ON NEW FOOD PLANTS 



pink, but white varieties have been produced in 

 the past decade. 



Some members of the Helianthus tribe are 

 perennials, but for the most part they are annuals. 

 They are all easily grown on almost any soil, 

 requiring little or no attention. The member of 

 the tribe known as the Jerusalem artichoke is a 

 somewhat variable plant the tubers of which are 

 chiefly used as food for stock, although sometimes 

 used as a salad. 



My own work with the tribe has had to do with 

 the development of the flowers rather than with 

 the tubers. There is one of the annual sunflowers 

 that has a flower quite often sixteen to twenty-four 

 inches in circumference that, if well selected, 

 comes perfectly double, as double as the finest 

 dahlia, producing a most brilliant yellow bloom 

 abundantly. This I have worked on several years 

 to make its flower uniformly double. I have 

 worked with a large number of species of the 

 tribe and have cultivated many field varieties 

 collected in Mexico, California, the Mississippi 

 Valley, and nearly as far north as Hudson Bay. 



I have done a good deal of crossing among the 

 seedlings to increase the grace of the plants and 

 delicacy of bloom, and to make the silvery, grace- 

 ful leaves of one species replace the rough, coarse 

 leaves of another. 



[189] 



