Fruit is designed to be eaten by animals as a means of dispersing seeds. The sweetness of fruit is designed to encourage animals to tak...
Fruit is designed to be eaten by animals as a means of dispersing seeds. The sweetness of fruit is designed to encourage animals to take and eat it.
The leaves of plants are the body of the plant. No plant wants to be eaten. The exception is grasses which need grazing animals to keep the other plants down and stop the land reverting to first scrub and then forest. Grasses simply outgrow other plants as a means of counteracting grazing but depend on grazing to maintain their optimum environment.
So if you are a slower growing plant than grasses then what are your options for not getting eaten by grazing animals? Only 2 options really. Either grow thorns or produce nasty tasting poisonous Oxalic Acid. Both strategies mean devoting resources to mitigating grazing. Plants generally take one of the other.
Oxalic acid provides the best possible level of plant protection. It tastes bad, the crystals physically damage the mouth and tongue by stabbing and burning it as well as binding with calcium in the gut and weakening the animal long term.
Humans have learned to overcome Oxalic acid by cooking or drying leaves.
Oxalic acid is natural. That does not mean it is safe to handle directly. Polar Bears are natural. But it does mean there is a natural mechanism for dealing with it that honey bees have evolved over time. I will talk about that in my next post.
