270 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETETNTOLOOT [Bull. 137 



The other belongs, in part, in the category of salt substitutes like 

 the one of which Garcilaso tells us. Hariot says of it : 



There is an hearbe which in Dutch is called Melden. Some of those that 

 I describe it vnto, take it to be a kinde of Orage; it groweth about foure 

 or flue foote high ; of the seede thereof they make a thicke broth, and pottage 

 of a very good taste: of the stalke by burning into ashes they make a kinde of 

 salt earth, wherewithall many vse sometimes to season their brothes; other 

 salte they knowe not. Wee our selues, vsed the leues also for pothearbes. 

 (Hariot, 1893, pp. 22-23.) 



This was perhaps the halberd-leaved orache (Atriplex hastata). 



To the "young onions" of the Spaniards, Hariot adds a consider- 

 able number of wild roots in his description of the native menu. Of 

 one of these he says : 



Openavk are a kind of roots of round forme, some of the bignes of walnuts, 

 some far greater, which are found in moist & marish grounds growing many 

 together one by another in ropes, or as thogh they were fastened with a string. 

 Being boiled or sodden they are very good meate. (Hariot, 1893, p. 26.) 



The late Doctor Michelson told me that "penavk," or "penauk," 

 is a common Algonquian word meaning "root." It appears again 

 below. The openavk were the native marsh potatoes or ground nuts 

 of the Gulf region (Apios tuherosa), which were evidently used 

 in pre-Columbian times throughout the region. To proceed : 



Okeepenavk are also of round shape, found in dry grounds: some are of the 

 bignes of a mans head. They are to be eaten as they are taken out of the 

 ground, for by reason of their drinesse they will neither roste nor seeth. Their 

 tast is not so good as of the former rootes, notwithstanding for want of bread 

 & sometimes for varietie the inhabitants vse to eate them with fish or flesh, 

 and in my iudgment they doe as well as the household bread made of rie heere in 

 England. (Hariot, 1893, p. 26.) 



It seems pretty evident that these roots were from plants of the 

 wild sweetpotato {IpoTnoea pandurata), although Carrier (1923, 

 p. 32) identifies them with "a large fungus growth found in sandy 

 soils of the Carolinas" and sometimes called tuckahoe. 



KaishcHpenauk a white kind of roots about the bignes of hen egs & nere 

 of that forme : their tast was not so good to our seeming as of the other, and 

 therefore their place and manner of growing not so much cared for by vs: the 

 inhabitants notwithstanding vsed to boile & eate many. (Hariot, 1893, p. 26.) 



E. P. Killip, to whom I am indebted for most of these identifica- 

 tions, suggests that this may be Dioscorea mllosa (cf. Amer. Journ. 

 Sci., vol. 25, p. 25). Generally speaking, the identity of the roots 

 used as food is in greater doubt than any other vegetable or animal 

 product mentioned by early writers. 



There is more certainty regarding the root to be described next : 



