STURTEVANT S NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 445 



inducing dysentery and it, therefore, was prohibited by Alexander.* It is called ta nyen in 

 Burma, where the natives are extravagantly fond of the seeds as a condiment to preserve 

 fish, notwithstanding sometimes disastrous consequences.^ 



P. dulce Benth. 



American tropics. The sweet pulp of the pod is wholesome.' The plant is extensively 

 cultivated in India as a hedge plant. In Mexico, it is called guamuchil, and the fruit is 

 boiled and eaten. In Manila, the species is grown for its fruit, which is eaten. The 

 sweet, firm pulp in the curiously twisted pods is eaten.* 



P. lobatum Benth. 



A large tree of Burma. The seeds are eaten as a condiment.^ 



P. saman Benth. rain tree, saman. zamang. 



Tropical America. This is a Mexican tree yielding edible pods.' 



P. imguis-cati Benth. cat's claw. 



Mexico and the West Indies. The pulp about the seed is eaten by the natives.'' In 

 the West Indies it is eaten by the negroes.' 



Plantago coronopus Linn. Plantagineae. buckshorn plantain, star-of-the-earth. 

 Mediterranean countries and Middle Europe. The leaves are used in France as 

 a salad.' This species is mentioned as grown in gardens by Camerarius,'" 1586, and by 

 many of the other botanists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; it is described 

 by Ray" in 1686 as cultivated in England and as not differing from the wild plant 

 except in size and in the other accidents of culture. Townsend,'^ 1726, says the seed 

 is now " in all the Seedsmen's Bills, tho' it is seldom in the Gardens." It is described 

 and figured by Vilmorin " among French vegetables. During the three hundred years 

 in which we find it pictured, we see no evidence of any essential changes produced by 

 cultivation. 



P. major Linn, cart-track plant, plantain. 



Europe, Asia and North America. In China, this plant was formerly eaten as a 

 potherb.'* 



' Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 331. 1879. {Inga bigemin) 



' Ibid. 



Mueller, F. Sel. Ph. 27. 1891. 



Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 650. 1879. (Inga didcis) 



' Brandis, D. Forest Fl. 575. 1876. 



Mueller, F. Sel. Pis. 28. 1891. 



' Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 650. 1879. (Inga saman) 



Don, G. Hist. Dichl. Pis. 2:391. 1832. 



Bon Jard. 478. 1882. 



'" Camerarius Epit. 276. 1586. 



" Ray Hist. PI. 879. 1686. 



" Townsend Seedsman 18. 1726. 



"VWmoTn Les Pis. Potag. 169. 1883. 



" Smith, F. P. Contrib. Mat. Med. of China 172. 1871. 



