OUR COMMON VEGETABLES. 



117 



theru,* and says they were eaten with lentils and beans. It was 

 introduced into England in 1570. 



Stems. 



The Potato. — Solarium tuberosum, Bauhin, natural order 

 Solanacea, a native of the higher ground of Peru. It was first 

 introduced into Spain and Italy by the Spaniards at the close of 

 the fifteenth century, who found it cultivated in South America. 

 It was then called " Battata," from which the word Potato is 

 derived. Gerarde received it from Virginia in 1584, and calls it 

 Battata virginiana and Papus hyspanicus. The English 

 colonists of Virginia probably received it from some of the 

 Spaniards who had also settled in the Southern States of North 

 America. It was first cultivated in Ireland by Sir R. Southwell 

 (1693), but it was not generally grown in England till about 1770. 



A species, S. Maglia, Schlect., was found by Mr. Darwin in 

 the lower maritime regions of the Chonos Archipelago in 1834, 

 and it is hoped that some good results may follow from hybrid- 

 ising these two species, upon which Messrs. Sutton & Sons are 

 experimenting at the present time, in producing a Potato less 

 liable to be attacked by the Phytophthora infestans. 



Jerusalem Artichoke. — Helianthus tuberosus, natural 

 order Composite. This plant is a native of the Northern United 

 States of America. t It was cultivated by the Indians of Huron 

 and New England at an early date, and was introduced into 

 England in 1617 as " Battatas de Canada." It is allied to 

 H. annuus, the Sunflower, thought by Linnaeus and subsequent 

 authors to be of Mexican origin, t The word " Jerusalem " is a 

 corruption of the Italian word " Girasola," meaning "turn to 

 the sun." The word " Artichoke " is derived primarily from the 

 Arabic "Kharchouf," which appears as " Alcachofa " in Spanish, 

 corrupted into " Articocco " in Italian, and hence our word 

 " Artichoke." 



* Bk. xix. c. 40. Pliny describes its culture, but the root was apparently 

 only used in medicine (bk. xx. c. 27). 



f Prof. A. Gray considered H. doronicoides, a native of the Mississippi 

 Valley, to be most probably the original of H. tuberosus. — Notes on the 

 History of H. tuberosus, by J. Hammond Trumbull and Asa Gray (Am. 

 Journ. of Sci. and Arts, 3rd ser. vol. xiii. 1877, p. 347). 



$ Prof. Gray was " convinced that its original is the H. lenticularis of 

 Douglas, which, again, is probably only a larger form of H. petiolaris of 

 Nuttall, natives of the western part of the Mississippi Valley and of the 

 plains to and beyond the Eocky Mountains " (I.e. p. 352). 



