Kava, now seedless!
Hi there, kava lovers. Today’s fact will be quite elementary for most of you, but I feel we should circle back to the basics every now and then. I’ve seen a few people ask for them lately, so I figured it was time to revisit this. It’s simple, but has a thousand years of history behind it. Kava doesn’t produce seeds. The lineage of the cultivation of kava was traced back to its originator in 1989 by Dr. Lebot. It was found through testing that kava traces back to the wild form of the plant known as Piper Wichmannii. The wild form of kava is quite visually similar to that of the kava we know and love. One of the key differences is with Piper Methysticum. Female plants, while they do occur, happen extremely rarely. The overwhelming majority of kava plants are male. Researchers attempted to pollenate these rare female plants; however, their flowers would fall off prior to fruit formation, hence no seeds. Through thousands of years of purposeful selection of somatic mutants of kava, we’ve arrived at what we consider “drinking kava”. Through this lengthy process kava has lost its ability to reproduce sexually and clones tend to overwhelmingly be male. Due to this, seeds from the kava plant, P. Methysticum are non-existent.
V. Lebot, K. Aradhya, R. Manshardt, Geographic Survey of Genetic Variation in Kava (Piper methysticum Forst. f. and P. wichmannii C. DC.), Pacific Science. 45 (1991).
Lebot, V., & Lèvesque, J. (1989). THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF KAVA (PIPER METHYSTICUM FORST. F., PIPERACEAE): A PHYTOCHEMICAL APPROACH. Allertonia, 5(2), 223-281. Retrieved February 10, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23187398
Hi there, kava lovers. Today’s fact will be quite elementary for most of you, but I feel we should circle back to the basics every now and then. I’ve seen a few people ask for them lately, so I figured it was time to revisit this. It’s simple, but has a thousand years of history behind it. Kava doesn’t produce seeds. The lineage of the cultivation of kava was traced back to its originator in 1989 by Dr. Lebot. It was found through testing that kava traces back to the wild form of the plant known as Piper Wichmannii. The wild form of kava is quite visually similar to that of the kava we know and love. One of the key differences is with Piper Methysticum. Female plants, while they do occur, happen extremely rarely. The overwhelming majority of kava plants are male. Researchers attempted to pollenate these rare female plants; however, their flowers would fall off prior to fruit formation, hence no seeds. Through thousands of years of purposeful selection of somatic mutants of kava, we’ve arrived at what we consider “drinking kava”. Through this lengthy process kava has lost its ability to reproduce sexually and clones tend to overwhelmingly be male. Due to this, seeds from the kava plant, P. Methysticum are non-existent.
V. Lebot, K. Aradhya, R. Manshardt, Geographic Survey of Genetic Variation in Kava (Piper methysticum Forst. f. and P. wichmannii C. DC.), Pacific Science. 45 (1991).
Lebot, V., & Lèvesque, J. (1989). THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF KAVA (PIPER METHYSTICUM FORST. F., PIPERACEAE): A PHYTOCHEMICAL APPROACH. Allertonia, 5(2), 223-281. Retrieved February 10, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23187398
