162 Mr. G. Ord on the Natural Habitat of the Common Potato. 
tion in the island of Roanoke. But this expectation was not 
realized in consequence of the hostility of the natives and the 
improvidence of the colonists themselves, who were reduced to 
the verge of ruin, which was averted only by the arrival of Sir 
Francis Drake, who, returning from a marauding expedition 
against the Spanish settlements in the West Indies and on the 
continent, offered to convey the disheartened colonists to England, 
which offer they embraced; and they arrived at Portsmouth on 
the 28th of July 1586. 
Here then we read the epoch of the first introduction of the 
potato into England. Was it Drake who brought it from the 
Spanish settlements recently ravaged by him? or ought we to 
attribute the imtroduction of it to the colonists of Sir Richard 
Greenville ? With respect to the former, it is now known that 
he had invaded those countries where the potato was both wild 
and cultivated; and therefore it is no stretch of probability to 
presume that it formed part of the natural curiosities which he 
conveyed to England. Touching the colonists of Roanoke, let 
us inquire into their knowledge of those plants which constituted 
the food of the natives of the region explored by them. Thomas 
Heriot, the surveyor of the colony, wrote an account of it on his 
return to England. This is given in Hakluyt’s collection, pub- 
lished in 1589. “ Openauk,”’ says the writer, “are a kinde of 
roots of rounde forme, som of the bignesse of walnuts, some far 
greater, which are found in moist and marish grounds, growing 
many together one by another in ropes, or as though they were 
fastened with a string. Being boiled or sodden, they are very 
good meat.” In the edition of Hakluyt published in 1600, to 
the foregoing is added: “ Monardes calleth these roots beads or 
Pater nosters of Santa Helena.” 
This root, described, it should seem, with sufficient accuracy to 
preclude doubt, has nevertheless been taken for the potato ; but 
a little attention to the subject will not fail to convince the intel- 
ligent botanist that it belongs to a different plant from the So- 
lanum in question. The potato is never found in moist and ma- 
rish grounds ; nor do the tubers grow many together, one by an- 
other in ropes, as though they were fastened with a string, or in 
the form of a string of beads. Heriot’s description of Openauk 
can therefore only be applicable to the roots of a plant which 
abounds from Canada to Florida in low watery grounds: this is 
the Glycine apios of Linneus, the Apios tuberosa of Pursh, and 
the Apios americana of Cornutus, who in his ‘ History of the 
Plants of Canada’ gives a good figure of it, illustratmg the pecu- 
liar form and connexion of the tuberous roots.—Jac. Cornutt 
Canadensium Plant. Historia, Paris, 1635, 4to, 
