NOTES ON HELIANTHUS TUBEROSUS. 201 



The notices by early voyagers, of ground-nuts, eaten by the 

 Indians, are generally so brief and so vague, that it is not 

 easy to distinguish the three or four species mentioned under 

 that name or its equivalents. The Solarium tuberosum, 

 Apios tuberosa, Aralia trifolia, and a Cyperus (articulatus?^) 

 were all " ground-nuts," or " earth-nuts." We find, however, 

 in a few instances, unmistakable mention of the roots already 

 known in Europe as " Canadian." 



Brereton, in his account of Gosnold's voyage to New Eng- 

 land in 1602, notes the "great store of ground-nuts" found 

 on all the Elizabeth Islands. They grow " forty together on 

 a string, some of them as big as a hen's egg " (Purchas, iv. 

 1651). These, doubtless, were the roots of Apios tuberosa. 

 But when Champlain, a few years later (1605-6), was in the 

 same region, he observed that the Almouchiquois Indians near 

 Point Mallebarre (Nauset harbor, probably,) had " force des 

 racines qu'els cultivent, lesquelles ont le gout d'artichaut " 

 (Voyages, ed. 1632, p. 84). And it is to these roots, evi- 

 dently, that Lescarbot alludes, " Histoire de la Nouv. France," 

 1612 (p. 840) : there is, he says, in the country of the Ar- 

 mouchiquois (i. e., New England, west and south of Maine), 

 a certain kind of roots " grosses comme naveaux, tres excel- 

 lentes a manger, ayans un gout retirant aux cardes, mais plus 

 agreable, lesquelles plantees multiplient en telle facon que 

 c'est merveille ; " and he thinks these must be the " Afro- 

 dilles " described by Pliny. 



Sagard-Theodat (Hist, du Canada, 1636, p. 785) mentions 

 the cultivation of the Sunflower by the Hurons — who ex- 

 tracted oil from its seeds, — and names also the " roots that 

 we [the French] call Canadiennes or Pommes de Canada, 

 and that the Hurons call ' Orasqueinta,' which are not very 

 (assez peu) common in their country. They eat them raw, 

 as well as cooked, as they eat another sort of root resembling 

 parsnips \_Sium lineare ?], which they call Sondhratates, and 

 which are much better ; but they seldom gave us these, and 

 only when they received some present from us or when we 

 visited them in their cabins." He goes on to speak of " pa- 

 tates, fort grosses et tres-excellentes," some of which he had 



