STURTEVANT S NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 55 



of bread, and that in 1749 some of the English ate them instead of potatoes. Winslow ' 

 says that the Pilgrims, ditring their first winter, " were enforced to live on ground nuts." 

 At Port Royal, in 1613, Biencourt ^ and his followers used to scatter about the woods 

 and shores digging ground nuts. In France, the plant is grown in the flower garden.' 



Apium graveolens Linn. Umbelliferae. ache, celery, smallage. 



A plant of marshy places whose habitat extends from Sweden southward to Algeria, 

 Egypt, Abyssinia and in Asia even to the Caucasus, Baluchistan and the mountains of 

 British India * and has been found in Tierra del Fuego,^' ^ in California ' and in New 

 Zealand. Celery is supposed to be the selinon of the Odyssey, the selinon heleion of Hippo- 

 crates, the eleioselinon of Theophrastus and Dioscorides and the helioselinon of Pliny 

 and Palladius. It does not seem to have been cultivated, although by some commen- 

 tators the plant known as smallage has a wild and a cultivated sort. Nor is there one 

 clear statement that this smallage was used as food, for sativus means simply planted as 

 distinguished from growing wild, and we may suppose that this Apium, if smallage was 

 meant, was planted for medicinal use. Targioni-Tozzetti * says this Apium was con- 

 sidered by the ancients rather as a fimereal or ill-omened plant than as an article of food, 

 and that by early modem writers it is mentioned only as a medicinal plant. This seems 

 true, for Fuchsius, 1542, does not speak of its being cultivated and implies a medicinal 

 use alone, as did Walafridus Strabo in the ninth century; Tragus, 1552; Pinaeus, 1561; 

 Pena and Lobel, i^yo, and Rtiellitis' Dioscorides, 1529. Camerarius' Epitome of Matthiolus, 

 1586, says planted also in gardens; and Dodonaeus, in his Pemptades, 1616, speaks of 

 the wild plant being transferred to gardens but distinctly says not for food use. Accord- 

 ing to Targioni-Tozzetti,' Alamanni, in the sixteenth century, speaks of it, but at the 

 same time praises Alexanders for its sweet roots as an article of food. Bauhin's names, 

 1623, Apium paltistre and Apium officinarum, indicate medicinal rather than food use, 

 and J. Bauhin's name, Apium vulgare ingratus, does not promise much satisfaction in the 

 eating. According to Bretschneider,'" celery, probably smallage, can be identified in the 

 Chinese work of Kia Sz'mu, the fifth century A. D., and is described as a cultivated plant 

 in the Nung Cheng Ts'nan Shu, 1640. We have mention of a cultivated variety in France 

 by Olivier de Serres, 1623," and in England the seed was sold in 1726 for planting for the 

 use of the plant in soups and broths;'^ and Miller i' says, 1722, that smallage is one of the 



' Young, A. Chron.Pilgr.32g. 1841. 



Parkman, F. Pion. France ioi. 1894. 



Vilmorin Fl. PI. Ter. 105. 1870. 3rd Ed. 



De CandoUe, A. Orig. Cult. Pis. 71. 1885. 



Ross, J. C. Voy. Antarct. Reg. 2: 2()8. 1847. {A. antarticum) 



Cook Foy. 3:198. 1773. 



' Nuttall Jour. Acad. Phila. 1:183. New ser. 



Targioni-Tozzetti Journ. Horl. Soc. Lond. 9: 144. 1855. 



Ibid. 



Bretschneider, E. Bot. Sin. 78. 1882. 

 " Heuze Pis. Aliment. 1:5. 1873. 

 Townsend Seedsman 37. 1726. 

 " Miller Bot. Offic. 1722. 



