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Re: Incan plants
Here are some references on pre-Columbian Andean agriculture, followed by
some possible seed sources:
Foster, Nelson and Linda S. Cordell (editors)
1992 Chilies to Chocolate: Food the Americas Gave the World.
University of Arizona Press, Tucson. (more general popular work)
Franquemont, Christine, Timothy Plowman, et al.
1990 The Ethnobotany of Chinchero, An Andean Community in
Southern Peru. Botany New Series 24. Field Museum of Natural History,
Chicago. (modern but very detailed)
Hastorf, Christine A.
1992 Agriculture and the Onset of Political Inequality Before the Inka.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. (Archaeological, with lots on
social contexts)
Zimmerer, Karl Stephen
1988 Seeds of Peasant Subsistence: Agrarian Structiure, Crop
Ecology, and Quechua Agriculture in Reference to the Loss of Biological
Diversity in the Southern Peruvian Andes. Ph.D. dissertation, University
of California, Berkeley.
You may be able to get some seeds from these sources:
Echo, 17430 Durrance Road, North Fort Myers, FL 33917
(813/543-3246) - Nonprofit group specializing in seeds & plants of
underexploited but important tropical food crops.
Inca Brand Inc., P.O. Box 741, Tonasket, WA 98855 (509/486-2484) -
specializes in quinoa.
Quinoa Corp., P.O. Box 1039, Torrance, CA 90505 (213/530-8666) -
quinoa again
Seed Savers Exchange, P.O. Box 70, Decorah, IA, 52101 -- genetic
preservation group that carries many ethnic varieties, including many
Peruvian chiles.
Of the Jungle, P.O. Box 1801, Sebastopol, CA 95473 -- “tribal”
medicines, vegetables, herbs, etc.
Peace Seeds, 2835 S.E. Thompson St., Corvallis, OR, 97333,
(503/752-0421) - carries canna, an important Peruvian tuber
or, if you really want to get into this, try the Programa de
Investigacion en Cultivos Andinos, Universidad Nacional de San Cristobal
de Huamanga, Ayacucho, Peru. SDunavan