72 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 



formed an important element in the fare of the Indians. In- 

 deed, even yet, in certain parts of the south it is roasted and 

 eaten with salt by the negroes, but whether it ever formed a 

 fundamental part of the food of the Indians would seem to 

 be open to question. 



Considerable confusion has existed among both botanists 

 and historians as to just what the Indians meant by tuckahoe. 

 Apparently the name was generic among the eastern Algon- 

 qins for round or roundish roots, and was also the name of an 

 Indian loaf of bread, because of its shape. The word is from 

 p'tukweoo, meaning "it is round" or "shaped like a ball." 

 Consequently numerous underground tubers have a1 one time 

 or another been referred to as tuckahoe, and it seems more 

 than likely thai those used exclusively for food were not 

 Pachyma cocas but any one of a number of other tubers or 

 roots belonging to the flowering plants. In support of this 

 view. Smith's "History of Virginia," published in 1819, 

 states: "The chief root they have for food is called tock- 

 awhoughe. It grows like a flag: in marshes. In one day a 

 savage will gather sufficient for a week. These roots arc much 

 of the greatness and taste of potatoes." Still earlier. Beverly, 

 in the "History and Present State of Virginia (1722), wrote: 

 "Out of the ground they |the Indians] dig earth nuts, wild 

 onions and a tuberous root tiny call tuckahoe, which, while 

 crude, is of a very hot and virulent quality. Hut they can 

 so manage it as in case of necessity to make bread of it. It 

 grows like a flag in the miry marshes, having roots of the 

 magnitude and taste of Irish potatoes." In Campbell's "His- 

 tory of Virginia," published in Philadelphia in 1781, we find: 

 "Of the spontaneous productions of the soil, the principal 

 article of sustenance was the tuckahoe root, of which one man 

 could gather enough in a day to supply him with bread for a 

 week. It was in the summer the principal article of diet 

 among the natives. There is another root found in Virginia 

 called tuckahoe and confounded with tin 1 flag-like root de- 

 scribed above and erroneously supposed by many to grow 

 without stem or leaf. It appears to be of the Convolvulus 

 species and is entirely unlike the root eaten by the Jamestown 

 settlers." The Swedish botanist, Kalm, a student of Linnaeus, 

 who visited this country about the middle of the eighteenth 

 century and whose travels were published in 1772, throws 

 some light on the true nature of this edible root referred toby 

 the previous historians. He says: "Tawko and Tawking are 

 the Indian names of another plant the root of which they eat. 

 Some of them call it Tnckah. It occurs in moist grounds and 



