SC - Pototoes - LONG POST

[Decker, Terry D.]

WARNING -- Long post on the natural history of the potato.  Fuel for the
fire, but no recipes for the cooking, unless you want to count being
cooked with mutton in the manner of turnips and carrots as a recipe
(Italy pre-1601 with caveats).

I went looking for a copy of Salaman's The History and Social Influence
of the Potato.  I didn't find it, but I did find Stuart, William; The
Potato, Its Culture, Uses, History, and Classifications; J.B.
Lippincott, New York, 1937.  Stuart was the Chief Horticulturist for the
USDA and the book was written as an ag-school text book.  The chapter on
the history of the potato has a number of interesting quotes, a few of
which I'll reproduce here.

The first published description of the potato is in Bauhin, Caspar;
Phytopinax, 1596:

<quote>
The stem is in the form of a stalk about one and one-half to two feet in
length; fruit in the shape of a golden apple, nearly round,.....stem
green, somewhat branched, nevertheless it sometimes reaches the height
of a man.....Leaves about the length of the hand, rough on the under
side with pale hair.  Much divided into six, eight or more or less
parts; like single leaves, to the number of which an odd one is always
added; round to oblong, simple, arranged opposite and there are usually
two, six or more small leaves interspersed along the leaf stalk.

The branches are usually divided into two stalks, each of which bears
many flowers, some closed and three or four open, ranging from blue to
purplish, spreading out into five points which somewhat greenish-yellow
lines traverse and divide; in the centre there are usually bunched four
reddish stamens, as in Malum insanum.

The flowers are succeeded by single round fruits, hanging on long stems,
like a cluster, as in Solanum vulgare, but far larger; for some of them
equal a nut (probably a walnut) in size; some of them indeed grow no
larger than a filbert, all nevertheless striped with equal lines, like
the Malum aureum, which range from green to blackish and, when mature,
to a dark red Iprobably a purplish-black).  In these the seed is small,
flat and round, somewhat swarthy.

The root is round, but not circular, of a swarthy of dark red color; it
is taken up from the earth in the winter time and is returned to the
earth in the spring.

At the base of the stem, at the head of the main root, long fibrous
roots are spread out, on some of which small round roots are borne
(tubers).

We name this Solanum because of certain form of its leaves and of the
fruit, which is like Malum aureum; then of the flowers, which are like
Malum insanum; then, of its seed, which corresponds to the Solani; and
finally, on account of the unpleasant odor of it, common to the Solani.


In giving his source of information, Bauhin says:

The seed was sent under the name of papas of the Spainards, and
originally of the Indians, which grew easily in our garden almost like a
leafy shrub, as in the graden of Dr. Martin Chmielecius, who had one
with a white blossom.  On account of our long standing friendship, Dr.
Laurentius Scholtzius, a physician, sent me a drawing of a plant that he
had grown in his garden, sketched in colors, but without fruit, and the
root appendages.
<end quote>


Gerard in his 1596 catalog refers to the potato as Papas orbiculatus.
In the Herball of 1597, he calls the potato Batata virginiana sine
Virginanorum et Papus (Potatoes of Virginia).

The following comments are from Wight, W.F.; Origin, introduction and
primative culture of the potato.  Proceedings of the Third Annual
Meeting of the Potato Association of America, Nineteen Sixteen; 35-52,
1917.

<quote>
The idea that the potato was introduced from Virginia into England, is,
however, so prevalent in literature that it should have some
consideration, even though the claim is not made that the potato was
native to Virginia.  Few, in fact, have believed that it was cultivated
by the Indians previous to the era of European exploration and
settlement; and no evidence has ever been brought forward, so far as I
am aware, in support of such a contention.  The conclusion in regard its
introduction from Virginia rests solely on the assumption that the root
(called by the Indians Openauk), described by Thomas Hariot in A Brief
and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, first printed in
London in 1588, is the potato; and is also the plant described by Gerard
in his Herball issued in 1598.  Hariot says:  "These roots are found in
moist and marshy grounds, growing many together in ropes as though they
were fastened by string."  He states that they grew naturally or wild,
which would be improbable if they were potatoes introduced after the
discovery.  The description also applies better to Apios tuberosa, the
ground nut, than it does to the potato.  Furthermore, the Indians would
scarcely have had a distinctive name for a plant so recently introduced.

We may assume, from the evidence at hand as to the improbability of the
potato being known, and still less cultivated in Virginia at that time,
if Raleigh's vessels in charge of Sir Francis Drake did bring the potato
to England on the date mentioned, they must have secured it from some
South American trading vessel, or at a point other than Virginia.
<end quote>

Wight's comments on Gerard's inconsistencies:

<quote>
It is curious, if Gerard had the plant described by Hariot, that he did
not use his name (Openauk) instead of a word which is not known to have
occurred in the Indian language within the present border of the United
States or Canada.  The question of how Gerard came by the word 'papas'
may be settled with reasonable certainty, for he says:  "It groweth
naturally in America where it was first discovered, as reporteth C.
Clusius.....It is doubtful if Clusius would have reported anything
concerning the potato before he recieved the tubers, which was in 1588,
two years after Hariot's return from America; yet Gerard says:  "since
which time (referring to the statement of Clusius) he had received roots
from Virginia," and this would indicate that he must have received roots
from some other voyage.  The figure in the Herball is in two parts, and
it may be doubted if the tubers figured are potatoes, at least this part
of the figure, for some reason, is changed in Johnson's edition of the
Herball in 1636.
<end quote>

Clucius, C.; Rariorum Plantarum Historia: 79, Chap. LII, 1601:

Clucius gives a description of Papas Perunorum.

