514 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



like the settlers of New Enuland, were obliged to resort to the roots 

 when provisions were scarce. It is related that in the Avinter of 1613 

 Pere Biarcl, with two companions, went in search of them in the 

 Avoods near Port Royal. In the narrative it is stated that the roots 

 were quite abundant in some localities, yet scarcely a patch could be 

 found where the savages had not already been digging them, so that 

 most of those they got were small, " and it was necessary to work 

 pretty hard to gather enough for a day's living," ^^ 



Glycine apios of Linnaeus, or Apios tuherosa^ as it was called by 

 Moench, is a twining, beanlike plant with alternate pinnately com- 

 pound leaves composed of five to seven leaflets and dense racemes of 

 small purplish brown papilionaceous floAvers having a broad reflexed 

 standard and an incurved keel. The pod is a linear, slightly curved, 

 many-seeded legume. The tubers, aptly described by Heriot in 1588, 

 " are a kind of roots of round forme, some of the bignes of Avalnuts, 

 some far greater, Avhich are found in moist and marish grounds grow- 

 ing many together one hy another in ropes, or as thogh they were 

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

 meate." ^^ 



In the accompanying illustrations, Plate 3 is the photograph of 

 two flowering branches twining about a grapevine (natural size). 

 It was collected in a '* marish " thicket in Virginia, July 31, 1923, by 

 Mr. O. M. Freeman, of the Bureau of Plant Industry. Plate 4 is 

 a clump of rootstocks from a single plant, Avith the tuberous swell- 

 ings " groAving one by another in ropes, or as though they were fas- 

 tened together Avith a string." It Avas collected in Takoma Park, 

 near Washington, D. C, November 13, 1915, by Mr. J. B. Norton. 



The confusion between the openauk of Virginia and the papas, or 

 Solanum tuho^osiwi of Peru can be traced to Clusius, Avho did not 

 suggest that they Avere identical, but, in a description of the potato, 

 published in his History of Rare Plants, after calling attention to 

 the tubers called " papas," observed by Pedro de Cieza de Leon at 

 Quito, he adds that those roots Avhich the Virginians called " Open- 

 auk" were apparently not very unlike them.^* 



Clusius was referred to by Gerard as though he Avcrc responsible 

 for identifying the Peruvian papas with the Virginian openaAvk. So 



i^Biard, Rev. Pierre. Relation de la Nouvelle France, p. 213. 1016. 



"See "A briofe and true report of the new found land of Virginia; of the commodities 

 there found and to be raysod, as well merchantable, as others for victuall, building and 

 other necessarie uses for those that arc and shall be planters there ; and of the nature 

 and manners of the naturall inhabitants. Discovered by the English Colony there seated 

 by Sir Richard Grenville Knight in the year ir>S5 .... at the special cliarge and 

 direction of the Honorable Sir Walter Raleigh Knight, etc. . . . Directed to the 

 Adventurers, Favourers, and Wohvillers of the action, for the inhabiting and planting 

 there. By Thomas Heriot, servant of the above-named Sir Walter, a member of the 

 Colony, and there employed in discovering. Imprinted in London, 1588." 



" " Quibus non valde absimlles videntur oae radices, quas A'irginienses Oponawk noml- 

 nant." Oaroli Clusii, Plantarum Ilistorla liber quartus, p. LXXX. 1601. 



