 Buckwheat is referred to as a pseudocereal because its seeds' culinary use is the same as cereals', owing to their composition of complex carbohydrates.The name "buckwheat" or "beech wheat" comes from its triangular seeds, which resemble the much larger seeds of the beech nut from the beech tree, and the fact that it is used like wheat.The word may be a translation of Middle Dutch "boecweite"