324 



been grown singly in a sunny climate* and possibly raised from 

 seed. His was tlie variety with red-skinned tubers, " foris 

 rufeseens/' now less esteemed by growers than the tubers with 

 white skins. 



In. Aldini's account of the Farnese garden, Exactissima 

 descriytio rar. quorundam plant, quae continentur llomae in 

 Horto Favnesiano (1625), t p. 91, the culinary merits of the tubers 

 are discussed, but notliing is added to the description in the 

 Ecpbrasis, and no light is thrown on their introduction. Not 

 only is no Italian vernacular name quoted, but girasole occurs on 

 p. 87 in the totally different sense of '' Ricinus Aniericanus" 

 To the fact that Colonna was the first botanist to speak of the 

 Jerusalem artichoke must be attributed the false opinion that the 

 tubers were distributed throughout Europe from the Farnese 

 garden. Of this there is not a tittle of evidence ; on the contrary, 

 we shall find that by 1616 they were already well-known in Paris, 

 and had probablv been introduced there some nine years earlier. 



"M. E." writing in the Gardeners' Chronicle of May 4th, 1918, 

 says, " it seems certain that the Jerusalem artichoke was not 

 introduced into Italy through France, but direct from America." 

 I cannot understand how he arrives at such certainty. There is 

 no record of any Italian visit to the coasts of the northern United 

 States or New Brunswick in the early years of the seventeenth 

 century, and, as already explained, the roots cannot have come 

 from more southern regions of America. "We have seen that 

 Caspar Bauhin at Bale received a dried specimen, of course 

 without tubers, from one of the Venetian Contarini not later than 

 1620; but that is too late to throw any light on the original 

 source of dispersion. The critical years are 1605-1612, a time 

 when Rome was in constant communication both with France and 

 with the Low Countries, from either of which the cardinal may 

 easily have received the plant without the fact being known to 

 Colonna, who was so hopelessly wrong as to its ultimate origin. 



It is now time to trace the first discover v of these tubers, and 

 the real channel of their introduction into Europe. 



Samuel Champlain, of Brouage in Saintonge (DepL Charente 

 Tuferieure), not far from Eochelie, Bailed from Honfleur on March 

 15th, 1603, on his first voyage to Canada, under the command 

 of Pont Grave of St. Malp, and disembarked on his return on 

 September 20th of the same year. He does not appear to have 

 noticed the Jerusalem artichoke on this occasion, for in the 

 account of his journey, probably published early in 1604+ under 



* See below what van Ravelinghen and Lauremberg say as to the need of 

 dry heat for it to flower freely. 



t The authorship of this work is a bibliographical puzzle. Tt lias been 

 supposed to have really been written by Pietro Oa«telli. The question is too 



complicated to iro into here, bnt it may be pointed out that the statements 



on the subject in both edition's of Pritzel's Thesiurus are inconsistent and 

 inaccurate. 



I This very rare little book is not dated, but contains a licence to print, 

 dated 15th November. 1603. The British Museum catalogue gives the date 

 of publication as 1603, but it seems improbable that it could have been 

 issued before the end of that year. Ternaux, B'bliotheque Americaine, p. 36 

 (1837) assigns it to 1604. The year 1606 mentioned in Brunet's Nouvelles 

 Recherches Bibliographiques i. p 306 (1884) is obviously a slip, and is not 

 repeated in that author's Manuel du Libraire. 



