THE AMERICAN GROUNDNUT, A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE POTATO. 
185 
THE AMERICAN GROUNDNUT, A SUBSTITUTE 
FOR THE POTATO. 
In consequence of the serious results that have 
been occasioned by the potato disease, attention 
has been directed from time to time, in various 
countries, to other plants, in the hope that some or 
one of them might be found capable of supplying, 
covered, taking everything into consideration that 
is capable of superseding that valuable esculent. 
The plant, however, to which attention has been 
drawn for some time, in France, and which appears 
to be in many respects preferable to any yet tried, 
is the American groundnut (Apios tuberosa). M. 
Trecul, a Frenchman, who has recently made a 
tour through North America for 
the express purpose of obtain- 
ing plants with nutritious roots, 
says : — " I found at Neosho a 
plant of which I have great 
hopes. I met with it before in 
Missouri. Here it is more abun- 
dant. It is Apios tuberosa. 
Although the tubers are still 
growing, I have found several 
half as large as a man's fist ; 
they are developed in the sum- 
mer and autumn, and give in the 
following year fruit-bearing stems. 
These tubers, called by theOsages 
taux, are floury, like the potato, 
and a little sweeter • they do not 
ripen before the end of autumn." 
In an account of this plant, re- 
cently published by M. Richard, it 
is described as having a curious 
underground vegetation ; its roots 
are the size of a quill pen, cylin- 
drical, running horizontally under 
the soil, but close to its surface, 
and are often two metres long, 
(six feet and a half,) and some- 
times much longer than that. 
Here and there the roots swell 
insensibly ; the swellings gradu- 
ally become spindle-shaped, grow 
larger, become filled with starch, 
and form true tubers. The swell- 
ings are sometimes close together,' 
so as to form a sort of chaplet. 
Sometimes they are very unequal 
and at other times tolerably uni- 
form in size. 
Their surface is at first pretty 
smooth and even, of a very pale 
brown color, but by degrees, they 
send out fibres which are often 
placed in longitudinal series pa- 
rallel to the axis of the root. 
These fibres drop off and leave on 
the surface of the tubers little un- 
equal projecting scars. Independ- 
ently of these, there are also on 
the surface of the tubers small, 
white, hemispherical tumors, about 
the size of a pin's head, and which 
are so many eyes, or buds, capable 
of growing into aerial stems. 
When the tubers are ripe, they 
are irregularly ovoid ; the largest 
seldom exceed in size a hen's egg. 
Part of their surface is even, the 
I other is rough and irregularly tubercled. These 
to a certain extent, at least, the place hitherto filled inequalities are owing either to the development 
by the potato. As yet, nothing has been dis- 1 of aerial stems or of radical fibres. The epidermis 
. Fig. 45. American Groundnut. 
Explanation. ~ Tubers of Apios tuberosa. A, an old tuber, with a double 
string of young ones, b. b ; C, a string of tubers 2 years old ; d, d, the upper 
and woody part of the string from which the stems arise ; E, a cross section 
of an old tuber ; F, a longitudinal section of the same. 
