NjlTITIi COUN-TRY OF THE POTATO, 



^m 



proveniunt ; imprimis quas Indigenae openawk vocaiit, ro^, 

 tundse, juglandi nijcis raagnitudinisi pares, interdum, et 

 multo inajores ; nascuutur . humidis et paludosis locis, 

 plures inter se coherentes et veluti funiculo colllgatse; m 

 aqua coctae, aut igne tostcE, boni aunt alimenti*." 



The openawk, however its roots may seem to resemble I* <^'ff"^'"9 ftoia . 

 that of the potato, must be, 1 say, a very different plant. ^ P°^o 

 A bare reference to the figure in De Laet will be sufficient 

 to show the validity of this assertion. Indeed it has not the 

 most distant resemblance to the potato. Instead of the pin- ""^^^ leaves 

 nated leaves of the latter, the openawk has simple ovate 

 leaves. Neither do the places of growth of the two plants 

 agree very well. We are told, that the openawk grows in 

 moist and marshy situa^tions. In such situations who ever 

 thought of planting the potato ? and so far as we know any 

 thing of the soil of the latter in Chili, where, if it be not 

 titily indigenous, it has, at least, been most anciently and place of 

 known, it is never found in marshy soil, but in a soil of a g'^o^^^- 

 very different kind : in the fields and upon the mountains. 

 It is true, however, that De Bry, according to sir Joseph 

 Banks, places the openawk merely in a " damp soil.'* 



It may be asked, why place so much reliance upon the De Laet's 

 figure of the openawk, in the work of De Laet ? I answer, f.^^^^^^SonsT 

 that many of the figures of vegetables, animals, &c., in the 

 Novus .OrbiSi though merely cut upon wotjd, are far from 

 being inaccurate representations of the objects they are in- 

 tended for. Linnaeus, Willdenow, and other naturalists 

 have not been ashamed to refer to sorre of De Laet's icons 

 of plants. — See in the Species Plant cum polygonum sagit- 

 tatum. — But, I repeat it, it is sufficient to cast the most 

 superficial glance upon the wooden cut of openawk, to be 

 fully satisfied, that it could never have been intended to 

 represent the solannm tuberosum. 



I wish it were as easy to determine, What plant the ope- J^^^J^^°^°^^^^® 

 iiawk is, as what it is not. The description of the root an- t-ier ir.i .n- 

 iwers pretty exactly to that of the glycine apios of Linnaeus, s^w,Ystothatoi 



?Cine apios, 



• Novts Orbis, seu Descriptionis Indis occidentalis, Libri XVJII, 

 A uthore Joanne de Laet Antverp., lib. "i, cap, XXH,, p.^O.Ludg, 

 Batay. 1633. . 



s very 



