334 



subject iu his Theatrum Botanieimi of 1640, for, as lie remarks 

 on p. 1382, (i there are divers sorte of rootes that are tailed 

 Potatoes with us ... . whereof all that are truly known to us 

 are expressed in iny former booke." 



The Popular Names fob Heliasthus Tubeeosus. 



In France the Jerusalem Artichoke is universally known as 

 Topinambour, a silly name which attached itself to the tubers 

 very soon after their introduction, for Lescarbot tells us that in 

 1617 they were cried by that name in the streets of Paris, to his 

 annoyance. The worst of this odd name is that it indicated and 

 tended to perpetuate the false supposition that the plant is a 

 native of Brazil, for it is the gallicised appellation of a Brazilian 

 tribe who were a source of interest and amusement to the Parisians 

 of the time. Jean de Lery, in his Histoire d'uu Voyage fait en 

 la Terre du Bresil, autrement dite Amerique (1578) says, at p. 58, 

 " Sur le rivage (au Cap de Frie) nous trouvames grand nombre 

 de Sauvn^es nonimes Toupinambanults, allien et confederez de 

 notre nation." Then in 1613 the Sieur de Pazilly on his return 

 from the island of Maragnon,* brought witli him six of these 

 Topinamboux, and on April 15th of that year exhibited them to 

 the Queen. f After two months three of them were dead, but 

 the others were baptized, King Louis XIII., himself only 

 twelve years old, standing sponsor, and then married to the 

 French wives who had been selected for them. + According to 

 Littre, Topinambour^ blancs is a mime given at Hayti and at the 

 Cape of Good Hope to the roots of Ahstroemeria (Bomarea) edalis. 

 Topinambour it^lianised into Topinambur and corrupted into 

 such forms as Topinabo, Tupinabo, Tapinabo and even Patinabo 

 and Taproe| is the usual market name for the tubers in Italy, 

 where however they are not in verv common use, and are rarely 

 cultivated in the south, although in some localities on clay soil 

 beyond Xnples they had become naturalised in the hedges 80 

 years ago. 



The vulgar English name, Jerusalem Artichoke, first occurs, 

 without comment, in the passage already quoted from Vernier's 

 Via Recta (1622). In 1629 Parkinson laugh* at the name, com- 

 plaining that "we in England, from some ignorant and idle head, 

 have called them Artichoke^ of Jerusalem, only because the root, 

 being bovled, is in taste like the bottom of an Artichoke head; 

 but they may most fitly be called Potatos of Canada. '* In 

 1633 Johnson in his edition of Gerarde's Herball, p. 752, -ays, 

 "one may well by the English name of this plant perceive that 

 those that vulgarly impose names upou planhs, have either little 

 judgment or knowledge of them; for this plant hath no similitude 



a 



* Maranh-.«o, close to the north coast of Brazil, about 2|° 8. by 44° W. 

 t The Queen Mother, Mary dei Medici. 



£ See Malherbe, Lettres, ed. Laiaume, III. p. 297, and the Mercure de France 

 for 1613, p. 175, quoted in Lulaune's note to p. 314. 



All these are given by Colla, Index nominum vernaculorum in vol. viii. 

 of his Herbarium Pedemontanurn (1837). 



|| See Tenore, Flora Napolltana III. p. 156, and Sylloge, p. 541. 



