EDIBLE TUBERS, BULBS OR ROOTS 



ginica, [L] Kunth, and perhaps the nearly related 

 species P. alba, Kaf., of the Southern States, a plant 

 with large, arrow-shaped leaves and inconspicuous 

 flowers enveloped in a green spathe. Peltandra Vir- 

 ginica is common in shallow waters of the Atlantic 

 seaboard from Canada to Florida. I have never 

 dug up the rootstock, about which I find the recorded 

 descriptions differ. Havard, in his "Food Plants 

 of the North American Indians, ' ' describes it, doubt- 

 less rightly, as short, deep-seated, sometimes six 

 inches in diameter and weighing five or six pounds. 

 As in the case of all aroids, the raw flesh of the root- 

 stock is exceedingly acrid, indeed poisonous; but 

 when dried and thoroughly cooked, it is found to have 

 lost this objectionable principle, and in this state is 

 a starchy food of proved nutrition. I think it is this 

 plant that is meant in Purchases Pilgrimage, 

 where in the delicious English of the day record is 

 made of the Virginians' ' t Tockawhough ... of the 

 greatness and taste of a potato, which passeth a fiery 

 purgation before they may eate it, being poison 

 whiles it is raw. ' ' The approved treatment appears 

 to have been to steam it in the aboriginal heated pit, 

 covered over with earth and left undisturbed for a 

 day or two. Similarly the familiar Jack-in-the-Pul- 

 pit (Arisaema triphyllum, Torr.), whose small, 



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