CHAPTER I.

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THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

VOLUME XLVIII.

THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

ORIGIN OF

CULTIVATED PLANTS.

BY

ALPHONSE DE CANDOLLE,

FOREIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE;

FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON, EDINBURGH,

AND DUBLIN; OF THE ACADEMIES OF ST. PETERSBURG,

STOCKHOLM, BERLIN, MUNICH, BRUSSELS, COPENHAGEN, AMSTERDAM,

ROME, TURIN, MADRID, BOSTON, ETC.

NEW YORK:

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1908.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

THE knowledge of the origin of cultivated plants is interesting to

agriculturists, to botanists, and even to historians and philosophers

concerned with the dawnings of civilization.

I went into this question of origin in a chapter in my work on

geographical botany; but the book has become scarce, and, moreover,

since 1855 important facts have been discovered by travellers,

botanists, and archæologists. Instead of publishing a second edition, I

have drawn up an entirely new and more extended work, which treats of

the origin of almost double the number of species belonging to the

tropics and the temperate zones. It includes almost all plants which are

cultivated, either on a large scale for economic purposes, or in

orchards and kitchen gardens.

I have always aimed at discovering the condition and the habitat of each

species before it was cultivated. It was needful to this end to

distinguish from among innumerable varieties that which should be

regarded as the most ancient, and to find out from what quarter of the

globe it came. The problem is more difficult than it appears at first

sight. In the last century and up to the middle of the present authors

made little account of it, and the most able have contributed to the

propagation of erroneous ideas. I believe that three out of four of

Linnæus’ indications of the original home of cultivated plants are

incomplete or incorrect. His statements have since been repeated, and in

spite of what modern writers have proved touching several species, they

are still repeated in periodicals and popular works. It is time that

mistakes, which date in some cases from the Greeks and Romans, should be

corrected. The actual condition of science allows of such correction,

provided we rely upon evidence of varied character, of which some

portion is quite recent, and even unpublished; and this evidence should

be sifted as we sift evidence in historical research. It is one of the

rare cases in which a science founded on observation should make use of

testimonial proof. It will be seen that this method leads to

satisfactory results, since I have been able to determine the origin of

almost all the species, sometimes with absolute certainty, and sometimes

with a high degree of probability.

I have also endeavoured to establish the number of centuries or

thousands of years during which each species has been in cultivation,

and how its culture spread in different directions at successive epochs.

A few plants cultivated for more than two thousand years, and even some

others, are not now known in a spontaneous, that is, wild condition, or

at any rate this condition is not proved. Questions of this nature are

subtle. They, like the distinction of species, require much research in

books and in herbaria. I have even been obliged to appeal to the

courtesy of travellers or botanists in all parts of the world to obtain

recent information. I shall mention these in each case with the

expression of my grateful thanks.

In spite of these records, and of all my researches, there still remain

several species which are unknown wild. In the cases where these come

from regions not completely explored by botanists, or where they belong

to genera as yet insufficiently studied, there is hope that the wild

plant may be one day discovered. But this hope is fallacious in the case

of well-known species and countries. We are here led to form one of two

hypotheses; either these plants have since history began so changed in

form in their wild as well as in their cultivated condition that they

are no longer recognized as belonging to the same species, or they are

extinct species. The lentil, the chick-pea, probably no longer exist in

nature; and other species, as wheat, maize, the broad bean, carthamine,

very rarely found wild, appear to be in course of extinction. The number

of cultivated plants with which I am here concerned being two hundred

and forty-nine, the three, four, or five species, extinct or nearly

extinct, is a large proportion, representing a thousand species, out of

the whole number of phanerogams. This destruction of forms must have

taken place during the short period of a few hundred centuries, on

continents where they might have spread, and under circumstances which

are commonly considered unvarying. This shows how the history of

cultivated plants is allied to the most important problems of the

general history of organized beings.

GENEVA, 1882.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

GENERAL REMARKS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. IN WHAT MANNER AND AT WHAT EPOCHS CULTIVATION BEGAN

IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES 1

II. METHODS FOR DISCOVERING OR PROVING THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 8

PART II.

