Names: comfrey, common comfrey or true comfrey. Other English names include Quaker comfrey, cultivated comfrey, boneset, knitbone, consound, and slippery-root. 

Where: It is native to Europe, growing in damp, grassy places.

Description: The plant is 40-100 cm high, with white, pink or purple flowers clustered close together in a hanging cluster from May to August. The flowers are bell-shaped, 2-4 cm in size. The sepals are pointed, and 1/3 of the tubular, intergrown petals.
The leaves are rough-haired. The round, hollow stems are branched. The root is black on the outside, white on the inside

Klasse: Spermatopsida - Orde: Ranunculales - Familie: Ranunculaceae (Ranonkelfamilie) - Geslacht: Ficaria (Speenkruid) - Soort: Ficaria verna

Names: Ficaria is derived from the Latin word Ficus (Fig), because of the shape of the root nodules.
Other names: lesser celandine or pilewort, fig buttercup (N Amerika)
Scharbockskraut (Germany)

Where:
The distribution area of common celandine spice covers all of Europe, the Caucasus, Western Siberia and Central Asia. The plant is common on moist soils, along wet forest edges and ditches.

Description:
It is a hairless perennial, with spirally-arranged cordate dark-green leaves without stipules. It produces actinomorphic (radially symmetrical) flowers with 3 sepaloid tepals and 7-12 glossy yellow tepals. The stamens are numerous, and the fruit is a single-seeded achene  It blooms between March and May

Medicinal traits: Ficaria verna was eaten as spinach. Young plants are rich in vitamin C and served as a middle against scurvy (German name is Scharbockskraut). In the course of spring, however, the content of toxic substances increases. 

 

·       The environment of Belgium is generally affected by the high population density in most of the country.

·       Biodiversity is lower in Flanders than in Wallonia because of population density and fragmentation of habitats, but efforts are being made to boost bio-diversity through connecting fragmented forests and national parks through wildlife crossing "ecoducts" such as in Kikbeek

·       In Flanders, emission of non-methane-VOC has decreased from 200 kton in 1990 to around 100 kton in 2006, because of lower emissions from transport and industry. These two however remain the most important VOC polluters

Agricultural areas have high concentrations of phosphates due to heavy use of fertilizers in the past
 

Cosmos was highly popular when it was released, with the first volume selling out in two months, and the work translated into most European languages.  The work is still considered to be a substantial scientific and literary achievement, having influenced subsequent scientific progress and imparted a unifying perspective to the studies of science, nature, and mankind 

Air temperature changes until now

In Belgium, over the course of the 20th century, there were very marked and quite severe increases in seasonal and annual temperatures (in the order of 1°C) during two periods, firstly during the first half of the 20th century and then in the 1980s (2). According to a recent report (5), meteorological observations in Ukkel since 1830 point to a temperature increase of some 2 °C over the entire period 1830-2010. The frequency of heat waves shows a significant upward trend towards the middle of the 1990s. However, the variability of this parameter is important throughout the 20th century and the characteristics of heat waves in recent years are relatively similar to those observed in the 1940s, following the warmer summer temperatures observed during the first part of the 20th century

-Identify where these plants still occur
 -Sensitize the public to the problem
 -Examine what these plants need in terms of soil and environment
 -Collect the seeds of the -rare - plants and sow in nature reserves where the right conditions for the plant can be arranged
 -Sensitize to the farmers to use less chemical substances and to their fields to manage in a different way.
-On a higher level search cooperation– state, country, Europe – to become stricter the legislation of pesticides.

Pulses are the dried edible seeds of certain plants in the legume family. ( Leguminosae of Fabaceae). The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recognizes 11 types of pulses grown worldwide. Beans, lentils, chickpeas and split peas are the most common types of pulses. Since 1959, the UN has dedicated special years and observances to promote international awareness and action on various topics.
 
 

IMPORTANCE OF THIS FOOD CROP:
- high nutritional value. Pulses are very high in protein and fibre, and are low in fat. 
 
 - Pulses are also nitrogen-fixing crops that improve the environmental sustainability of annual cropping systems. 

 

The cultivated lentil Lens culinaris was derived from its wild subspecies L. culinaris subsp. orientalis, although other species may also have contributed some genes, according to Jonathan Sauer (Historical Geography of Crop Plants, 2017.) Unlike their wild ancestors, domesticated lentil crops have indehiscent pods and nondormant seeds. 

Lentils are the oldest pulse crop known, and among the earliest crops domesticated in the Old World, having been found as carbonized remains alongside human habitations dating to 11,000 BC in Greece.^[2] The lentil is indigenous to Western and Central Asia.

In early times, peas - Pisum sativum  - were grown mostly for their dry seeds. From plants growing wild in the Mediterranean basin, constant selection since the Neolithic dawn of agriculture improved their yield. In the early 3rd century BC Theophrastus mentions peas among the pulses that are sown late in the winter because of their tenderness.  In the first century AD, Columella mentions them in De re rustica, when Roman legionaries still gathered wild peas from the sandy soils of Numidia and Judea to supplement their rations. In the Middle Ages, field peas are constantly mentioned, as they were the staple that kept famine at bay, as Charles the Good, count of Flanders, noted explicitly in 1124. 

DOMESTICATION OF PULSES
On the basis of an examination and evaluation of archeological remains and  an identification of the wild progenitors and delimitation of their geographic distribution, it was concluded that pea (Pisum sativum) and lentil should be regarded as founder crops of Old World Neolithic agriculture. Most probably they were domesticated, in the Near East, simultaneously with wheats and barley (certainly not later than the sixth millennium B.C.). Bitter vetch shows a similar mode of origin. The evidence on the broad bean and the chickpea is much more fragmentary and the wild progenitors of these legumes are yet not satisfactorily identified. But also these two pulses emerge as important food elements in Bronze Age cultures of the Near East and Europe.

 

FAO: is the Food and Agriculture Organization is a specialized agency of the UN that leads internatinal efforts to defeat hunger. The goal is achieve food security for al land make sure that people have regular access to enough quality food to lead active healthy lives.
 The specific objectives of the Year of the pulse