EDIBLE TUBERS, BULBS OR ROOTS 



ginica, [L] Kunth, and perhaps the nearly related 

 species P. alha, Raf., of the Southern States, a plant 

 with large, arrow-shaped leaves and inconspicuous 

 flowers enveloped in a green spathe. Peltandra Vir- 

 ginica is common in shallow waters of the Atlantic 

 seaboard from Canada to Florida. I have never 

 dug up the rootstock, about which I find the recorded 

 descriptions differ. Havard, in his "Food Plants 

 of the North American Indians," describes it, doubt- 

 less rightly, as short, deep-seated, sometimes six 

 inches in diameter and weighing five or six pounds. 

 As in the case of all aroids, the raw flesh of the root- 

 stock is exceedingly acrid, indeed poisonous; but 

 when dried and thoroughly cooked, it is found to have 

 lost this objectionable principle, and in this state is 

 a starchy food of proved nutrition. I think it is this 

 plant that is meant in Purchas's Pilgrimage, 

 where in the delicious English of the day record is 

 made of the Virginians' "Tockawhough ... of the 

 greatness and taste of a potato, which passeth a fiery 

 purgation before they may eate it, .being poison 

 whiles it is raw. ' ' The approved treatment appears 

 to have been to steam it in the aboriginal heated pit, 

 covered over with earth and left undisturbed for a 

 day or two. Similarly the familiar Jack-in-the-Pul- 

 pit (Arisaema triphyllum, Torr.), whose small, 



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