62 



HISTORY OP FARM 



Fig. i6b) : 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 are a number of other native "roots" of semi-aquatic 

 plants that were eaten by the aborigines. The biggest "root" 

 of all was the rhizome of the spatterdock— several feet long 

 and often six inches thick, coarse and spongy, and full of 

 starch. The root stock of the lotus, and of several other 

 members of the water lily family are edible: also, the sub- 

 terranean offsets of the cat-tail. These were and are favorite 

 foods of the muskrat, also. The red man ate also the root 



stocks of the arrowhead 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 hogpeanut 

 (AmphicorpaamonoicaFig. ^6) 

 with its more fleshy and root- 

 like subterranean pod, one 

 also. 



It is a most interesting plant. 

 It grows as a slender twining 

 vine on low bushes in the edge of thickets. It produces pale 

 blue flowers in racemes along the upper part of the stem, and 

 from these develop small, bean-like pods. It develops also 

 scattered, colorless, self-fertilizing flowers on short branches 

 at the surface of the soil. These are very fertile. They 

 push into the soil and develop there mostly one-seeded, 

 roundish, fleshy pods about half an inch in diameter. 

 These are the hog-peanuts. 



Fig. 35. A portion of a vine of the 

 hog peanut (Amphicarpiea) , bearing 

 both flowers and seed pods. 



