Oh the Cultivated Potato. 
271 
temperate regions of America, from Chili or Buenos-Ayres to Mexico, confirms 
the fact of the American origin. Even if we knew nothing more, this would 
be a strong presumption in favour of America as the native country. 
The second cause of error is very clearly explained by the botanist ^Yeddell, 
who has travelled with so much zeal through Bolivia and the neishbouring 
countries. " When you think," says he, " that the Indians iu tlie barren 
Cordilleras often cultivate their plot of groimd in places which would seem 
almost inaccessible to the great majority of our European farmers, you under- 
stand that a traveller, coming by chance upon one of those plots, forsaken 
long ago, and finding there a plant of Solanuni tuherosura which has l>eeu 
preserved there bj- accident, should gather it with the idea that it grew there 
spontaneously ; but where is the proof of it ? " 
Xow let us look at the facts. Tliey are numerous as regards the spontaneity 
in Chili. 
In 1822, Alexander Caldcleugh, the English Consul, sent to the Horticul- 
tural Society in London some j^otato tubercles which he had gathered in the 
ravines around Valparaiso. He says that these tubercles are small,* some- 
times red and sometimes yellow, and have rather a bitter taste. " I think, ' 
he goes on to say, " that this plant is found to a great extent along the coast,, 
for it exists iu the south of Chili, where the natives call it MagJia. There 
must be a confusion here with the S. MafjUa of the botanists ; btit the 
tubercles from Valparaiso, planted in London, have produced the real ix)tato, 
which is obvious when one sees the coloured plate of Sabine f in the ' Trans- 
actions of the Horticultural Society.' For some time this plant was Iteing 
cultivated, and LLndley testified again, in 1847, to its identity with the 
common potato.^ A traveller gave Sir "William Hooker the following 
explanation about the plant from Valparaiso. " I have noticed the potato 
on the coast as far as fifteen miles north of this town, and also in the south of 
it, without knowing to what distance. It grows on the cliffs and on the 
hills near the sea, and I do not remember having seen it more than two or 
three miles from the coast. Though it is found in motmtainous parts, far 
from cultivated ground, it dees not exist in the immediate vicinity of the 
fields and gardens where it is planted, except when a stream runs througli 
these places and carries the tubercles into the uncidtivated spots." The 
potato described by these two travellers had white blossoms, just like some 
varieties cultivated in Europe, and like the plant sown long ago by De I'Ecluse.. 
This is probably the primitive colour of the species, or at least one of the 
most frequent in the spontaneous state. 
During his voyage of the ' Beagle,' Darwin § found the potato wild in the 
Chonos Archipelago in Southern Chili, where it was growing abundantly in. 
the sand on the seashore, and vegetating with a strange vigour, attributable 
to the damp climate. The largest specimens were four feet high ; the 
tubercles small, though one of them measured two inches across. They 
were watery and insipid, but had no bad taste after being cooked. " The 
plant is undoubtedly spontaneous," says the author, and the specific identity 
has been confirmed, first by Henslow, and then by Sir Joseph Hooker in his 
' Flora Antarctica.' 
A specimen in our herbarium collected by Claude Gay, and attributed to 
the Solanum tuberosum, bears on the label : "In the heart of the Cordillera 
of Talcagoue and Cauquenes, in places visited only by botanists and geolo- 
gists." The same author, Cl. Gay, insists in his ' Flora Chilena ' on the 
frequency of the wild potato in Chili, even among the Araucanians in the 
* Sabine, ' Trans. Hort. Soc.' vol. v. p. 249. 
t Sabine's plant represents Maglia, not S. tuberosum. Ntte by J. G. Baker.. 
X A. Cruckshanks. 
§ Darwin's plant was S. Maglia, rot 5. tulerosiim. — J. G. B. 
