336 DICTIONAEY OF POPULAR XAMES PORCUPINE 



laid the foundation of the slave trade, with all the horrors that 

 have attended it^^ 



Porcupine-wood. {See Cocoa JSTut.) 



Portugal Laurel {Prunus \_Cerasus'\ lusitanica), a wide- 

 spreading, evergreen shrub or short -stemmed tree, seldom 

 exceeding 20 feet in height, belonging to the Cherry group of 

 the Plum family (Drupaceae). It is a native of Portugal and 

 Madeira, and was introduced into this country in 1648 ; it is very 

 generally planted as an ornamental shrub. In severe winters 

 it is often injured; the frost of January 1838 destroyed the 

 whole of the plants at Kew. 



Potato {Solanum tuherosum), a perennial of the Nightshade 

 family (Solanaceee). This well-known esculent is a native of 

 Peru and Chili, and has also been found wild in Mexico. It 

 was first introduced into Spain about the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century, and into England from Virginia by Sir "Walter 

 Ptaleigh in 1586. Gerard, in his Hcrhal, published in 1597, 

 gives a figure of a potato plant which he had had growing in his 

 garden in Holborn (London), under the name of Batata virgini- 

 ana} and says it should be eaten as a delicate dish, not as com- 

 mon food. Parkinson (1640) says the tubers were roasted, and 

 steeped in sack or sugar, or baked with marrow and spices, and 

 even preserved candied by the comfit-makers. The cultivation 

 of the Potato spread very slowly. About 1633 it was encour- 

 aged by the Eoyal Society ; but it was not until nearly a century 

 had elapsed that it became plentiful, and was successfully 

 cultivated in Scotland. It is singular that in The ComjAete 

 Gardener, published by London and Wise in I7l9, the Potato is 

 not mentioned, and about the same time Bradly, an extensive 

 writer on horticultural subjects, speaks of it as being inferior to 

 radishes. During the last hundred years the cultivation of the 

 Potato has greatly increased in importance, especially in poor 

 and densely-populated districts. The ravages of a potato-disease, 

 which first appeared in 1845, produced a famine, especially in 



In Spain called potades, in Italy potate ; hence comes our word 

 potatoes. 



