232 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



product is a highly narcotic drink producing a stupefying effect which it is not easy to 

 temove. The Mohaves will often drink this nauseating liqviid, as they are fond of any 

 kind of intoxication.* 



D. sanguines Ruiz & Pav. 



South America. The Peruvians prepare an intoxicating beverage from the seeds, 

 which induces stupefaction and furious delirium if partaken of in large quantities.' The 

 Arabs of central Africa are said by Burton ' to dry the leaves, the flowers and the rind 

 of the rootlets, the latter being considered the strongest preparation, and smoke them 

 in a common bowl or in a waterpipe. It is esteemed by them a sovereign remedy for 

 asthma and influenza. 



Daucus carota Linn. Umbelliferae. carrot. 



Europe and the adjoining portions of Asia and introduced in North and South America, 

 China and Cochin China. The root, says Don,^ is slender, aromatic and sweetish. The 

 roots are employed in the Hebrides as an article of food, being eaten raw, and are collected 

 by the young women for distribution as dainties among their acquaintances on Simdays 

 and at their dances. This wild plant is the original of the cultivated carrot, for, by culti- 

 vation and selection, Vihnorin-Andrieux obtained in the space of three years roots as 

 fleshy and as large as those of the garden carrot from the thin, wiry roots of the wild species. 

 Carrots are now cultivated throughout Eiu'ope and in Paris are a most popular vegetable. 

 In some regions, sugar has been made from them but its manufacture was not found profit- 

 able. In Germany, a substitute for coffee has been made of carrots chopped up into small 

 pieces and browned.' In Sweden, carrots grow as high as latitude 66 to 67 north. In 

 Asia, the carrots of the Mahratta and Mysore countries are considered to be of especially 

 fine quality. 



The carrot and the parsnip, if known to them, seem to have been confoimded in the 

 description by the ancients, and we find little evidence that the cultivated carrot was 

 known to the Greek writers, to whom the wild carrot was certainly known. ^ The ancient 

 writers usimlly gave prominence to the medical efficacy of herbs; and if our supposition 

 is correct that their carrots were of the wild form, we have evidence of the existence of 

 the yellow and red roots in nature, the prototypes of these colors now found in oiu- culti- 

 vated varieties. Pliny ' says: " They ctiltivate a plant in Syria like staphylinos, the 

 wild carrot, which some call gingidium, yet more slender and more bitter, and of the same 

 properties, which is eaten cooked or raw, and is of great service as a stomachic; also a fourth 

 kind, resembling a pastinac asomewhat, called by us Gallicam, but by the Greeks daucon." 

 This comparison with a parsnip and also the name is suggestive of the cultivated carrot. 

 Galen, a Greek physician of the second century, implies cultivation of the carrot when he 



'U. S. D. A. Rpt. 423. 1870. 



2 Masters, M. T. Treas. Bot. 1:386. 1870. 



' Ibid. 



*Don, G. Hist. Dichl. Pis. 3:354. 1834. 



'Johnson, C. P. Useful Pis. Gt. Brit. 120. 1862. 



' Theophrastus itist. PL Bodaeus Ed. 11 19, H22. 1644. 



' Pliny lib. 20, c. 16; lib. 19, c. 27. 



