510 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



dians call it 'Pappus,' " an assertion which would load one to believe 

 that it was thus called by the Indians of Virginia. In reality the 

 name "papas" w'as its vernacular name not in Vir<^inia, but in 



Fi(3. 1. — Tli(! fir.st publishod illtistral imi nt' Sutniiuin iiihnosnm. 'J'liis app.^arcd 

 In Gerard's Herbal in 151)7 unUur the misleading name liatala viroiniana. 

 Nine years earlier, Clusius, to whom Gerard rel'ers, liad received a drawing 

 of this species from Philip de Sivry under the name Papas peruanum 



Peru, which, as we shall see later, was its origintxl habitat. As a 

 matter of fact, the potato did not reach Virj^inia for more than 

 120 years after the publication of Gerard's Herbal. It must have 

 been Gerard's statement which led Thomas Jefferson to declare 



