Legend has it that there is a mystical plant called the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. It was believed this plant was in fact half plant, half animal and would produce a sheep, or lamb as it's fruit. It's full name is "Planta Tartarica Barometz". Barometz is the Tartar word for lamb. The "fruit" of the Vegetable Lamb was cotton, but people back in the Middle Ages knew very little about cotton and assumed the fabric was wool, which then led them to assume that the puffs of cotton were actually tiny sheep attached to the plant by their navels. It was said that the plant would bend down to let the sheep graze on the surrounding grass beneath it and when it was all eaten up, the sheep dropped off from the plant and ran off. Of course, this is nothing but a myth.
But the plant itself, the vegetable lamb, is real. No, it doesn't produce sheep. However, researchers are now saying that it could produce a break-through treatment for the bone-thinning disease of Osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis affects many women (and men) each year. It's a chronic disease and very debilitating. Causing fractures to occur with little to no true injury. Causes more people to fall down and it may significantly affect life expectancy and the quality of life obviously is affected.
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