538 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



S. laurifolia Linn. 



Southeastern United States. The young shoots are eaten as asparagus in the south- 

 em states.' The roots were used by the Indians to obtain a fecula for food.' 



S. pseudo-china Linn. 



New Jersey to Kentucky and southward. The Indians of Carolina boiled and ate 

 the root.' The Seminoles of Florida obtained their red meal from the root.* The yoimg 

 shoots are used as an asparagus in the southern states and the roots were used by the 

 Confederate soldiers in the manufacture of an extemporaneous beer.' 



S. rotundifolia Linn, green briar. 



Pennsylvania to Kentucky and southward. Griffith ' says the fecula obtained from 

 the root was employed by the Indians as a meal. 



S. tamnoides Linn. 



New Jersey, Virginia and southward. The fecula of the root is used as a meal by 

 the Indians.' 



Smymium olusatrum Linn. Umbelliferae. Alexanders, horse parsley. 



Europe and the adjoining portion of Asia; formerly much cultivated. Alexanders 

 was mentioned by Dioscorides,' and, in the time of Gerarde,' the root was sent to the 

 table raw as a salad herb. In the United States, it is mentioned by McMahon,'" 1806, 

 as used for culinary purposes as cardoon and blanched in like \ manner, but it does not 

 appear in his general list of kitchen-garden esculents. The young shoots and leaf-stalks 

 are the part eaten; they have, when raw, a rather agreeable taste, not very unlike that 

 of celery, though more pvmgent; they are likewise used to flavor soups and stews and are 

 still so employed in England by the coimtry people. The stalks are blanched in the 

 manner of celery." This vegetable was formerly much esteemed in Italy. 



The name alexanders is said to be a corruption of Olusatnmi, but Ray '^ says it is 

 called so either because it came from the Egyptian city of that name or it was so believed. 

 The Italian name macerone is believed by Ray to have been corruptly derived from 

 Macedonia but a more probable origin is from maceria, the Italian for wall, as Columella ^ 

 says, "Pastinato loco semine debet conseri maxime juxta maceriam." 



In this lunbellifer, as' De Candolle remarks, we can follow the plant from the begin- 



' Porcher, F. P. Res. So. Fields, Forests 616. 1869 

 'Griffith, W. Med. Bot. 660. 1847. 



Porcher, F. P. Res. So. Fields, Forests 617. 1869. 



Ibid. 



Porcher, F. P. Res. So. Fields, Forests 6j6. 1869. 

 Griffith, W. Med. Bot. 660. 1847. 



' Ibid. 



'Gerarde, J. Herb. loig. 1636. 

 ' Ibid. 



> McMahon, B. Amer. Card. Col. 198. 1806. 

 Johnson, C. P. Useful Pis. Gt. Brit. 124. 1862. 

 Ray Hist. PL 437. 1686. 

 " Columella lib. 11, c. 3. 



