Stevenson ("Travels in South America,” vol. ii., p. 55) says, a root called the oca is cultivated in several of the colder provinces of Peru.  “This plant,” he states, “is of a moderate size, in appearance somewhat like the acetous trefoil; the roots yellow, each about five or six inches long, and two in circumference.  They have many eyes, and the roots, several of which are yielded by one plant, are somewhat curved.  When boiled it is much sweeter than the camote or batata; indeed it appears to contain more saccharine matter than any root I ever tasted; if eaten raw it is very much like the chesnut.  The roots may be kept for many months in a dry place.  The transplanting of the oca (he adds) to England, where I am persuaded it would prosper, would add another agreeable and useful esculent to our tables.”

The Brussels paper, L’Emancipation, mentions that a root has been discovered by the Director of the Museum of Industry, in that place, destined to take the place of the potato.  It is the Lathyrus tuberosus, called by the peasants the earth mouse, on account of its form, and the earth chesnut on account of its taste.  This plant exists only in some localities of Lorraine and Burgundy.  The Lathyrus has never been cultivated, and it is thought that it will attain, with cultivation, the size of the potato.  The French peasants have a prejudice against cultivating it, because they say it walks under ground, and leaves the place it is planted in to go into the neighbouring field.  The fact is, that it grows in a chaplet, of which the bulbs are arranged along a root running horizontally, of which the two extremities are very rarely found, so that on taking up the hinder tubercles it continues its growth in front, which gives rise to the saying that if the plant had only time enough, it would make the tour of the world.

The bulb of Gastrodia sesamoides (R.  Brown), a curious herbaceous species of orchis, native of New Holland, is edible, and preferred by the aborigines to potatoes and other tuberous roots.  Some of my accredited informants believe it might be turned to profitable account, but being a parasitic plant, it could scarcely be systematically cultivated.  It flourishes in its wild state on loamy soil in low or sloping grounds.  The first indication of its vegetation in the spring, is the appearance of a whitish bulb above the sward, of an hemispherical shape, and about the size of a small egg.  The dusky white covering resembles a fine white net, and within it is a pellucid gelatinous substance.  Again within this is a firm kernel, about as large as a Spanish nut, and from this a fine fibrous root descends into the soil.  It is known in Van Diemen’s Land, and other parts of Australia, by the common name of native bread.  Captain Hunter, in his Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson on the first settlement of the Convict Colony, speaks of finding large quantities of “wild yams,” on which the natives fed, but the roots were not bigger than a walnut; therefore it was probably this plant.