NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF HELIANTHUS TUBE- 
ROSUS, THE SO-CALLED JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE. 
. Unper this heading the botanical editor of the Journal} 
proposes to offer a few explanatory remarks, introductory to 
the subjoined letter which he received from Mr. Trumbull in 
answer to a recent inquiry. 
Linneus, in the “Species Plantarum,” gave to Helianthus 
tuberosus the “habitat in Brasilia.” In his earlier “* Hortus 
Cliffortianus” the habitat assigned was “ Canada.” M. Al- 
phonse De Candolle, in his “‘Géographie Botanique,” ii. 824 
(1855), refers to this as “decidedly an error, at least as to 
Canada properly so called,” assigns good reasons for the opin- 
ion that it did not come from Brazil, nor from Peru (to which 
the name under which it appeared in cultivation in the Far- 
nese garden seemed to refer), but in all probability from 
Mexico or the United States. He adds that Humboldt did 
not meet with it in any of the Spanish colonies. 
About this time I received from my friend and correspon- 
dent, the late Dr. Short of Kentucky, some long and narrow 
tubers of Helianthus doronicoides, Lam., with the statement 
that he and some of his neighbors found them good food for 
hogs, and, if I rightly remember, had planted them for that 
purpose. They were planted here in the Botanic Garden ; 
after two or three years it was found that some of the tubers 
produced were thicker and shorter ; some of these were cooked 
along with Jerusalem artichokes, and found to resemble them 
in flavor, although coarser. Consequently, in the second 
edition of my “ Manual of the Botany of the Northern United 
States” (1856), it is stated that H. doronicoides is most 
probably the original of H. tuberosus. This opinion was 
1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xiii. 347. (1877.) 
