62 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
Fig. 16,b); its charmed product, ‘‘calamus root.” Dried it is 
often nibbled by school children, and it is candied by their 
mothers, especially in New England, and served as a condi- 
ment. 
There areanumber of other native ‘‘roots’’ of semi-aquatic 
plants that were eaten by the aborigines. The biggest “‘root”’ 
of all was the rhizome of the 
spatter-dock—several feet long 
and often six inches thick, 
coarse and ‘spongy, and full 
of starch. The rootstocks of 
the lotus and of several other 
members of the water-lily fam- 
ily are edible; also, the sub- 
terranean offsets of the cat- 
g tail. These were and are fa- 
Fic. 35. A portion of a vine of the vorite foods of the muskrat, 
ae bearing both flowers and too. The red man ate also 
the rootstocks of the arrow- 
head and the underground stems of the false Solomon’s 
seal. Then if we count the exotic, cultivated peanut in its 
pod a root crop, we shall have to count the native hog 
peanut (Amphicarpea monoica, Fig. 36), with its more 
fleshy and root-like subterranean pod, also as one. 
Itisamostinteresting plant. It grows as a slender twining 
vine on low bushes in the edges of thickets. It produces pale 
blue flowers in racemes along the upper part of the stem, 
followed by small, beanlike pods. It de- 
velops also scattered, colorless, self-fertil- 
zing flowers on short branches at the sur- 
face of the soil. These are very fertile. 
They push into the soil and produce there 
mostly one-seeded, roundish, fleshy pods Fic. 36. The root 
about half an inch in diameter. These ground nuts” of 
the hog peanut. 
are the hog peanuts. 