ON THE STUDY OF SPECIES, CONSIDERED AS TO THEIR

ORIGIN, THEIR EARLY CULTIVATION, AND THE

PRINCIPAL FACTS OF THEIR DIFFUSION.

I. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS, SUCH

AS ROOTS, TUBERCLES, OR BULBS 29

II. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES 83

III. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLOWERS, OR FOR THE ORGANS

WHICH ENVELOP THEM 161

IV. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS 168

V. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS 313

PART III.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.

I. GENERAL TABLE OF SPECIES, WITH THEIR ORIGIN AND THE

EPOCH OF THEIR EARLIEST CULTIVATION 436

II. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 447

INDEX 463

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.

PART I.

General Remarks.

CHAPTER I.

IN WHAT MANNER AND AT WHAT EPOCHS CULTIVATION BEGAN IN DIFFERENT

COUNTRIES.

THE traditions of ancient peoples, embellished by poets, have commonly

attributed the first steps in agriculture and the introduction of useful

plants, to some divinity, or at least to some great emperor or Inca.

Reflection shows that this is hardly probable, and observation of the

attempts at agriculture among the savage tribes of our own day proves

that the facts are quite otherwise.

In the progress of civilization the beginnings are usually feeble,

obscure, and limited. There are reasons why this should be the case with

the first attempts at agriculture or horticulture. Between the custom of

gathering wild fruits, grain, and roots, and that of the regular

cultivation of the plants which produce them, there are several steps. A

family may scatter seeds around its dwelling, and provide itself the

next year with the same product in the forest. Certain fruit trees may

exist near a dwelling without our knowing whether they were planted, or

whether the hut was built beside them in order to profit by them. War

and the chase often interrupt attempts at cultivation. Rivalry and

mistrust cause the imitation of one tribe by another to make but slow

progress. If some great personage command the cultivation of a plant,

and institute some ceremonial to show its utility, it is probably

because obscure and unknown men have previously spoken of it, and that

successful experiments have been already made. A longer or shorter

succession of local and short-lived experiments must have occurred

before such a display, which is calculated to impress an already

numerous public. It is easy to understand that there must have been

determining causes to excite these attempts, to renew them, to make them

successful.

The first cause is that such or such a plant, offering some of those

advantages which all men seek, must be within reach. The lowest savages

know the plants of their country; but the example of the Australians and

Patagonians shows that if they do not consider them productive and easy

to rear, they do not entertain the idea of cultivating them. Other

conditions are sufficiently evident: a not too rigorous climate; in hot

countries, the moderate duration of drought; some degree of security and

settlement; lastly, a pressing necessity, due to insufficient resources

in fishing, hunting, or in the production of indigenous and nutritious

plants, such as the chestnut, the date-palm, the banana, or the

breadfruit tree. When men can live without work it is what they like

best. Besides, the element of hazard in hunting and fishing attracts

primitive, and sometimes civilized man, more than the rude and regular

labour of cultivation.

I return to the species which savages are disposed to cultivate. They

sometimes find them in their own country, but often receive them from

neighbouring peoples, more favoured than themselves by natural

conditions, or already possessed of some sort of civilization. When a

people is not established on an island, or in some place difficult of

access, they soon adopt certain plants, discovered elsewhere, of which

the advantage is evident, and are thereby diverted from the cultivation

of the poorer species of their own country. History shows us that

wheat, maize, the sweet potato, several species of the genus Panicum,

tobacco, and other plants, especially annuals, were widely diffused

before the historical period. These useful species opposed and arrested

the timid attempts made here and there on less productive or less

agreeable plants. And we see in our own day, in various countries,

barley replaced by wheat, maize preferred to buckwheat and many kinds of

millet, while some vegetables and other cultivated plants fall into

disrepute because other species, sometimes brought from a distance, are

more profitable. The difference in value, however great, which is found

among plants already improved by culture, is less than that which exists

between cultivated plants and others completely wild. Selection, that

great factor which Darwin has had the merit of introducing so happily

into science, plays an important part when once agriculture is

established; but in every epoch, and especially in its earliest stage,

the choice of species is more important than the selection of varieties.

