Plant · P-266

Cassava

Manihot esculenta

Cassava's starchy root is a staple food across the tropics - fried, boiled, or milled into flour - and the young leaves cook up as a vegetable that supplies the protein the root lacks. Both parts contain cyanide-forming compounds and are never eaten raw: sweet varieties need only a short simmer, while bitter types require a day-long soak and long cooking. Grown somewhere with real winter frost, it has to be treated as an annual - the top dies at the first freeze and the root does not overwinter, so cuttings get replanted every spring from stock kept frost-free over winter. Its leaves also make an outstanding livestock feed, once wilted, dried or ensiled to drive off the cyanide, rivaling good alfalfa for protein.