158 Mr. G. Ord on the Natural Habitat of the Common Potato, 
The sweet potato is clearly indicated in the enumeration of the 
productions of Darien: “They dygge also owte of the ground 
certeyne rootes growynge of themselves, whiche they caull be- 
tates, much lyke unto the navie rootes of Mylayne, or the greate 
puffes or musheroms of the earth. Howe soo ever they bee dressed, 
eyther fryed or sodde, they gyve place to noo such kynde of meate 
in pleasant tenderness. The skyn is sumwhat towgher then 
eyther of navies or mussheroms, and of earthy coloure, but the 
inner meate thereof is verye whyte. These are nooryshed in 
gardens, as we sayde of jucca in the first Deccade. They are also 
eaten rawe, and have the taste of rawe chestnuttes, but are sum- 
what sweeter.”—WSecond Decade, b. ix. p.81. | 
As the sweet potato is little known in Great Britain, except 
among botanists, it may not be superfluous to remark, that its 
flavour more resembles that of the chestnut than any other eseu- 
lent. When Humboldt published his essay on the Geographical 
Distribution of Plants (De Distributione Geographica Plantarum, 
Paris, 1817, in 8vo) he was of opinion that the native country of 
the common potato had not been ascertained ; as, after frequent 
inquiries, he could meet with no one who had observed it in a 
wild state in the localities wherein preceding botanists had indi- 
eated it. It is known, says this celebrated traveller, at Quito in 
the Cordelliers, only in the domestic state as in Europe. Hum- 
boldt was, doubtless, aware that the tuberculous root mentioned, 
under the name of papas, by Pierre Creca, in his ‘ Chronicle of 
Peru,’ published at Seville in the year 1583, was the potato ; but 
as it had been given as a product of cultivation, he was not dis- 
posed to admit it as indigenous to the country. The author of 
the article Moredla in the ‘ Dictionary of the Natural Sciences,’ 
published at Paris in 1824, thus speaks of the potato: “ Hurope 
is indebted to South America for this precious plant, which was 
cultivated into this hemisphere. This inestimable plant, says 
M. de Humboldt, this plant on which the population of the most 
sterile countries of Europe depend, in a great measure, for their 
subsistence, presents the same phenomenon as the banana, the 
maize and the wheat: the localities wherein it is indigenous are 
unknown. ‘The diligent researches of this learned naturalist, in 
the country where the potato was supposed to be a native, did 
not enable him to ascertain that any one had found it in a wild 
state. But M. de Humboldt was misled on this subject. Dom- 
bey, who, before him, had travelled into Peru, had seen the po- 
tato growing without cultivation in the Cordelliers ; and Joseph. 
Pavon subsequently met with it in a wild state near lama. The 
potato is also indigenous in the forests of Santa Fé de Bagota.” 
In the ‘ Dictionnaire Universel de Matiére Médicale, Paris, 
1834, it is asserted that the potato had been found growing 
