128 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



young shoots, says Johnson,' were gathered formerly by the people on the southern coasts 

 of England and pickled as a substitute for samphire. 



Camassia esculenta Lindl. Liliaceae. common camass. kamosh. quamash. 



Northwestern America. The root forms the greater part of the vegetable food of the 

 Indians on the northwest coast of America and Vancouver Island and is called kamosh 

 or quamash. This bvilbous root is said to be of delicious flavor and highly nutritious, 

 but Lewis ^ says it causes bowel complaints if eaten in quantity. This plant covers many 

 plains and is dug by the women and stored for eating, roasted or boiled. The bulbs, when 

 boiled in water, yield a very good molasses, which is much prized and is used on festival 

 occasions by various tribes of Indians. In France, it is an inmate of the flower garden.' 



Camelina sativa Crantz. Cruciferae. false flax, gold-of-pleasure. oil-seed plant. 



SIBERIAN OIL-SEED. 



Europe and temperate Asia. This plant occurs in northeastern America as a noxious 

 weed in flax fields, having been introduced from Europe. It was regularly cviltivated in 

 the mediaeval ages in Germany and Russia * and is now ctdtivated in Flanders. The 

 stem yields a fiber, but the stalks seem to be used only in broom making. The seeds 

 yield an oil which is used for ciilinary and other purposes.* In 1854, the seeds of this plant 

 were distributed from the United States Patent Office. It was called in Britain gold-of- 

 pleasure even in the time of Gerarde. The seeds are sometimes imported into England 

 Tmder the name dodder seed, but they have no relation to the true dodder which is a far 

 different plant. 



Camellia sasanqua Thunb. Ternstroemiaceae. tea-oil plant. 



Japan and China. This plant was introduced from China to England in 181 1. It 

 yields a nut from which an oil is expressed in China, equal, it is said, to olive oil. In Japan 

 the dried leaves are mixed with tea to give it a grateful odor.* 



C. thea Link. tea. 



China. This is the species to which the cultivated varieties of tea are all referred. 

 In its various forms it is now found in China and Japan, in the mountains that separate 

 China from the Burmese territories, especially in upper Assam, in Nepal, in the islands 

 of Bourbon, Java, St. Helena and Madeira, in Brazil and experimentally in the United 

 States. The first mention of tea seems to have been by Giovanni Pietro Maffei in his 

 Historiae Indicae, 1589, from which it appears that it was then called by the Chinese ckia. 

 Giovanni Botero in his Delia Cause della grandezza. . . .della citta, 1589, says the Chinese 

 have an herb from which they extract a delicate juice, which they use instead of wine. 

 In 1615, an Englishman in Japan, in the employment of the East India Company, 



'Johnson, C. P. Useful Pis. Gt.Brit. 181. ' 1862. {Convolvulus soldanella) 

 'Pursh, F. Fi. Amer. Seplent. 1:226, 227. 1814. {Phalangium bulbosum) 

 Vilmorin W. P/. Ter. 204. 1870. 3rd Ed. 

 * Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 353. 1879. 

 ' Don, G. Hist. Dichl. Pis. 1:214. 1831. 

 Don, G. Hist. Dichl. Pis. 1:579. 1 83 1. 



