ABSTRACT
The identification of small fragments of plant materials lacking in features that are normally covered in taxonomic keys and descriptions is one of the more difficult and challenging tasks facing the archaeobotanist. In the past such materials were either relegated to a drawer assigned to unknown specimens or set aside and not looked at until better plant collections could be assessed. This same fate was also often shared by food materials that were collected in a macerated or ground-up condition and by the remains of economic species that were prepared in ancient times by peeling, boiling or baking. The need for a simple, easy-to-use method of identification that would yield results accurate enough to place the fragmentary remains of an unknown crop plant within its proper genus or species, therefore, has long been overdue.