The various causes which favour or obstruct the beginnings of

agriculture, explain why certain regions have been for thousands of

years peopled by husbandmen, while others are still inhabited by nomadic

tribes. It is clear that, owing to their well-known qualities and to the

favourable conditions of climate, it was at an early period found easy

to cultivate rice and several leguminous plants in Southern Asia, barley

and wheat in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, several species of Panicum in

Africa, maize, the potato, the sweet potato, and manioc in America.

Centres were thus formed whence the most useful species were diffused.

In the north of Asia, of Europe, and of America, the climate is

unfavourable, and the indigenous plants are unproductive; but as hunting

and fishing offered their resources, agriculture must have been

introduced there late, and it was possible to dispense with the good

species of the south without great suffering. It was different in

Australia, Patagonia, and even in the south of Africa. The plants of the

temperate region in our hemisphere could not reach these countries by

reason of the distance, and those of the intertropical zone were

excluded by great drought or by the absence of a high temperature. At

the same time, the indigenous species are very poor. It is not merely

the want of intelligence or of security which has prevented the

inhabitants from cultivating them. The nature of the indigenous flora

has so much to do with it, that the Europeans, established in these

countries for a hundred years, have only cultivated a single species,

the _Tetragonia_, an insignificant green vegetable. I am aware that Sir

Joseph Hooker[1] has enumerated more than a hundred Australian species

which may be used in some way; but as a matter of fact they were not

cultivated by the natives, and, in spite of the improved methods of the

English colonists, no one does cultivate them. This clearly demonstrates

the principle of which I spoke just now, that the choice of species is

more important than the selection of varieties, and that there must be

valuable qualities in a wild plant in order to lead to its cultivation.

In spite of the obscurity of the beginnings of cultivation in each

region, it is certain that they occurred at very different periods. One

of the most ancient examples of cultivated plants is in a drawing

representing figs, found in Egypt in the pyramid of Gizeh. The epoch of

the construction of this monument is uncertain. Authors have assigned a

date varying between fifteen hundred and four thousand two hundred years

before the Christian era. Supposing it to be two thousand years, its

actual age would be four thousand years. Now, the construction of the

pyramids could only have been the work of a numerous, organized people,

possessing a certain degree of civilization, and consequently an

established agriculture, dating from some centuries back at least. In

China, two thousand seven hundred years before Christ, the Emperor

Chenming instituted the ceremony at which every year five species of

useful plants are sown—rice, sweet potato, wheat, and two kinds of

millet.[2] These plants must have been cultivated for some time in

certain localities before they attracted the emperor’s attention to such

a degree. Agriculture appears, then, to be as ancient in China as in

Egypt. The constant relations between Egypt and Mesopotamia lead us to

suppose that an almost contemporaneous cultivation existed in the

valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile. And it may have been equally

early in India and in the Malay Archipelago. The history of the

Dravidian and Malay peoples does not reach far back, and is sufficiently

obscure, but there is no reason to believe that cultivation has not been

known among them for a very long time, particularly along the banks of

the rivers.

The ancient Egyptians and the Phœnicians propagated many plants in the

region of the Mediterranean, and the Aryan nations, whose migrations

towards Europe began about 2500, or at latest 2000 years B.C., carried

with them several species already cultivated in Western Asia. We shall

see, in studying the history of several species, that some plants were

probably cultivated in Europe and in the north of Africa prior to the

Aryan migration. This is shown by names in languages more ancient than

the Aryan tongues; for instance, Finn, Basque, Berber, and the speech of

the Guanchos of the Canary Isles. However, the remains, called

kitchen-middens, of ancient Danish dwellings, have hitherto furnished no

proof of cultivation or any indication of the possession of metal.[3]

