[F., = ‘all the months, every month’; but probably a popular perversion of toloman, according to Duss and Jumelle the name in the French Antilles, prob. of native S. American origin.] The name in St. Kitts, etc., of species of Canna, esp. C. edulis, and of the starch obtained from its root-stocks, also called tous-les-mois starch.
Canna coccinea was introduced into W. Indies from S. America in 1731; C. edulis from Peru in 1820 (A. W. Hill, Kew). Samples of the farina were sent to England from St. Kitts in 1835–6: see Ryan’s Med. & Surg. Jrnl., Aug., 1836, and Morning Chron., 4 Aug., 1837.
1839. Olphers, Lett., cited in Pharm. Jrnl., VII. 56. (On the Canna Achira or Tous les Mois).
1858. Hogg, Veg. Kingd., 787. The article known as Tous-les-mois is obtained from the root-stocks of some species of Canna.… The substance is prepared in the island of St. Kitts.
1861. Bentley, Man. Bot., 669. One or more species of this genus [Canna] yield ‘Tous les mois,’ a very pure and useful starch, now largely consumed in this country and elsewhere.
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., I. ii. 153. The larger-grained starches form splendid objects; tous-les-mois being the largest may be taken as a type of all the others.
