Sugar Beets

American botanists categorize the sugar beet as a modern cultivar of the ancient group Beta vulgaris crassa, native to western Europe and the Mediterranean. In Europe, where the original research and experimentation with sugar beets took place, horticulturalists distinguish members of the species beta vulgaris by the significantly different uses to which the plants are put: Beta vulgaris esculenta denotes the common red, golden, or white table beet, Beta vulgaris rapa the fodder beet, and Beta vulgaris altissima the light beige-colored root resembling a parsnip that, for the past two hundred years, has been harvested primarily for processing into sugar.