The Scandinavians of that period lived principally by fishing and

hunting, and perhaps eked out their subsistence by indigenous plants,

such as the cabbage, the nature of which does not admit any remnant of

traces in the dung-heaps and rubbish, and which, moreover, did not

require cultivation. The absence of metals does not in these northern

countries argue a greater antiquity than the age of Pericles, or even

the palmy days of the Roman republic. Later, when bronze was known in

Sweden—a region far removed from the then civilized

countries—agriculture had at length been introduced. Among the remains

of that epoch was found a carving of a cart drawn by two oxen and driven

by a man.[4]

The ancient inhabitants of Eastern Switzerland, at a time when they

possessed instruments of polished stone and no metals, cultivated

several plants, of which some were of Asiatic origin. Heer[5] has shown,

in his admirable work on the lake-dwellings, that the inhabitants had

intercourse with the countries south of the Alps. They may also have

received plants cultivated by the Iberians, who occupied Gaul before the

Kelts. At the period when the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Savoy

possessed bronze, their agriculture was more varied. It seems that the

lake-dwellers of Italy, when in possession of this metal, cultivated

fewer species than those of Savoy,[6] and this may be due either to a

greater antiquity or to local circumstances. The remains of the

lake-dwellers of Laybach and of the Mondsee in Austria prove likewise a

completely primitive agriculture; no cereals have been found at Laybach,

and but a single grain of wheat at the Mondsee.[7] The backward

condition of agriculture in this eastern part of Europe is contrary to

the hypothesis, based on a few words used by ancient historians, that

the Aryans sojourned first in the region of the Danube, and that Thrace

was civilized before Greece. In spite of this example, agriculture

appears in general to have been more ancient in the temperate parts of

Europe than we should be inclined to believe from the Greeks, who were

disposed, like certain modern writers, to attribute the origin of all

progress to their own nation.

In America, agriculture is perhaps not quite so ancient as in Asia and

Egypt, if we are to judge from the civilization of Mexico and Peru,

which does not date even from the first centuries of the Christian era.

However, the widespread cultivation of certain plants, such as maize,

tobacco, and the sweet potato, argues a considerable antiquity, perhaps

two thousand years or thereabouts. History is at fault in this matter,

and we can only hope to be enlightened by the discoveries of archæology

and geology.

CHAPTER II.

METHODS FOR DISCOVERING OR PROVING THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

1. _General reflections._ As most cultivated plants have been under

culture from an early period, and the manner of their introduction into

cultivation is often little known, different means are necessary in

order to ascertain their origin. For each species we need a research

similar to those made by historians and archæologists—a varied research,

in which sometimes one process is employed, sometimes another; and these

are afterwards combined and estimated according to their relative value.

The naturalist is here no longer in his ordinary domain of observation

and description; he must support himself by historical proof, which is

never demanded in the laboratory; and botanical facts are required, not

with respect to the physiology of plants—a favourite study of the

present day—but with regard to the distinction of species and their

geographical distribution.

I shall, therefore, have to make use of methods of which some are

foreign to naturalists, others to persons versed in historical learning.

I shall say a few words of each, to explain how they should be employed

and what is their value.

2. _Botany._ One of the most direct means of discovering the

geographical origin of a cultivated species, is to seek in what country

it grows spontaneously, and without the help of man. The question

appears at the first glance to be a simple one. It seems, indeed, that

by consulting floras, works upon species in general, or herbaria, we

ought to be able to solve it easily in each particular case.

Unfortunately it is, on the contrary, a question which demands a special

knowledge of botany, especially of geographical botany, and an estimate

of botanists and of collectors, founded on a long experience. Learned

men, occupied with history or with the interpretation of ancient

authors, are liable to grave mistakes when they content themselves with

the first testimony they may happen to light upon in a botanical work.

On the other hand, travellers who collect plants for a herbarium are not

always sufficiently observant of the places and circumstances in which

they find them. They often neglect to note down what they have remarked

on the subject. We know, however, that a plant may have sprung from

others cultivated in the neighbourhood; that birds, winds, etc., may

have borne the seeds to great distances; that they are sometimes brought

in the ballast of vessels or mixed with their cargoes. Such cases

present themselves with respect to common species, much more so with

respect to cultivated plants which abound near human dwellings. A

collector or traveller had need be a keen observer to judge if a plant

has sprung from a wild stock belonging to the flora of the country, or

if it is of foreign origin. When the plant is growing near dwellings, on

walls, among rubbish-heaps, by the wayside, etc., we should be cautious

in forming an opinion.

