This vegetable, known to the botanists as _Stachys sieboldi_, has
been introduced into America from Japan and has a number of different
names, such as Japanese potato, Chinese artichoke, chorogi, etc., but
the name stachys seems to have been adopted as the common one in this
country. The plant is a small perennial belonging to the mint family
and produces just below the ground a multitude of small, white, crisp
edible tubers, varying from an inch to two and one-half inches in
length, and about one-half an inch in thickness and marked by irregular
spiral rings, which give them a corkscrew-like appearance.
Stachys has been tested at the New York (Cornell) and a number of
the other agricultural experiment stations, and proved so easy of
cultivation and pleasant in taste (the flavor resembling artichokes)
that the vegetable has made many friends and is now procurable at the
markets in most of our larger cities. The agreeable quality is in
considerable measure due to the crispness of the tubers, and as this
disappears when they are exposed to the air they should be stored in
sand or sawdust. They are ready for use when the plant dies down in
the autumn, though they may be easily carried over the winter and are
prepared for the table like potatoes or other vegetables, or may be
eaten raw like radishes.--(F. B. 295.)