Recently, it has been used in sandwiches.

In former days, a common and affordable sweet for children in parts of the United Kingdom and Sweden was a tender stick of rhubarb, dipped in sugar. In the UK the first rhubarb of the year is grown by candlelight in dark sheds dotted around the noted "Rhubarb Triangle" of Wakefield, Leeds and Morley.

A homemade rhubarb pie

In warm climates, rhubarb will grow all year round, but in colder climates the parts of the plant above the ground disappear completely during winter, and begin to grow again from the root in early spring. It can be forced, that is, encouraged to grow early, by raising the local temperature. This is commonly done by placing an upturned bucket over the shoots as they come up.

Rhubarb is used as a strong laxative and for its astringent effect on the mucous membranes of the mouth and the nasal cavity.

Species

The plant is represented by about 60 extant species. Among species found in the wild, those most commonly used in cooking are the Garden Rhubarb (R. rhabarbarum) and R. rhaponticum, which, though a true rhubarb, bears the common name False Rhubarb. The many varieties of cultivated rhubarb more usually grown for eating are recognised as Rheum x hybridum in the Royal Horticultural Societies list of recognised plant names. The drug rheum is prepared from the rhizomes and roots of another species, R. officinale or Medicinal Rhubarb. This species is also native to Asia, as is the Turkey Rhubarb (R. palmatum). Another species, the Sikkim Rhubarb (R. nobile), is limited to the Himalayas.

Rheum species have been recorded as larval food plants for some Lepidoptera species including Brown-tail, Buff Ermine, Cabbage Moth, Large Yellow Underwing, The Nutmeg, Setaceous Hebrew Character and Turnip Moth.

Toxic effects

File:Rhubarb 01.jpg

Rhubarb

Rhubarb flower.

Rhubarb leaves contain poisonous substances. Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid, a corrosive and nephrotoxic acid that is abundantly present in many plants. The Template:LD50 (median lethal dose) for pure oxalic acid is predicted to be about 375 mg/kg body weight,Template:Fact or about 25 g for a 65 kg (~140 lb) human. While the oxalic acid content of rhubarb leaves can vary, a typical value is about 0.5%, so a rather unlikely five kilograms of the extremely sour leaves would have to be consumed to reach an Template:LD50 dose of oxalic acid. However, the leaves are believed to also contain an additional, unidentified toxin. In the petioles, the amount of oxalic acid is much lower, especially when harvested before mid-June (in the northern hemisphere), but it is still enough to cause slightly rough teeth.Template:Fact

The roots and stems are rich in anthraquinones, such as emodin and rhein. These substances are cathartic and laxative, which explains the sporadic abuse of Rhubarb as a slimming agent. Anthraquinones are yellow or orange and may colour the urine.Template:Fact

Other uses of the word

It is or was common for a crowd of extras in acting to shout the word "rhubarb" repeatedly and out of step with each other, to cause the effect of general hubbub. As a result, the word "rhubarb" sometimes is used to mean "length of superfluous text in speaking or writing", or a general term to refer to irrelevant chatter by chorus or extra actors.

Possibly from this usage, possibly from a variant on "rube", or perhaps some of both, the word also denotes a loud argument. The term has been most commonly used in baseball.

In the 1989 film Batman, The Joker (Jack Nicholson) tells Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) to "never rub another man's rhubarb". The term was used as a threat to Bruce Wayne warning him to leave both men's love interest Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) alone.

The phrase "out in the rhubarb patch" can be used to describe a place being in the far reaches of an area. Rhubarb is usually grown at the outer edges of the garden in the less desirable and unkept area.Template:Fact

"Donkey Rhubarb" refers to Japanese knotweed and is used as a term when referring to the drug-oriented uses of cannabis.Template:Fact For example, the word takes the place of words such as "weed" or "pot" in some places in Canada.

Rhubarb, specifically in the form of the fictitious product "Be-Bop-A-Re-Bop Rhubarb Pie," is frequently mentioned in 'A Prairie Home Companion'. In the 2006 film adaptation of the program, the pies are not mentioned, but rhubarb itself is, including an explanation of the source of the name.

External links

• The Rhubarb Compendium
• History of "Forced Rhubarb"
• Just what is "Yorkshire forced indoor rhubarb"?