It may also happen that a plant strays from cultivation, even to a

distance from suspicious localities, and has nevertheless but a short

duration, because it cannot in the long run support the conditions of

the climate or the struggle with the indigenous species. This is what is

called in botany an _adventive_ species. It appears and disappears, a

proof that it is not a native of the country. Every flora offers

numerous examples of this kind. When these are more abundant than usual,

the public is struck by the circumstance. Thus, the troops hastily

summoned from Algeria into France in 1870, disseminated by fodder and

otherwise a number of African and southern species which excited wonder,

but of which no trace remained after two or three winters.

Some collectors and authors of floras are very careful in noting these

facts. Thanks to personal relations with some of them, and to frequent

references to their herbaria and botanical works, I flatter myself I am

acquainted with them. I shall, therefore, willingly cite their testimony

in doubtful cases. For certain countries and certain species I have

addressed myself directly to these eminent naturalists. I have appealed

to their memory, to their notes, to their herbaria, and from the answers

they have been so kind as to return, I have been enabled to add

unpublished documents to those found in works already made public. My

sincere thanks are due for information of this nature received from Mr.

C. B. Clarke on the plants of India, from M. Boissier on those of the

East, from M. Sagot on the species of French Guiana, from M. Cosson on

those of Algeria, from MM. Decaisne and Bretschneider on the plants of

China, from M. Pancic on the cereals of Servia, from Messrs. Bentham and

Baker on the specimens of the herbarium at Kew, lastly from M. Edouard

André on the plants of America. This zealous traveller was kind enough

to lend me some most interesting specimens of species cultivated in

South America, which he found presenting every appearance of indigenous

plants.

A more difficult question, and one which cannot be solved at once, is

whether a plant growing wild, with all the appearance of the indigenous

species, has existed in the country from a very early period, or has

been introduced at a more or less ancient date.

For there are naturalized species, that is, those that are introduced

among the plants of the ancient flora, and which, although of foreign

origin, persist there in such a manner that observation alone cannot

distinguish them, so that historical records or botanical

considerations, whether simple or geographical, are needed for their

detection. In a very general sense, taking into consideration the

lengthened periods with which science is concerned, nearly all species,

especially in the regions lying outside the tropics, have been once

naturalized; that is to say, they have, from geographical and physical

circumstances, passed from one region to another. When, in 1855, I put

forward the idea that conditions anterior to our epoch determined the

greater number of the facts of the actual distribution of plants—this

was the sense of several of the articles, and of the conclusion of my

two volumes of geographical botany[8]—it was received with considerable

surprise. It is true that general considerations of palæontology had

just led Dr. Unger,[9] a German savant, to adopt similar ideas, and

before him Edward Forbes had, with regard to some species of the

southern counties of the British Isles, suggested the hypothesis of an

ancient connection with Spain.[10] But the proof that it is impossible

to explain the habitations of the whole number of present species by

means of the conditions existing for some thousands of years, made a

greater impression, because it belonged more especially to the

department of botanists, and did not relate to only a few plants of a

single country. The hypothesis suggested by Forbes became an assured

fact and capable of general application, and is now a truism of science.

All that is written on geographical or zoological botany rests upon this

basis, which is no longer contested.

This principle, in its application to each country and each species,

presents a number of difficulties; for when a cause is once recognized,

it is not always easy to discover how it has affected each particular

case. Luckily, so far as cultivated plants are concerned, the questions

which occur do not make it necessary to go back to very ancient times,

nor to dates which cannot be defined by a given number of years or

centuries. No doubt the modern specific forms date from a period earlier

than the great extension of glaciers in the northern hemisphere—a

phenomenon of several thousand years’ duration, if we are to judge from

the size of the deposits transported by the ice; but cultivation began

after this epoch, and even in many instances within historic time. We

have little to do with previous events. Cultivated species may have

changed their abode before cultivation, or in the course of a longer

time they may have changed their form; this belongs to the general study

of all organized life, and we are concerned only with the examination of

each species since its cultivation or in the time immediately before it.

