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Today, we dig deeper into the peanut, by talking about the taxonomy. Taxonomy is classifying the plant by his own specie, this includes the terms kingdom, class, order, family, genus and species.
Kingdom: Plantae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Fabales
Family: Leguminosae
Genus: Arachis
Species: Hypogaea

The picture illustrates the various levels of the classification from the peanut. The tree shows also what other groups are close to the peanut plant.

The peanut used to grow in the wild, but in now primarily grown as an agricultureal crop. The plant is grown and eaten all over the world and is a staple food in Africa.
The peanut plant originated in South America. When the explorers from Europe arrived they took the peanut plant with them to Europe. After that, the peanut plant spread across Europe to Africa and Asia. It reached North America when the plant arrived with the slave ships.
The leading peanut producer is China, second place is India and third place in United States of America.

Peanuts can be used as food. The peanut is usually eaten whole, raw, roasted, as in oil, peanutbutter. The other parts of the plant can be used as animal-feed, shampoo, fertilizers.
However, in the USA the peanut is most produced into peanut butter.