GILMoRE] TAXONOMIC LIST OF PLANTS 95 
various tribes in eastern North America, and not a few Europeans 
had recourse to it also for food. 
Le Jeune says: 
They eat, besides, roots, such as bulbs of the red lily; a root which has a 
taste of licorice; another that our French people call ‘ Rosary,” because it is 
distinguished by tubers in the form of beads: and some others.* 
The Swedish botanist, Peter Kalm, in his journal, says: 
Hopniss, or Hapniss, was the Indian name of a wild plant which they ate... . 
The Swedes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania still call it by that name, and 
it grows in the meadows in a good soil. The roots resemble potatoes, and 
were boiled by the Indians. ... Mr. Bartram told me that the Indians who 
live farther in the country do not only eat these roots, which are equal in good- 
ness to potatoes, but likewise take the peas which lie in the pods of this plant 
and prepare them like common peas.” 
Faxcata comosa (L.) Kuntze. Ground Bean. (PI. 18.) 
Maka ta omnicha, or o"mnicha (Dakota), “ ground beans” (maka, 
ground; o"mnicha, beans; ta, genitive sign). 
Hibthi-abe (Omaha-Ponca), “ beans”; Ai"bthi-hi, bean-vines. 
Honi"k-boije (Winnebago). 
Ati-kuraru (Pawnee), “ground beans” (atit, beans; wraru, earth, 
ground; kw, genitive sign). 
Falcata grows in dense masses of vines over shrubbery and other 
vegetation in some places, especially along banks and the edge of 
timber. It forms two kinds of branches, bearing two forms of 
flower, producing two different fruits. Leafy branches climb over 
shrubbery, but under these, in the shade, prostrate on the earth, start- 
ing out from the base of the main stem, are leafless, colorless branches, 
forming a network on the surface of the ground. On these colorless, 
leafless branches cleistogamous flowers form, which push into the 
earth and there produce each a single bean closely invested by a 
membranaceous pod. Each of these beans is from 10 mm. to 17 mm. 
in long diameter, inclined to be flat, and from 5 mm. to 10 mm. 
thick. The pods produced from the petaliferous flowers on the 
upper leafy branches of the vine are 15 mm. to 20 mm. long and 
contain four or five dark, mottled, diminutive beans about the size 
of lentils. No attention is paid to these small aerial beans, but the 
large subterranean beans were eagerly sought as an article of food 
on account of their agreeable taste and nutritive value. From these 
qualities they contributed a considerable item in the dietary of the 
tribes. 
Voles dig them and garner them into hoards of a pint or more in 
a place, and the women would appropriate part of the voles’ stores 
1Le Jeune’s ‘ Relation,” in Jesuit Relations, vol. v1, p. 273. 
2Peter Kalm, Travels into North America, vol. I, pp. 385-386. 
