May 6, 1886] 
they asked to be taken home, and this was done. 
Although at the last their departure was so hurried that 
writings, &c., were not embarked, it does not follow that 
there had not been opportunity during previous days to 
embark roots among other provisions. As openauk was 
among the products “ husbanded,” Heriot may have had 
a supply of unplanted roots ready to send home. If this 
were so, then two traditions would be reconciled. It 
would be Drake’s ships, but Ralegh’s colonists, that 
brought the potato, assuming the openauk to be the 
potato. This, however, is mere assumption. For the 
fact that Drake brought home the people there is 
abundant evidence, but respecting the roots there is 
not a word. If we wish, however, to account at 
all for Gerard’s receiving potatoes from Virginia, this 
seems the only likely way in which he could have received 
them. The overdue relief ship that arrived a few days 
subsequent to the departure of the colony, and returned 
after a brief search, may possibly have brought them. 
All the other expeditions were later in the season than 
even Drake’s return, while of the 349 colonists who went 
out in 1587 nothing was ever known after they were 
landed, though a relief expedition made search for them. 
Gerard distinctly says it was the “rootes” he received, 
and these could not, like seeds, be available at any time 
of the year. 
It is commonly supposed that the introduction of the 
potato from Virginia is a duly authenticated historic fact. 
What forgotten manuscript records or letters there may 
be it is impossible to say, but at present our sole authority 
that it was brought thence is Gerard, while the linking 
of two traditions as here suggested is only assumption. 
It has been already mentioned that while Gerard does 
not use the word openauk, he does give the name papus. 
Papus is not mentioned by Heriot as a word in use in 
Virginia ; how then did Gerard come to use tt? 
From the travels of Pedro Cieza de Leon [1532-1550] 
we know that papas was the general name in Peru for an 
edible root in his time. The root was cultivated, and it 
was eaten boiled, or else dried in the sun and preserved, 
when it was called chuna. Acosta, whose travels in the 
same regions were later [1570-1587], gives almost identi- 
cally the same information, as also does the native-born 
Garcilasso. They none of them, however, give any 
description of papas by which it is possible to identify 
the plant known by that name. 
The two oldest known Continental botanists that give 
the name papas 77 conjunction with a description of the 
plant, are Clusius and Bauhin. In addition to descrip- 
tions, both give figures. 
In his ®uromiva€ (1596) Bauhin describes a plant to 
which he gives the name Solanum tuberosum, but without 
any figure [Lib. v. Sec. 1, No. xix.]. In his “ Matthiolus” 
(1598) he refers to it with a figure. Here he adds, “Vulgo 
Pappar Hispanorum vel Indorum dicitur.” Clusius, in 
his “ Rariorum Plant. Hist.” (1601), describes a plant 
clearly the same, with a figure, under the name Pafas 
peruvanorum, He says there is no doubt this was the 
plant Cieza de Leon refers to. The expression, “there is 
no doubt,” is, however, somewhat removed from certainty. 
In 1620, Bauhin again, in his HUpodpopos, in describing 
Solanum tuberosum, to which he here adds “esculentum,” | 
refers to Cieza ; and again, in 1623, in his Iivaé, mentions 
that this is the plant from which Acosta says chuna is 
made. Both Bauhin and Clusius give their descriptions 
as from growing plants. 
It might be readily surmised that with such continuous 
traffic as there was between Spain and the domains she 
had conquered in South America, the roots so highly 
prized by the Indians should be carried home. To 
strengthen this surmise there is the tradition that gives 
the name of the first to introduce them, a “doctor” named 
Hieronymus Cardan. What is the history of the intro- 
duction into Spain is beside the present question. 
It is | 
NATURE 9 
| not improbable that with the sustained and frequent inter- 
communication between Spain and America it was re- 
peatedly introduced. The case is by no means parallel 
to the question of the introduction into England from 
Virginia, in Gerard’s time, when out of the six expeditions 
sent out only one made any explorations inland. The 
opportunities of introduction from Virginia were few. 
From South America to Spain they were numerous. It 
seems sufficiently established, both by Bauhin and 
Clusius, that a plant called papas was introduced and 
grown in botanical gardens, if not as a food ; and that it 
came to be known as the papas of the Peruvians, of the 
Indians, and of the Spaniards, for Peruvanorum, Indorum, 
and Hispanorum seem indiscriminately used. That 
Clusius suggested its identity with the Arachnida of 
Theophrastus and other Greek writers is now of little 
interest. Bauhin was the first to recognise the plant as 
a Solanum, and his ¢¢derosum occurs as No. XIX. in his 
list of Solanums, im his buromiva€. 
Though Cieza, Acosta, and Garcilasso drew what 
appears to have been a consistent distinction between 
papas (potato) and battatas (sweet potato), that distinc- 
tion was not always maintained by later European 
writers. In a way it seems hopeless to endeavour to 
trace, the Portuguese and Spaniards now use different 
words for the potato: the former call it batata, and the 
latter papa. The confusion is more bewildering when 
the two names were used as synonyms. In botanical 
nomenclature we have lost papas, but retained battatas. 
The identity or not of Battatas edulis with the battata of 
the three Spanish travellers is wide of the present con- 
sideration. So also would be the question why the 
Quichan word ascw was not used by them. This, how- 
ever, appears a safe rule—that when papas is mentioned 
by sixteenth-century writers it may be read as =Solanum 
(but not necessarily ¢wberosu7) ; when battatas is men- 
tioned it is requisite to see whether it is wrongly used as 
a synonym or intentionally used for a distinct plant. To 
the present day chufia is made in Peru from “ papas,” but 
apparently not from “ battata.” 
Assuming the rule is a safe one that papas cannot be 
taken to mean battatas, but battatas may and often does 
mean papas, then such chronological data as the follow- 
ing are of interest as some indication of the spread of the 
plant among botanists in Europe. There may be others, 
but these are all the writer has been able to collect. 
Dr. Scholtz had papas growing in his garden at Breslau 
(Vratislavia), 1587; Clusius received two tubers at 
Vienna from Hannonia, 1588; Bauhin, in his Ipédpopos, 
mentions “iconem suis coloribus delineatam,” 1590 ; 
Dr. Scholtz’s “Papas hispanorum” is mentioned in a 
“Carmen” (pub. at Vratislavia), 1592; Bauhin refers to 
a “ Pappar hispanorum’’ growing in his garden, of which 
he gives a description, 1596. 
It was in this year (1596) that Gerard published the 
catalogue of plants growing in his garden in Holborn. 
There occur in it the two names Papus orbiculatus and 
Papus hispanorum. Yn this 1596 catalogue these names, 
as all the rest, occur without any English equivalent or 
any description or note. The catalogue is simply a list 
of names. The word batata does not occur, but Sisarum 
does. Another catalogue, commonly called a second 
edition, was published in 1599. The “Herbal” had 
been published in the meantime (1597). In this 1599 
catalogue English names are added to the Latin. These 
occur: Papus orbiculatus, bastard potatoes ; Papus his- 
panorum, Spanish potatoes. Batata does not occur. 
Sisarum does, but without any adjective (we cannot 
call these second names “specific,” while the first 
were in no sense of the word “generic”), and the 
English name with this is skyrrits. 
Although it would be a natural supposition that with 
the aid of the figures and descriptions in the ‘‘ Herbal” it 
would be easy to identify the plants named in the cata- 
