162 Mr. G. Ord on the Natural Habitat of the Common Potato. 



tion in the island of Roanoke. But this expectation was not 

 reahzed in consequence of the hostihty of the natives and the 

 improvidence of the colonists themselves, who were reduced to 

 the verge of ruin, which was averted only by the arrival of Sir 

 Francis Drake, who, returning from a marauding expedition 

 against the Spanish settlements in the West Indies and on the 

 continent, offered to convey the disheartened colonists to England, 

 which offer they embraced ; and they arrived at Portsmouth on 

 the 28th of July 1586. 



Here then we read the epoch of the first introduction of the 

 potato into England. Was it Drake who brought it from the 

 Spanish settlements recently ravaged by him ? or ought we to 

 attribute the introduction of it to the colonists of Sir Richard 

 Greenville ? With respect to the former, it is now known that 

 he had invaded those countries where the potato was both wild 

 and cultivated ; and therefore it is no stretch of probability to 

 presume that it formed part of the natural curiosities which he 

 conveyed to England. Touching the colonists of Roanoke, let 

 us inquire into their knowledge of those plants which constituted 

 the food of the natives of the region explored by them. Thomas 

 Heriot, the surveyor of the colony, wrote an account of it on his 

 return to England. This is given in Hakluyt^s collection, pub- 

 lished in 1589. " Openauk/' says the writer, " are a kinde of 

 roots of rounde forme, som of the bignesse of walnuts, some far 

 greater, which are found in moist and marish grounds, growing 

 many together one by another in 7'opes, or as though they were 

 fastened with a string. Being boiled or sodden, they are very 

 good meat.^' In the edition of Hakluyt published in 1600, to 

 the foregoing is added : " Monardes calleth these roots beads or 

 Pater nosters of Santa Helena.^' 



This root, described, it should seem, with sufficient accuracy to 

 preclude doubt, has nevertheless been taken for the potato ; but 

 a little attention to the subject will not fail to convince the intel- 

 ligent botanist that it belongs to a different plant from the >S^o- 

 lanum in question. The potato is never found in moist and ma- 

 rish grounds ; nor do the tubers grow many together, one by an- 

 other in ropes J as though they were fastened with a string, or in 

 the form of a string of heads. Heriot's description of Openauk 

 can therefore only be applicable to the roots of a plant which 

 abounds from Canada to Florida in low watery grounds : this is 

 the Glycine apios of Linnaeus, the Apios tuberosa of Pursh, and 

 the Apios americana of Cornutus, who in his ' History of the 

 Plants of Canada ' gives a good figure of it, illustrating the pecu- 

 liar form and connexion of the tuberous roots. — Jac. Cornuti 

 Canadensium Plant. Historia, Paris, 1635, 4to. 



