128 • Journal of the Mitchell Society [September 



from ptiicqui or ptuckqiien which signifies that which is made round 

 or rounded as a loaf or cake. The name, varied by the dialects of 

 the several tribes, applied to all esculent bulbous roots. These state- 

 ments are confirmed by such historians as Smith (16), Beverley (3), 

 Campbell, (4) and Kalm (9), wdio record such tribal names as 

 tawkee, petukqui, pittikwow, 'tuquauh, petukuineg, puttuckqunnege, 

 tockawhoughe, tawko, tuckah, and tawkin. Campbell says, "The 

 tockawhoughe was in summer the principal article of diet among the 

 natives. It grows in the marshes like a flag and resembles somewhat a 

 potato in size and flavor. Raw, it is no better than poison so that the 

 Indians are accustomed to roast it and eat it mixed with sorrel and 

 corn meal. There is another root found in Virginia called tuckahoe 

 and confounded wdth the flag-like root described above and errone- 

 ously supposed by many to grow without stem or leaf. It appears 

 to be of the convolvulvus species^ and is entirely unlike the root 

 eaten by the Jamestown settlers." No less an authority than the 

 Swedish botanist Kalm, whose travels in America shortly before the 

 Revolutionary War are recounted in two volumes published in 1772, 

 states that the word tawko referred to the Virginia wake robin, Arum 

 virginicum, and tawkee to golden club, Orontium aquaticiim. While 

 the Indians no doubt included under the name tuckahoe the tubers 

 and roots of a number of flowering plants as well as Pachyma Cocos, 

 botanists have come to apply this designation exclusively to tuberous 

 fungous masses. 



The first botanical description of this tuckahoe was made by Clay- 

 ton (5) in 1762 in his Flora Virginica, published by Grovinius. He 

 was under the impression that the plant was one of the puffballs 

 and accordingly sent specimens to Grovinius under the name Lyco- 

 perdon solidum. Next it is supposed by some to have been described 

 by Walter (18) in 1788 in his Flora Caroliniana under the name 

 Lycoperdon cervinum. Later, it was well described by Schweinitz 

 (15) in 1822 as Sclerotiiim Cocos. The next year Fries (6) pub- 

 lished it as Pachyma Cocos, using Schweinitz 's description. The ob- 

 servations of MacBride (11) of South Carolina on this fungus were 

 published in 1817 and he gave to it the name Sclerotlum giganteum. 



Later a number of other descriptive accounts were published, as 

 will be indicated subsequently, the most comprehensive of which is 



'This is very probably the wild potato vine, I/ioyiiora pandurala. 



