594< Cnrtis's Botanical Magazine. 



ing which the plant may be increased." — 3091. Aphanochilus *blandus. 

 Unshowy ; related to the mints. — 3092. *Arracdcia esculenta. An um- 

 belliferous plant, devoid of beauty, save in its usefulness, which is very 

 great ; its radical tubers being in South America extensively employed as 

 an article of human food. The stems of the plant are from 2 to 4 ft. 

 high, its leaves long and pinnated, resembling somewhat those of celery. 

 The root is a large fleshy tuber, which produces on its surface other knobs 

 or tubers of two kinds ; first, those produced from its upper part, which 

 incline upwards, are smallish, and each of which gives off" several germs or 

 shoots towards the tip of its individual self (possibly in the manner stem- 

 borne tubers of the potato do) ; secondly, tubers produced below the 

 above-mentioned, which descend into the earth, and excel the former in 

 size, as they do the parent tuber in tenderness and in the delicateness of 

 their flour or meal j and therefore these are the tubers generally brought 

 to table. Of these one parent tuber will yield eight or ten, besides small 

 ones ; the largest of them will be 8 or 9 in. long, by 2 to 2§ in. in diameter, 

 almost through the whole length, as each tuber tapers off" suddenly, and 

 has a few small fibres at its extremity. Doubtless the tubers of Georgin« 

 (Dahh'fl) will pretty accurately image them to the mind. The tubers of 

 the second kind " yield a food which is prepared in the same manner as 

 potatoes, is grateful to the palate, and so easy of digestion that it fre- 

 quently constitutes the chief aliment of the sick. Starch and pastry are 

 made from fecula of the tubers, and the tubers reduced to pulp enter into 

 the composition of certain fermented liquors, supposed to be efficacious as 

 tonics. This plant is a native of the vicinity of Santa Fe ; and in that 

 city, and indeed wherever it can be procured, thearracacha is as universally 

 used as the potato is in England. For the successful cultivation of it a 

 medium heat of between 58° and 60° of Fahrenheit, and deep black mould 

 that will easily yield to the descent of the large vertical roots, are requi- 

 site. It is propagated by planting pieces of the root, in each of which 

 must be an eye or shoot : these acquire in three or four months a size suf- 

 ficient for culinary purposes ; though, if permitted to continue six months 

 in the ground, they attain immense dimensions, without anj' injury to theu* 

 flavour. [We have previously (Vol. VI, p. 326.) given the mode of cul- 

 tivating the arracachain the Caraccas, on the authority of Mr. D. Fanning.] 

 The colour of the root or tuber is white, yellow, or purple, but all the 

 varieties have the same quality." Dr. Bancroft, who has introduced the 

 arracacha into Jamaica, where it is now flourishing, says : — " In flavour it 

 appears to me nearly to resemble a mixture of the parsnep with the potato." 

 On first tasting arracacha some like it, some do not : on repeated trials the 

 relish for it increases. The root requires to be thoroughly cooked. " At 

 all events, a vegetable which has for so many ages been the constant and 

 favourite food of a considerable portion of the population of South Ame- 

 rica, in preference even to the potato, which is there indigenous, ought not 

 to be thought undeserving of a fair trial in the way of cultivation in Ja- 

 maica." The arracacha is at present rare in England, and may continue 

 so ; for some of the plants imported have not thriven satisfactorily. It is 

 a perennial, doubtless, and in Britain will require the shelter of glass. The 

 tubers of the plant remind us of those of two British umbelliferous plants, 

 the J5unium flexuosum (and^.Bulbocastanum also) and Cicuta virosa, both 

 producing tubers. Smith, in hisJEnglish Flora, remarks that, in the Umbelli- 

 ferae, those species which inhabit high dry sites are usually wholesome, 

 those inhabiting watery sites usually poisonous. The species named beau- 

 tifully illustrate this position ; for the tubers of ^iinium, a lover of dry 

 pasture, are quite agreeably flavoured, and readily eaten by children, and 

 by pigs, which will turn up the soil to obtain them ; while the tubers of 

 Cicuta virosa, the inhabitant of swamps, are said to be rankly poisonous, as 

 the term virosaimplies. On this principle, it may be doubted if growing celery 



