158 Mr. G. Ord on the Natural Habitat of the Common Potato, 



The sweet potato is clearly indicated in the enumeration of the 

 productions of Darien : " They dygge also owte of the ground 

 certeyne rootes growynge of themselves, whiche they caull be- 

 tateSf much lyke unto the navie rootes of Mylayne, or the greate 

 puffes or musheroms of the earth. Howe soo ever they bee dressed, 

 eyther fryed or sodde, they gyve place to noo such kynde of meate 

 in pleasant tenderness. The skyn is sumwhat towgher then 

 eyther of navies or mussheroms, and of earthy coloure, but the 

 inner meate thereof is verye whyte. These are nooryshed in 

 gardens, as we sayde of jucca in the first Deccade. They are also 

 eaten rawe, and have the taste of rawe chestnuttes^ but are sum- 

 what sweeter.-'"' — Second Decade, b. ix. p. 81. 



As the sweet potato is little known in Great Britain, except 

 among botanists, it may not be superfluous to remark, that its 

 flavour more resembles that of the chestnut than any other escu- 

 lent. When Humboldt published his essay on the Geographical 

 Distribution of Plants (De Distributione Geographica Plantarum, 

 Paris, 1817, in 8vo) he was of opinion that the native country of 

 the common potato had not been ascertained ; as, after frequent 

 inquiries, he could meet with no one who had observed it in a 

 wild state in the localities wherein preceding botanists had indi- 

 cated it. It is known, says this celebrated traveller, at Quito in 

 the Cordelliers, only in the domestic state as in Europe. Hum* 

 boldt was, doubtless, aware that the tuberculous root mentioned, 

 under the name of papas, by Pierre Crcca, in his ^ Chronicle of 

 Peru,^ published at Seville in the year 1583, was the potato ; but 

 as it had been given as a product of cultivation, he was not dis- 

 posed to admit it as indigenous to the country. The author of 

 the article Morella in the ' Dictionary of the Natural Sciences,^ 

 published at Paris in 1824, thus speaks of the potato : "Europe 

 is indebted to South ximerica for this precious plant, which was 

 cultivated into this hemisphere. This inestimable plant, says 

 M. de Humboldt, this plant on which the population of the most 

 sterile countries of Europe depend, in a great measure, for their 

 subsistence, presents the same phsenomenon as the banana, the 

 maize and the wheat : the localities wherein it is indigenous are 

 unknown. The diligent researches of this learned naturalist, in 

 the country where the potato was supposed to be a native, did 

 not enable him to ascertain that any one had fovmd it in a wild 

 state. But M. de Humboldt was misled on this subject. Dom- 

 bey, who, before him, had travelled into Peru, had seen the po- 

 tato growing without cultivation in the Cordelliers ; and Joseph 

 Pavon subsequently met with it in a wild state near Lima. The 

 potato is also indigenous in the forests of Santa Fe de Bagota.^^ 



In the ' Dictionnaire Universel de Matiere Medicale,^ Paris, 

 1834, it is asserted that the potato had been found growing 



