sturtevant's notes on edible plants 563 



is swept clean and a cotton cloth spread under the branches. The trees are then shaken, 

 the manna collected and made into cakes with sugar or honey and flour. Sweet almonds 

 are sometimes added to the sweetmeat before it is baked. 



Tamus communis Linn. Dioscoreaceae. black bryony, mandrake. 



Europe, Persia and north Africa. Dioscorides says the yoimg shoots were eaten, 

 and the young shoots are now cooked and eaten in Cyprus.' Gerarde ^ says " they are 

 served at Ihen's tables also in our age in Tuscania; others report the like also to be done 

 in Andalusia." The young suckers, in which the acrid principle is not much developed, 

 are eaten as asparagus, as Lindley' says, after careful boiling and changing the water. 

 In France, black bryony is grown in the flower gardens.* 



Tanacetum vulgare Linn. Compositae. tansy. 



A strong-scented plant of Europe and Asia; now naturalized in the United Sta.tes. 

 Tansy is still included in the herb garden as a condimental and medicinal herb, yet it is 

 very little grown, the wild plant usually sufficing for all purposes. Tansy very readily 

 becomes an escape, thriving in out-of-the-way places without cultxu-e. It was formerly 

 in greater esteem than at present. In 1633, Gerarde * says: " In the spring-time are 

 made with the leaves hereof newly spnmg up, and with egs, cakes, or tansies, which be 

 pleasant in taste, and good for the stomacke." In 1778, Mawe' saj^: "This herb, 

 for its economical uses in the kitchen and medicine, merits culture in every garden," and 

 names for varieties the plain-leaved, the curled-leaved, the variegated-leaved and the 

 scentless. Both the common and the curled are figured by Dodonaeus,' 1616, and are 

 mentioned in other botanies of this period. It was in American gardens before 1806. 



Tanaecium lilacinum Seem. Bignoniaceae. 



Panama. Dr. Seemann ' says the edible berry is called in Guiana emosse-berry. 



Taraxactun oflScinale Wigg. Compositae. dandelion. 



Temperate regions, north and south. The dandelion is highly spoken of as a spring 

 green by various authors and has been used as a food plant in many regions but it has 

 only recently come under cultivation. When a swarm of locusts destroyed vegetation 

 in the Island of Minorca, the inhabitants subsisted on this plant, and, in Gottingen, the 

 dried root has been used as a substitute for coffee. In 1749, Kalm " speaks of the French 

 in New York preparing and eating the roots as a common salad but not usually employing 

 the leaves. The plant is now eaten raw or cooked by the Digger Indians of Colorado 



' Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 162. 1879. 



' Gerarde, J. Herb. 872. 1633 or 1636. 



' Lindley, J. Med. Earn. Bot. 62. 1849. 



< Vilmorin Fl. PI. Ter. 11 25. 1870. 3rd Ed. 



' Gerarde, J. Herb. 651. 1633. 



Mawe and Abercrombie Univ. Card. Bot. 1 778. 



' Dodonaeus Pempt. 36. 161 6. 



' Hooker, W. J. Journ. Bot. 9:142. 1857. 



Kalm, P. Trav. No. Amer. 2:1^. 1772. {Leontodon taraxacom) 



