106 
canoe. In this manner these patient females will remain in the 
water for several hours, even in the depth of winter.” 
A form with very large smooth leaves, about as wide as long, 
from Central to Southern California, thought by Parish to be the 
introduced S. Sinensis Sims, is cultivated by the Chinese in Cali- 
fornia for its tubers. 
We next come to the roots furnished by the Arum Family 
(AraAcgakE). All the plants of this order are impregnated with an 
intensely acrid and pungent principle. The pangs of hunger 
must indeed have been keen which drove the natives to experi- 
ment with them, but the happy discovery was made that drying 
and cooking dissipated this noxious acridity and that the roots 
contained a large proportion of nutritious starchy food. Avzsaema 
triphyllum (L.) Torr., the Indian Turnip of our woods, has a bulbous 
rounded or flattened root, I to 2 inches in diameter, which, ac- 
cording to G. H. Harris, is the “« Hopnis”’ of the Seneca Indians 
and once their habitual bread-root. Peltandra Virginica (L.) Kunth, 
the Arrow Arum, has a short, very thick, deep-seated rootstock, 
sometimes 6 inches in diameter and weighing 5 or 6 tbs., the 
«“ Tawho,” “ Tuckah” or “ Tuckaho”’ of the natives, and, accord- 
ing to Capt. J. Smith, the root chiefly used for food by the Vir- 
ginia Indians. “In one day,” says Peter Kalm, “a savage will 
gather enough for a week. . Unless carefully roasted it will 
prickle the throat extremely, but he so manages it in case of ne- 
cessity as to make bread of it.” He adds that hogs are very 
greedy of the roots and grow fat upon them. Bartram told him 
that the savages also boiled the spadix with the berries and de- 
voured them as a great dainty. According to Rafinesque the 
seeds may be used as a substitute for pepper. The other species, 
P. sagittaefolia (Michx.) Morong, has somewhat similar roots. 
The roots of Calla palustris or Water Arum, Orontium aquati- 
cum ot Golden Club, and even of Spathyema foetida (L.) Raf., our 
Polecat Weed, were also used but to a lesser extent. Colocasia 
antiquorum Schott and C. esculenta Schott were introduced into 
the Southern States at a very early date, but probably not before 
the advent of the whites. 
_ Imay mention here, not as a root, but as a root growth, the 
true “ Tuckahoe” or “Indian Bread” of the Southern States, 2 
