issouri Botanical 

 Garden Bulletin 



Vol. IX St. Louis, Mo., June, 1921 No. 6 



INDIAN BREAD OR TUCKAHOE 



There was recently sent to the Garden a specimen of the 

 so-called "Tuckahoe" or "Indian Bread," collected hy Mr. 

 Z. T. Daniel, near Leslie, Arkansas. In view of the fact that 

 such specimens arc not infrequently found, particularly in the 

 southwest, and always arouse considerable curiosity as to their 

 exact nature, it is believed that a popular account of this plant 

 product may be of interest to renders of the Bulletin. 



This tuber-like structure grows underground and is met 

 with only by accident, being frequently thrown up by the 

 plow or uncovered in making ditches or similar excavations. 

 When first taken from the earth it is soft enough to cut with 

 a knife, but soon hardens until it is of an extremely solid and 

 firm consistency. It varies greatly in both size and shape, 

 sometimes being oblong as in the illustration (pi. 20), but it 

 may be globose and as large as a man's head. There is at no 

 time any external indication of the existence of the tuber be- 

 neath the ground, although it is reported that hogs are fond 

 of it and apparently are able to detect it from its odor, rooting 

 it up as they do truffles. The formation has always been a 

 puzzle to botanists, even its origin being a matter of conjec- 

 ture. Although originally it was supposed to be the under- 

 ground part of some tuber-forming plant like the bindweed, 

 tuckahoe is now universally regarded as being a true fungus 

 to which the name Pachyma cocos has been given. In the 

 absence of any fruiting bodies or any indication as to its pos- 

 sible affinities with known forms, the name of course means 

 little or nothing. While tuckahoe is obviously a vegetative 

 mass of fungous threads, which has assumed the resting con- 

 dition known as a sclerotium, this sclerotial stage is found in 

 a variety of fungous growths and throws 710 light whatsoever 

 upon the possible systematic position of the plant. Botan- 

 ically, therefore, these underground fungous masses are of 

 much interest, since they still remain an unsolved problem. 

 Popularly, the chief interest lies in the belief that tuckahoe 



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