This is a great simplification.

The question of age, thus limited, may be approached by means of

historical or other records, of which I shall presently speak, and by

the principles of geographical botany.

I shall briefly enumerate these, in order to show in what manner they

can aid in the discovery of the geographical origin of a given plant.

As a rule, the abode of each species is constant, or nearly constant. It

is, however, sometimes disconnected; that is to say, that the

individuals of which it is composed are found in widely separated

regions. These cases, which are extremely interesting in the study of

the vegetable kingdom and of the surface of the globe, are far from

forming the majority. Therefore, when a cultivated species is found

wild, frequently in Europe, more rarely in the United States, it is

probable that, in spite of its indigenous appearance in America, it has

become naturalized after being accidentally transported thither.

The genera of the vegetable kingdom, although usually composed of

several species, are often confined to a single region. It follows, that

the more species included in a genus all belonging to the same quarter

of the globe, the more probable it is that one of the species,

apparently indigenous in another part of the world, has been transported

thither and has become naturalized there, by escaping from cultivation.

This is especially the case with tropical genera, because they are more

often restricted either to the old or to the new world.

Geographical botany teaches us what countries have genera and even

species in common, in spite of a certain distance, and what, on the

contrary, are very different, in spite of similarity of climate or

inconsiderable distance. It also teaches us what species, genera, and

families are scattered over a wide area, and the more limited extent of

others. These data are of great assistance in determining the probable

origin of a given species. Naturalized plants spread rapidly. I have

quoted examples elsewhere[11] of instances within the last two

centuries, and similar facts have been noted from year to year. The

rapidity of the recent invasion of _Anacharis Alsinastrum_ into the

rivers of Europe is well known, and that of many European plants in New

Zealand, Australia, California, etc., mentioned in several floras or

modern travels.

The great abundance of a species is no proof of its antiquity. _Agave

Americana_, so common on the shores of the Mediterranean, although

introduced from America, and our cardoon, which now covers a great part

of the Pampas of La Plata, are remarkable instances in point. As a rule,

an invading species makes rapid way, while extinction is, on the

contrary, the result of the strife of several centuries against

unfavourable circumstances.[12]

The designation which should be adopted for allied species, or, to speak

scientifically, allied forms, is a problem often presented in natural

history, and more often in the category of cultivated species than in

others. These plants are changed by cultivation. Man adopts new and

convenient forms, and propagates them by artificial means, such as

budding, grafting, the choice of seeds, etc. It is clear that, in order

to discover the origin of one of these species, we must eliminate as far

as possible the forms which appear to be artificial, and concentrate our

attention on the others. A simple reflection may guide this choice,

namely, that a cultivated species varies chiefly in those parts for

which it is cultivated. The others remain unmodified, or present

trifling alterations, of which the cultivator takes no note, because

they are useless to him. We may expect, therefore, to find the fruit of

a wild fruit tree small and of a doubtfully agreeable flavour, the grain

of a cereal in its wild state small, the tubercles of a wild potato

small, the leaves of indigenous tobacco narrow, etc., without, however,

going so far as to imagine that the species developed rapidly under

cultivation, for man would not have begun to cultivate it if it had not

from the beginning presented some useful or agreeable qualities.

When once a cultivated plant has been reduced to such a condition as

permits of its being reasonably compared with analogous spontaneous

forms, we have still to decide what group of nearly similar plants it is

proper to designate as constituting a species. Botanists alone are

competent to pronounce an opinion on this question, since they are

accustomed to appreciate differences and resemblances, and know the

confusion of certain works in the matter of nomenclature. This is not

the place to discuss what may reasonably be termed a species. I have

stated in some of my articles the principles which seem to me the best.

