NOTES ON HEL1ANTHUS TUBEROSUS. 199 



" Jerusalem artichoke " was known to English and Continen- 

 tal botanists. 



I can discover no authority whatever, before 1700, for 

 ascribing to the Helianthus tuberosum, either a Brazilian or 

 a Mexican origin, except — and the exception is unimportant 

 — in C. Bauhin's identification (in his Pinax, 277 ) with " He- 

 lianthemum Indicum tuberosum" (77. tuberosus, L.), of a 

 plant that he had described in his earlier - Prodromus" ( ed. 

 1671, p. 70) as " Chrysanthemon latifolium Brasilianum" 

 from a dried specimen sent to him " eo nomine" from the 

 garden of Contarini. 



The first trace I find of this species, in Europe, is in the 

 2d part (cap. 6) of Fabio Colonna's " Ecphrasis minus cogni- 

 tarum stirpium," published at Rome in 1616. He described 

 it from a plant growing in the garden of Cardinal rarnese. 

 The Sunflower was already well known to European botanists, 

 and had been described and figured by Dodoens (1563) and 

 Lobel (1576) as Chrysanthemum Peruvianum and Flos 

 solis Peruvianus. With reference to these descriptions 

 probably, Colonna gave the new species the name oi Aster 

 Peruanus,tuberosa radice, otherwise Satisfies Famesianus. 

 (He save a more particular description of the plant in his 

 annotations to Recchi's Hernandez, -Plant. Mexic. Hist 

 1651, pp. 878, 881, as Peruanus Solis fios ex Indus tuber 



rosus.^) 



The author of the " Descriptio variorum plantarum, in 

 Horto Earnesiano," published under the name of Tobias Al- 

 dinus (Rome, 1625), gave some account of the mots, which 

 he calls "Tnbera Indica," of the Solis fios tuberosus, s u 

 Flos Famesianus FahU Column* (p. 91). It may be ob- 

 served that several of the rarer plants in the Farnese garden, 

 at this time, were from "Canada" and "Virginia. The 

 Passion Flower (admirably figured by Aldinns ) is described 

 under its Virginian name, " Maracot " (the - Maracocks of 

 John Smith and Strachey) ; and a Campanula Americana* 

 otherwise named " Campanula Virginiana, sen ex I irgimis 



insulis." . . 1COQ n ■% 



C. Bauhin, in his "Pinax" (first published in 1623), ed. 



