Beet (Beta) is a genus of plants of the family Chenopodiaceae distinguished by its fruit being inclosed in a tough woody or spongy five-lobed enlarged calyx. Two species only are known in general cultivation, namely, the sea-beet Beta maritima) and the garden beet (Beta vulgaris). The former is a tough-rooted perennial, common on many parts of the British coast and sometimes formerly cultivated for its leaves, which are an excellent substitute for spinach.
Of the garden beet, which differs from the last in being of only biennial duration and in forming a tender fleshy root, two principal forms are known to cultivators, the chard beet and the common beet. In the chard beet the roots are small, white, and rather tough, and the leaves are furnished with a broad, fleshy midrib (chard), employed as a vegetable by the French, who dress the ribs like sea-kale under the name of poiree. Some writers regard this as a peculiar species, and call it Beta cicia or hortensis.
The common beet includes all the fleshy-rooted varieties, such as red beet (with a fleshy large carrot-shaped root), yellow beet, sugar-beet, mangel-wurzel, etc. For garden purposes the best is the red beet of Castelnaudary, so called from a town in the south-west of France. The beet requires a rich light soil, and being a native of the Mediterranean region is impatient of severe cold, requiring to be taken up in the beginning of winter and packed in dry sand, or in pits like potatoes, the succulent leaves having been first removed.
Red beet is principally used at table, but if eaten in great quantity is said to be injurious. The beet may be taken out of the ground for use about the end of August, but it does not attain its full size and perfection until the month of October. A good beer was formerly brewed from the beet, which yielded a spirit of good quality.
From the white beet the French, during the wars with Napoleon I, succeeded in preparing sugar, that article, as British colonial produce, having been prohibited in France. Since that time, with the increase of chemical and technical knowledge, the making of beet-sugar has become an important industry in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Belgium, and Holland and in England, though the early failure of attempts to produce beet-sugar on a large scale seem to have been mainly due to artificial conditions of trade competition. Research Beet
Abbreviations
Nature
Research Beet