[Illustration]
A description of the potato in a work destined for European
pharmaceutists and physicians, would be entirely useless; so well and so
universally known is this plant in Europe. However, since our work will
get into the hands of persons who are less familiar with the productions
of the European continent, we deem it advisable to subjoin a drawing and
a short description of this plant. The potato is a native of Chili; it
is an herbaceous plant, with a branchy stem about one or two feet high.
Its leaves are pinnatifid, with leaflets that are oval, entire, slightly
hairy on their lower surface and almost opposite. Smaller folioles
sometimes arise between the larger ones. The flowers constitute corymbs
either erect or inclined; calice in five parts; corol of a white violet
with five equal divisions; five stamens attached to the basis of the
corol; one style and stigma, fleshy berry with two chambers. The roots
develop tubercles of different sizes and called potatoes. The potato-rot
first reveals itself by brown spots irregularly distributed through
the interior of the tubercles; gradually these spots are transformed
into white points of a cottonny appearance which may be compared to
the cryptogamia termed byssus, and found on damp wood. From this point
a general process of decomposition sets in, and the potato exhales an
insupportable nauseous odor. In our provings we have made use of a potato
in an entire state of decomposition, without, however, being completely
rotten; there were brown portions intermingled with those byssus-shaped
parts described above.