<quote>
There is an edible root of a new plant, which but a few years ago was
not known in Europe.....It springs at first from a bulb, which, with us,
startsinto growth about April, not later; within a few days after
planting it puts forth leaves of a dark purplish color, hairy, which,
presently unfolding, show a green color; 5, 7, or more leaflets on the
same stem, not very different from the radish, always of an odd number,
some smaller leaves being interspersed, and the odd one always occupying
the extreme tip of the petiole.  The stem is of the thickness of the
thumb, angular, and covered with down.  From the axils of the petiols
coarse stalks appear, angular pedicels, bearing 10 to 12 or more flowers
about an inch or more across, angular, consisting of one piece, but so
folded that there appear to be five seperate leaves, of a whitish-purple
on the outside,inside purplish, with five green rays appearing from the
centre like a star, with yellow stamens gathered together in the centre,
and a prominent greenish style.  After the flowers, which bear an odor
resembling the odor of the flowers of the linden, roundish apples
appear, not much different from the fruit of the mandrake, only smaller,
green at first, white at maturity; full of juicy pulp which contain many
flat seeds scarecely larger than the seeds of the fig.

When in the month of November, the plant is dug after the first frosts,
there are discovered tubers of various sizes.  These are uneven,
recognized by certain marks whence, the following year, shoots will
start forth.  I remember, also, that there were collected more than 50
tubers from one single plant, some so large that they weigh an ounce or
even two, the outside skin reddish or approaching a purple color, some
small, as though not yet mature; they have a whitish skin which is very
tender in all the tubers, but the flesh itself is firm and white.

>From the tubers alone therefore, we must expect the preservation of the
genus, and from the seed, the daughter plants of which, in the same
year, bear blossoms, but of a different color from the mother plant.  So
I have learned from others, though I have never tried the experiment
myself.  True it is my friend Johannes Hogeladius described plants to me
produced from the seed which I sent him, which produced white blossoms
altogether.  I received the first authentic information about this plant
from Phillipus de Sivry, Dn. de Walhain and the Prefect of the City of
Mons in Hannonia, of the Belgians, who sent two tuber of it, with its
fruit, to me in Vienna, Austria, at the beginning of the year 1587, and
in the following year, a drawing of the branch with a flower.  He wrote
that he had received it the preceeding year from a certain employee of
the Pontifical Legation in Belgium.  Later Jacobs Garerus, Jr., sent me
a Frankfort drawing of a whole saltk, with roots.  Indeed, I have much
desired to exhibit the whole plant here, but I have taken pains to
portray it in two drawings from the living plant--one representing
flowers and fruit, the other roots and tubers clinging to their own
fibers.

The Italians do not know where they were first produced.  Certain it is,
however, that they were obtained either from Spain or from America.  It
is a great wonder to me that, when it was so common and frequent in
Italian settlements (so they say), that they feast upon these tubers,
cooked with the flesh of mutton, in the same manner as upon turnip and
carrots, they give themselves the advantage of such nourishment, and
allow the news of the plant to reach us in such an off-hand way.  Now,
indeed, in many gardens of Germany it is quite common because it is very
fruitful.
<end quote>


Stuart's comments:

<quote>
It is apparent to the reader that there are some inconsistencies in the
description of the potato by both Bauhin and Clusius.  Take for example
Bauhin's description of the fruits, which he says are dark red when
mature.  In many of the varieties from South America which have come
under our observation, the mature fruits are a dark purplish-black or
dark bluish-green black, whereas in all varieties that are classified
under groups 1 to 12 in Chapter XII they are a light lemon-yellow color
when mature.

In view of this fact, we may accept Bauhin's description of the color an
not entirely inaccurate.  It requires some imagination on the other hand
to accept Clusius's statement that the odor of the potato flower
resembles that of the linden.  His description of the mature fruits
would indicate that the variety he had was different from that of
Bauhin's.  The accuracy of obnservation of Clusius is well indicated in
his description of the color of the tubers in which he says "some small,
as though not yet mature, they have a whitish skin."  This observation
has been repeatedly verified in studying a number of tuber-bearing
species of Solanum from Mexico.  The immature tubers very frequently do
not show color, whereas when they mature, several species have always
developed a purplish color.
<end quote>

<quote>
While we have little definite knowledge as to how extensively the potato
was cultivated prior to the seventeenth century, we can safely assume
that it had not yet emerged from the curiosity or novelty stage in its
development as a staple food plant, although Clusius says that it is
reported to be more or less commony grown in Italy, and further remarks
that, because of its fruitfulness, it is quite commonly grown in many
gardens of Germany.  Despite these statements of Clusius, the fact
remains that the potato was little grown in Europe before the latter
part of the seventeenth century, and, in fact, did not become of great
commercial importance until the later half of the eighteenth century.
<end quote>

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