As their application would often require a study which has not been

made, I have thought it well occasionally to treat quasi-specific forms

as a group which appears to me to correspond to a species, and I have

sought the geographical origin of these forms as though they were really

specific.

To sum up: botany furnishes valuable means of guessing or proving the

origin of cultivated plants and for avoiding mistakes. We must, however,

by no means forget that practical observation must be supplemented by

research in the study. After gaining information from the collector who

sees the plants in a given spot or district, and who draws up a flora or

a catalogue of species, it is indispensable to study the known or

probable geographical distribution in books and in herbaria, and to

reflect upon the principles of geographical botany and on the questions

of classification, which cannot be done by travelling or collecting.

Other researches, of which I shall speak presently, must be combined

with those of botany if we would arrive at satisfactory conclusions.

3. _Archæology and Palæontology._ The most direct proof which can be

conceived of the ancient existence of a species in a given country is to

see its recognizable fragments in old buildings or deposits, of a more

or less certain date.

The fruits, seeds, and different portions of plants taken from ancient

Egyptian tombs, and the drawings which surround them in the pyramids,

have given rise to most important researches, which I shall often have

to mention. Nevertheless, there is a possible source of error; the

fraudulent introduction of modern plants into the sarcophagi of the

mummies. This was easily discovered in the case of some grains of maize,

for instance, a plant of American origin, which were introduced by the

Arabs; but species cultivated in Egypt within the last two or three

thousand years may have been added, which would thus appear to have

belonged to an earlier period. The tumuli or mounds of North America,

and the monuments of the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, have furnished

records about the plants cultivated in that part of the world. Here we

are concerned with an epoch subsequent to the pyramids of Egypt.

The deposits of the Swiss lake-dwellings have been the subject of

important treatises, among which that of Heer, quoted just now, holds

the first place. Similar works have been published on the vegetable

remains found in other lakes or peat mosses of Switzerland, Savoy,

Germany, and Italy. I shall quote them with reference to several

species. Dr. Gross has been kind enough to send me seeds and fruits

taken from the lake-dwellings of Neuchâtel; and my colleague, Professor

Heer, has favoured me with several facts collected at Zürich since the

publication of his work. I have already said that the rubbish-heaps of

the Scandinavian countries, called kitchen-middens, have furnished no

trace of cultivated vegetables.

The tufa of the south of France contains leaves and other remains of

plants, which have been discovered by MM. Martins, Planchon, de Saporta,

and other savants. Their date is not, perhaps, always earlier than that

of the first lacustrine deposits, and it is possible that it agrees with

that of ancient Egyptian monuments, and of ancient Chinese books.

Lastly, the mineralogic strata, with which geologists are specially

concerned, tell us much about the succession of vegetable forms in

different countries; but here we are dealing with epochs far anterior to

agriculture, and it would be a strange and certainly a most valuable

chance if a modern cultivated species were discovered in the European

tertiary epoch. No such discovery has hitherto been made with any

certainty, though uncultivated species have been recognized in strata

prior to the glacial epoch of the northern hemisphere. For the rest, if

we do not succeed in finding them, the consequences will not be clear,

since it may be said, either that such a plant came at a later date from

a different region, or that it had formerly another form which renders

its recognition impossible in a fossil state.

4. _History._ Historical records are important in order to determine the

date of certain cultures in each country. They also give indications as

to the geographical origin of plants when they have been propagated by

the migrations of ancient peoples, by travellers, or by military

expeditions.

The assertions of authors must not, however, be accepted without

examination.

The greater number of ancient historians have confused the fact of the

cultivation of a species in a country with that of its previous

existence there in a wild state. It has been commonly asserted, even in

our own day, that a species cultivated in America or China is a native

of America or China. A no less common error is the belief that a species

comes originally from a given country because it has come to us from

thence, and not direct from the place in which it is really indigenous.

