Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
Dec,  1876.  j 
Ly  coper  don  Solidum. 
555 
and  filled  with  cracks  ;  the  color  externally  is  ashy  black,  in  the  interior 
white  or  nearly  so,  of  a  starchy  appearance,  very  firm,  and  breaks  into 
irregular  masses.  The  Kansas  specimen  is  rounded  in  shape,  with  a 
black,  rough  exterior,  and  a  white  and  compact  interior.  When  broken 
it  has  the  appearance  of  a  mass  of  dried  dough,  full  of  fissures  and  very 
granular..  Booth  and  Morfit's  Cyclopedia  of  Chemistry  gives  the  follow- 
ing under  the  article  of  '  Picquotaine,'  a  highly  nutritious  plant  useci 
as  food  by  Indians.  It  results  from  a  disease  of  the  Psoralea  esculenta* 
Its  composition  is  as  follows  :  Nitrogenous  matter,  4*09  ;  mineral- 
substances,  i*6i  ;  starch,  8i*8o;  water,  I2'50."  The  following- 
remarks  relative  to  the  Tuckahoe  are  furnished  by  Dr.  John  Torrey  : 
"  It  was  first  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  public  by  Dr.  Clayton,  who 
sent  it  to  Gronovius  under  the  name  of  Lycoperdon  solidum,  and  as  such  de- 
scribed it  in  the  Flora  Virginica  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago. 
Next  it  was  described  by  the  late  Dr.  von  Schweinitz,  in  his  '  Synopsis 
of  the  Fungi  of  North  Carolina,'  under  the  name  of  Scleroticum  cocos* 
About  the  same  time  Dr.  Macbride,  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina, 
sent  to  the  Linnean  Society  of  London  his  observations  on  that  fungus. 
Without  being  aware  of  having  been  anticipated  by  Schweinitz,  I 
described  it  in  the  '  New  York  Repository  '  about  the  year  18 19,  under 
the  name  of  Scleroticum  giganteum.  I  gave  also  a  chemical  analysis  of 
it,  showing  that  it  is  chiefly  composed  of  a  singular  substance  which  I 
named  sclerotin.  Braconnot  some  years  after  this  described  the  same 
,  principle,  which  he  called  pectin.  In  the  Synopsis  Fungorum  of  Fries., 
the  fungus  is  called  Pachyma  cocos.  In  the  Proceedings  of  the  Linnean 
Society  of  London  is  an  account  by  Rev.  M.  J.  Berkeley  of  a  large 
subterranean  fungus  that  is  sold  as  food  in  the  streets  of  Shanghai, 
undoubtedly  the  same  as  the  Tuckahoe." 
And  in  the  Report  of  the  same  Department  for  187 1  (p.  98)  occurs 
the  following  from  R.  T.  Brown,  Chemist  to  the  Department  : 
"  Tuckahoe  or  Indian  Bread. — This  curious  fungus  (Scleroticum  gigan- 
teum) is  quite  common  in  many  parts  of  the  Southern  States,  where  it 
is  frequently  used  as  an  article  of  food.1    To  determine  its  nutritive 
1  This  is  certainly  an  over-strong  way  of  stating  the  facts.  Specimens  of  the 
material  in  question  are  not  very  rare,  and  they  are  occasionally  eaten  by  the  negroes 
of  the  Southern  States,  but  the  substance  can  by  no  means  be  said  to  be  common;, 
or  commonly  used  as  an  article  of  food.  In  the  analysis  there  is  obviously  a  little 
error  of  statement  in  reporting  elementary  nitrogen  and  accounting  for  all  that 
remains  of  100  per  cent,  in  non-nitrogenous  material. 
