Black Maca

Lepidium meyenii Origin: Peru (via Netherlands) Improvement status: Landrace Seeds per packet: ~69 BOTANICAL SAMPLE - NOT GERMINATION TESTED Life cycle: Biennial Maca has in recent decades become popular far beyond its high-altitude Andean homeland. Domesticated in Peru and grown at over 10,000 feet in elevation, maca is not an easy plant to grow — but that hasn't stopped people from trying! A member of the Brassicaceae (cabbage) family, maca is the only tuberous member of the Lepidium genus, most well-known for the spicy-leafed herb garden cress (Lepidium sativum). Maca roots look like small tan radishes, they taste like a strange cross between turnip and butterscotch, and outside of Peru they are mostly consumed dried and powdered as a beverage or an ingredient in other dishes, like bread. Maca has become famous as a "superfood" primarily because of its reputation as a medicine for sexual dysfunction, particularly in men. Many people now use it as a general tonic for reproductive hea