Talk:Pomme de Terre River (Minnesota)

A fact from Pomme de Terre River (Minnesota) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 20 June 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that while the name of western Minnesota's Pomme de Terre River (pictured) translates as "Potato River", it was actually named for the prairie turnip?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/June.

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Untitled[edit]

Can someone explain why it was named "Pomme de Terre" if that was after the prairie turnip ? -- Beardo 03:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added a couple more references, and added that it was named by French explorers. It sounds like a case of people describing an unfamiliar plant as best as they could, but that's speculation on my part. One of the reference sources has William Clark calling the plant a "ground potato", but I didn't include it in the article since Lewis & Clark didn't visit the area. --Malepheasant 03:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]