ROOTS AND TUBERS. 7 



of the parsnip. Dioscorides says the root is "white, sweet, and 

 edible." Matthiolus, in his Commentary on Dioscorides, figures it as 

 the wild parsnip, called Pa-stinaca erratica. It was called " Baucia 

 by the herbalists of the sixteenth century. 



There are several vocabularies of plants recorded in the Middle 

 Ages,* in which the plants under consideration occur. Thus, Pastinaca 

 was called " Feldmora," and Cariota was " Waldmora " in the tenth 

 century. These Anglo-Saxon words mean " plain or field root." In 

 the fourteenth century Daucus referred to D. creticus, but it was 

 also a synonym for Pastinaca: Anglice, skirwhite (15th century). 

 W. Turner, in his book called " The Names of Herbes " (1548), thus 

 writes: " Pastinaca is called in Greek Staphilinos, in englishe a Carot, 

 in duche, pasteney, in frenche, cariottes. Carettes growe in al countries 

 in plentie." 



Under the name Sisaron, he writes, "Sisaron suie siser, is called 

 in Englishe a Persnepe. . . . Fuchsius rekoneth that our skyrwort or 

 skywrit is a kind of siser. Persenepes and skyrwortes are commune in 

 Englande. " 



Daucus he regards as " Pastinaca sylvestris, in english wild carot." 



With regard to Daucus , it occurs as Daucos (Greek) in Theophrastus 

 (4th century B.C.) and Daucus in Pliny. Both he and Dioscorides 

 refer to a medicinal plant in Crete, but not the true carrot. Theo- 

 phrastus, however, has D. niger, which has been recognized as 

 the carrot by sixteenth-century writers, and known to herbalists as 



D. officinarum or Carotta. Several writers identify it as having white 

 flowers with a central purple one in the umbel, as is almost always 

 the case, while the flowers of the parsnip are yellow. 



Dodoens, in his " History of Plants," consisting of plates (1559), 

 figures Staphylinus sylvestris, the wild carrot, Elaphoboscum and 



E. sylvestre as the wild parsnip, called Baucia or skirwit in the shops. 

 By the end of the sixteenth century these plants became quite dis- 

 tinct, for Gerard, in his " Herball " (1597), describes them as Pastinaca 

 latifolia, sativa, et sylvestris, the garden and wild parsnip. Pastinaca 

 tenuifolia, sativa et sylvestris, the yellow carrot, cultivated and wild. 



It appears to have been the physician Galen (2nd century A.D.) 

 who added the name Daucus to distinguish the carrot, Daucus 

 Pastinaca. Hence Daucus came to be the officinal name of herbalists 

 in the sixteenth century, and finally was adopted with Carota by Lin- 

 na3us in the eighteenth century, by which name it is now known. As 

 stated above, the word Carota appears to have been first used by Apicius 

 Ccelius, a writer on cookery, about 230 A.D. 



Experiments have been made by M. Vilmorin in 1832, M. Languet 

 de Sivry in 1840, and Professor Jas. Buckman in 1848, proving that the 

 culinary carrot is easily obtainable from the wild species by cultivation 

 and selection. The following was the procedure : In 1833 M. Vilmorin 

 noticed that some seedlings were later than others in coming into 



* Enalish Plant Names, by T. Earle. 



