BULLETIN 
/ OF THE 
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 
Vol. XL! New York, January, 1884. [No. I 
Notes on Tuckahoe. 
By Joseph Schkenk. 
(Plate xuir.) 
For the bibliography, habitat, general appearance and chemical 
composition of tuckahoe I refer the reader to some editorial remarks 
appended to a note in Vol, ix., page 125, of the Bulletin, and to an 
elaborate paper on ''Tuckahoe, or Indian Bread," by Professor J. 
Howard Gore, in the last Smithsonian Report (for 1881). In regard 
to the structure of this substance, however, I desire to discuss some 
ii^iportant points that have not, as yet, received due attention. 
The Bulletin (/. r.) says of tuckahoe: '* * * * none, large 
or small, presents a//y trace of plant structured (Italics mine.) In 
the Smithsonian Report, page 695, we find the following passage: 
There is not noticeable any membranous division between this 
bark [/. e.^ of tuckahoe] and the substance within, neither does the one 
merge into the other ^ but there is a marked distinction between them. 
Within we find a compact white mass without any apparent structure^ 
cither vascular or granular y (Italics mine.) 
A piece of tuckahoe about 8*^""- in diameter, which I have closely 
examined, and which, in most particulars, answers the general de- 
scription of the authors, has, on its rather smooth surface, numerous 
woody, fibrous, narrow shreds (from 2 to 5'""^" wide), which run 
longitudinally along the surface, somewhat like the strips on the 
trunk of the shag-bark hickory. They are firmly attached to the 
surface of the tuckahoe, above which they project only about 5™""' or 
even less. A very thin cross-section through one of these shreds, 
together with a small portion of the adjoining surface^ shows that 
the shred consists of coniferous wood-tissue, which is continued for 
a short distance into the body of the tuckahoe, below the general 
level of its surface. Fig. i of the accompanying plate, which repre- 
sents such a cross-section, shows that there is no distinct boundary 
line between the woody tissue and the inner, white substance, but 
that the one merges into the other. The cells on the inner, centri- 
petal^ side, are found in all stages of disintegration ; some have small 
<^Penings in one or several of their side walls, others have lost one or 
several of their walls entirely, while still others have left no other 
traces of their existence than isolated, triangular columns, each 
^larking the spot at which three contiguous cells have formerly met. 
Ihese characteristic cell-remains (in Fig. i near the lower margm) 
" ' from the circumference, im- 
tected them by using indol 
^llf^^^i^plnmcacid, that most beautiful reagent for lignin. 
Tse * ^*- ^''Sgl. Das Indol ein Rca-enz auf verholzle Zellniembranen. Flora, 
*^8». P- 545 and p. 561. 
---■.V. v-iidictcicrisuc cen-remams (,m rig 
J'"^^0"ietimes found quite a distance f: 
Dedded in the mass of tuckahoe. I de 
