Plant stem stems are asparagus, bamboo shoots, cactus pads or nopalitos, kohlrabi, and water chestnut. The spice, cinnamon is bark from a tree trunk. Gum arabic is an important food additive obtained from the trunks of "Acacia senegal" trees. Chicle, the main ingredient in chewing gum, is obtained from trunks of the chicle tree. Medicines obtained from stems include quinine from the bark of cinchona trees, camphor distilled from wood of a tree in the same genus that provides cinnamon, and the muscle relaxant curare from the bark of tropical vines. Wood is used in thousands of ways, e.g. buildings, furniture, boats,
Bark beater Bark beater In many traditional cultures, bark beaters were tools used to pound tree bark, to make the bark softer for the processing of barkcloth, which is used for making paper, and clothing. This tool has many different variations that are seen in indigenous cultures worldwide, yet all for a similar purpose. “In Mesoamerica, the earliest proven bark beaters are from the Maya area and its periphery, particularly the Pacific coastal plain of Guatemala and El Salvador, where they appear some 2,500 years ago.” Both forms of bark beaters (club-shaped, and racquet type) were also found in the islands of