sturtevant's notes on edible plants 575 



T. dioica Roxb. 



Tropical India. Firminger* says this plant produces a small, oblong, green gourd 

 about four inches long and two broad; boiled, it affords rather an insipid dish, yet it is 

 found very acceptable from the season in which it occurs. Dutt ^ says it is extensively 

 cidtivated in Bengal, and that the unripe fruit is much used by the natives as a vegetable 

 and is the most palatable one of the country. The tender tops are also used as a potherb. 



Trifolium fucatum Lindl. Leguminosae. 



Western North America. Professor W. H. Brewer' writes that this clover is eaten 

 by the Digger Indians of California. 



T. involucratum Ortega, trefoil. 



Western North America. This clover is eaten by the Digger tribes.* 



T. pratense Linn, red clover. 



Europe and temperate Asia. Clover is among the most generally cultivated fodder 

 plants, but its use as a htunan food plant is vmknown to Europeans. Some of the clovers 

 are eaten cooked or raw by the Digger Indians of California and by the Apaches of Arizona. 

 The former tribe cooks it by placing layers of clover, well moistened, between hot stones; 

 it is consimied in large rations. The Apaches boil clover, young grass, dandelions and 

 pigweed together. Where clover is found growing wild, the Indians practice a sort of 

 semicultivation by irrigating it and harvesting.* Clover was introduced into America 

 from Eiu-ope at an early period as Bartram ' saw it before the American Revolution. In 

 1797, Samuel Deane ' speaks of it as a plant highly valued in New England. In Ireland, 

 says Lightfoot,* when food is scarce, the powdered flowers are mixed with bread and eaten. 

 As an agricultural plant, clover first secured attention in England in 1635. 



T, repens Linn, white clover. 



Ever3rwhere common in Europe and America. Johnson ' sa}rs the flowers and pods 

 in time of famine in Ireland and Scotland have been ground into powder and used as 

 a food. 



Trigonella caerulea Ser. Leguminosae. 



Eastern Europe and Caucasian region. In Switzerland, this plant is called kraut 

 curd-herb and is used to give odor and flavor to schabzieger, or sapsago, cheese. The dried 

 flowers are reduced to powder and worked into a paste with the curd.^" 



' Firminger, T. A. C. Card. Ind. 130. 1874. 

 Dutt, U. C. Mat. Med. Hindus 169. 1877. 

 Letter of Oct. 20, 1879, to Dr. E. L. Sturtevant. 



* Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 582. 1879. 

 'U.S.D.A.Rpt.42i. 1870. 



De Candolle, A. Geog. Bot. 2:748. 1855. 

 'Gould Trans. N. Y. Agr. Soc. 32:17. 1872-6. 

 Lightfoot, J. Fl. Scot. 1:406. 1879. 



Johnson, C. P. Useful Pis. Gt. Brit. 74. 1862. 

 "Smith, A. Treas. Bot. 1:732. 1870. (Melilotus caerulea) 



