698 The American Naturalist. [August, 
SWEET POTATO. Convolvulus batatas L. 
This widely distributed cultivated plant, originally of South 
and Central America, had developed many varieties at the period 
of its discovery by Columbus. Peter Martyr” in his second 
decade, written about 1 514, mentions ġatatas as cultivated in 
Honduras, and in his third decade he gives the names of nine 
varieties. In 1526 Oviedo% not only mentions sweet potatoes 
in the West Indies, but says they have often been carried to 
Spain, and that he had carried them himself to Avila, in Castile. 
In Peru, Garcilasso de Vega” says the “ apichu ” are of four or 
five different colors, some red, others yellow, others white, and 
others brown, and this author was contemporary with the con- 
quest. The.“ camote” of Yucatan, called in the islands ax and 
batatas, is mentioned in the fourth voyage of Columbus," and 
Chanc@, physician to the fleet of Columbus, in a letter dated 
1494, speaks of ages as among the productions of Hispaniola. 
In Europe, sweet potatoes are mentioned by Cardan * in 1556, © 
and Clusius,* in 1566, describes the red or purple and the pale 
or white sorts as under culture in Spain, and in 1576 he notes 
that their culture had been attempted in Belgium. Their mention 
hereafter in the early botanies are frequent. Their culture is 
noted for Virginia before 1650.“ In 17 50 Hughes * says that at 
least thirteen sorts are known at the Barbadoes, and Wilkes “ 
notes that in the Hawaiian Islands, where the sweet potato had 
been introduced, there are thirty-three varieties, nineteen of which 
are of a red color and thirteen white. On the Mauritius, Bojer “ 
describes the round and long forms, white and purple. At the 
present time Vilmorin® describes two varieties in France, and in 
31 Peter Martyr, Eden’s Hist. of Trav., 1577, 88, 143. 
38 Oviedo. Quoted by Gray and Trumbull, Am. Jour, Sci., April, 1883, 248. 
3 G. de Vega. Roy. Com. Hak. Soc., Ed. II., 359. 
Gen. Coll. of Voy. by the Port., 1789, 440. 
t Pharmacographia, 1879, 452. 
« Dek 
“ Vilmorin. Les Pl. Pot., 401. 


