This final portion of the book is perhaps the most ambitious. It was initially conceived of as a dictionary of the exotic plants mentioned in the text, which our authors would otherwise be called upon to identify in their chapters and, in so doing, interrupt their narratives.

The expansion of Part VIII began when it was decided to include entries on all plant foods mentioned in the text and continued when it became apparent that the various fruits of the world do not lend themselves to generalized essays, because many have been mostly seasonal items in the diets of relatively few – and often unrelated – people. For example, the ancient Malaysians ate the “Java apple” (Eugenia javanica) when it was ripe, whereas, on the other side of the world, Native Americans of Brazil did the same with their “pitanga” (Eugenia uniflora). The plants that produce these two fruits are both in the same genus of the family Myrtaceae, but there is little that historically connects their human consumers (unlike the consumers of maize or wheat or potatoes). Thus, save for a few staples (bananas and plantains, for example), fruits really did not seem to belong in the earlier parts of the work dealing with staple foods, and when it was decided to treat fruits in individual dictionary entries – and not as botanical families, or even, as a rule, as genera – there seemed no question that these entries should be included in Part VIII.