Editing Rhubarb (section)

===Historical cultivation===
[[File:CSA-Rhubarb.jpg|thumb|right|A bundle of rhubarb]]
The Chinese call rhubarb "the great yellow" ({{transliteration|zh|dà huáng}} {{lang|zh|大黃}}), and have used rhubarb root for medicinal purposes.<ref name="mehta">{{cite web|url=http://pharmaxchange.info/press/2012/12/pharmacognosy-of-rhubarb/|title=Pharmacognosy of Rhubarb|author=Mehta, Sweety |date=27 December 2012|work=PharmaXChange.info}}</ref> It appears in ''[[Shennong Ben Cao Jing|The Divine Farmer's Herb-Root Classic]]'', which is thought to have been compiled about 1,800 years ago.<ref name=Lloyd>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=apAPal8iAxgC&pg=PA270|title=Origin and History of All the Pharmacopeial Vegetable Drugs, Chemicals and Origin and History of All the Pharmacopeial Vegetable Drugs, Chemicals and Preparations with Bibliography|volume=1|author=John Uri Lloyd|year=1921|publisher=Read Books |isbn=978-1-4086-8990-5}}</ref> Though [[Dioscurides]]' description of {{lang|grc|ρηον}} or {{lang|grc|ρά}} indicates that a medicinal root brought to Greece from beyond the [[Bosphorus]] may have been rhubarb, commerce in the plant did not become securely established until [[Islamic Golden Age|Islamic times]]. During Islamic times, it was imported along the [[Silk Road]], reaching Europe in the 14th century through the ports of [[Aleppo]] and [[Smyrna]], where it became known as "Turkish rhubarb".<ref name=Warmington1928>{{cite book|last=Warmington|first=E. H.|title=The Commerce Between the Roman Empire and India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u9w8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA207|year=1928|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-1-00-136124-6|page=207ff}}</ref> Later,{{when|date=May 2024}} it began to arrive via new maritime routes and overland through Russia. The "Russian rhubarb" was the most valued, probably because of the rhubarb-specific quality control system maintained by the Russian Empire.<ref name="Monahan2013">{{Cite book| last = Monahan| first = Erika| chapter = Locating rhubarb |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/24221351 | title = Early modern things: objects and their histories, 1500–1800| editor-last = Findlen| editor-first = Paula| publisher = Routledge| isbn = 978-0-415-52051-5| pages = 227–251| location = Abingdon| date = 2013}}</ref> The 2020 edition of [[Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China]] lists the following species as medicinally acceptable: ''[[Rheum officinale]]'', ''[[Rheum palmatum]]'', and ''[[Rheum tanguticum]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=中国药典第一部 |page=24 |edition=2020 |url=https://db.ouryao.com/yd2020/view.php?id=f82dba38c5}}</ref> Grieve describes "Turkish rhubarb" as a mixture of ''R. palmatum'' and ''R. rhaponticum''.<ref name=Grieve/>

The cost of transportation across Asia made rhubarb expensive in medieval Europe.  It was several times the price of other valuable herbs and spices such as [[cinnamon]], [[opium]], and [[saffron]]. The merchant explorer [[Marco Polo]] therefore searched for the place where the plant was grown and harvested, discovering that it was cultivated in the mountains of [[Tangut people|Tangut]] province.<ref name=Lloyd/> The value of rhubarb can be seen in [[Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo]]'s report of his embassy in 1403–1405 to [[Timur]] in [[Samarkand]]: "The best of all merchandise coming to Samarkand was from China: especially silks, satins, musk, [[ruby|rubies]], [[diamond]]s, [[pearl]]s, and rhubarb...."<ref>Quoted in {{cite book|author=Wood, Frances |title=The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia|url=https://archive.org/details/silkroadtwothous0000wood|url-access=registration |year=2002|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24340-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/silkroadtwothous0000wood/page/13 13]}}</ref>

The high price, as well as the increasing demand from apothecaries, stimulated efforts to cultivate the different species of rhubarb on European soil.<ref name="Monahan2013"/> ''R. rhaponticum'' × ''R. officinale'' came to be grown in England to produce the roots. ''R. alpinus'' was also allowed to grow wild.<ref name=Grieve>{{Cite web|series=A Modern Herbal 
| last= Grieve| first= M. | year= 1900
| title=Rhubarbs|url=https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/r/rhubar14.html|access-date=2023-02-23|website=botanical.com}}</ref> The local availability of the plants grown for medicinal purposes, together with the increasing abundance and decreasing price of sugar in the 18th century, galvanised its culinary adoption.<ref name="Monahan2013"/> Grieve claims a date of 1820 in England.<ref name=Grieve/> Rhubarb was harvested in [[Scotland]] from at least 1786, having been introduced to the Botanical Garden in [[Edinburgh]] by the traveller [[Bruce of Kinnaird]] in 1774. He brought the seeds from [[Abyssinia]] and they produced 3,000 plants.<ref>Grants Old and New Edinburgh</ref>

Though it is often asserted that rhubarb first came to the United States in the 1820s,<ref>Waters, Alice (2002) ''Chez Panisse Fruit''. New York: Harper Collins. p. 278. {{ISBN|978-0-06-019957-9}}</ref> [[John Bartram]] was growing medicinal and culinary rhubarbs in [[Philadelphia]] from the 1730s, planting seeds sent to him by [[Peter Collinson (botanist)|Peter Collinson]].<ref>{{Cite web|editor=David H
| last= Fry | first= Joel
|date=2012-07-20|title=Did John Bartram introduce rhubarb to North America?|url=https://growinghistory.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/did-john-bartram-introduce-rhubarb-to-north-america/|access-date=2023-02-23|website=Growing History|language=en}}</ref> From the first, the familiar garden rhubarb was not the only ''Rheum'' in American gardens: [[Thomas Jefferson]] planted ''[[Rheum undulatum|R. undulatum]]'' at Monticello in 1809 and 1811, observing that it was "Esculent rhubarb, the leaves excellent as Spinach."<ref>{{Cite web|date=2011-06-12|title=Rhubarb « Thomas Jefferson's Monticello|url=https://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/rhubarb|access-date=2023-02-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612082720/https://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/rhubarb |archive-date=12 June 2011 }}</ref>