03/22/2024
The root of wild and leaf beets is taprooted, woody, and completely immersed in the soil. The wild form has a thin root; annual plant. In the cultivated variety, the root is fleshy and juicy, thick (root crop), in most varieties it protrudes above the soil surface; biennial plant.
In the first year, it develops only the root and rosette of basal bare large, ovoid, obtuse, slightly heart-shaped at the base, wavy leaves on long petioles along the edge; in the second year, and sometimes by the end of the first year, a leafy stem appears on the fleshy root from the middle of the leaf rosette, reaching 0.5 and even 1.25 meters in height.
The stem is herbaceous, erect, strongly branched, grooved-grained; the leaves on it are alternate small, almost sessile, oblong or lanceolate; in the axils of the upper leaves, bunches (2-3) of small, dim sessile flowers appear, forming complex long leafy spikes. The flowers are bisexual, consisting of a green or whitish cup-shaped five-lobed perianth, five stamens attached to a fleshy ring surrounding the o***y, and a pistil with a semi-inferior single-locular o***y and two stigmas. Cross-pollination by small insects.
The fruit is a compressed single seed, fused with the perianth when ripe. Since the bunches of flowers grow together, a whole fruit cluster with 2-6 fruits (“beet seed”) is obtained. There are seeds under the cap inside the fruit. In the USSR, sugar beets with single-seeded fruits were bred.