Thus the Greeks and Romans called the peach the Persian apple, because

they had seen it cultivated in Persia, where it probably did not grow

wild. It was a native of China, as I have elsewhere shown. They called

the pomegranate, which had spread gradually from garden to garden from

Persia to Mauritania, the apple of Carthage (_Malum Punicum_). Very

ancient authors, such as Herodotus and Berosius, are yet more liable to

error, in spite of their desire to be accurate.

We shall see, when we speak of maize, that historical documents which

are complete forgeries may deceive us about the origin of a species. It

is curious, for it seems to be no one’s interest to lie about such

agricultural facts. Fortunately, facts of botany and archæology enable

us to detect errors of this nature.

The principal difficulty, which commonly occurs in the case of ancient

historians, is to find the exact translation of the names of plants,

which in their books always bear the common names. I shall speak

presently of the value of these names and how the science of language

may be brought to bear on the questions with which we are occupied, but

I must first indicate those historical notions which are most useful in

the study of cultivated plants.

Agriculture came originally, at least so far as the principal species

are concerned, from three great regions, in which certain plants grew,

regions which had no communication with each other. These are—China, the

south-west of Asia (with Egypt), and intertropical America. I do not

mean to say that in Europe, in Africa, and elsewhere savage tribes may

not have cultivated a few species locally, at an early epoch, as an

addition to the resources of hunting and fishing; but the great

civilizations based upon agriculture began in the three regions I have

indicated. It is worthy of note that in the old world agricultural

communities established themselves along the banks of the rivers,

whereas in America they dwelt on the high lands of Mexico and Peru. This

may perhaps have been due to the original situation of the plants

suitable for cultivation, for the banks of the Mississippi, of the

Amazon, of the Orinoco, are not more unhealthy than those of the rivers

of the old world.

A few words about each of the three regions.

China had already possessed for some thousands of years a flourishing

agriculture and even horticulture, when she entered for the first time

into relations with Western Asia, by the mission of Chang-Kien, during

the reign of the Emperor Wu-ti, in the second century before the

Christian era. The records, known as Pent-sao, written in our Middle

Ages, state that he brought back the bean, the cucumber, the lucern, the

saffron, the sesame, the walnut, the pea, spinach, the water-melon, and

other western plants,[13] then unknown to the Chinese. Chang-Kien, it

will be observed, was no ordinary ambassador. He considerably enlarged

the geographical knowledge, and improved the economic condition of his

countrymen. It is true that he was constrained to dwell ten years in the

West, and that he belonged to an already civilized people, one of whose

emperors had, 2700 B.C., consecrated with imposing ceremonies the

cultivation of certain plants. The Mongolians were too barbarous, and

came from too cold a country, to have been able to introduce many useful

species into China; but when we consider the origin of the peach and the

apricot, we shall see that these plants were brought into China from

Western Asia, probably by isolated travellers, merchants or others, who

passed north of the Himalayas. A few species spread in the same way into

China from the West before the embassy of Chang-Kien.

Regular communication between China and India only began in the time of

Chang-Kien, and by the circuitous way of Bactriana;[14] but gradual

transmissions from place to place may have been effected through the

Malay Peninsula and Cochin-China. The writers of Northern China may have

been ignorant of them, and especially since the southern provinces were

only united to the empire in the second century before Christ.[15]

Regular communications between China and Japan only took place about the

year 57 of our era, when an ambassador was sent; and the Chinese had no

real knowledge of their eastern neighbours until the third century, when

the Chinese character was introduced into Japan.[16]

The vast region which stretches from the Ganges to Armenia and the Nile

was not in ancient times so isolated as China. Its inhabitants exchanged

cultivated plants with great facility, and even transported them to a

distance. It is enough to remember that ancient migrations and conquests

continually intermixed the Turanian, Aryan, and Semitic peoples between

the Caspian Sea, Mesopotamia, and the Nile. Great states were formed

nearly at the same time on the banks of the Euphrates and in Egypt, but

they succeeded to tribes which had already cultivated certain plants.

Agriculture is older in that region than Babylon and the first Egyptian

dynasties, which date from more than four thousand years ago. The

Assyrian and Egyptian empires afterwards fought for supremacy, and in

their struggles they transported whole nations, which could not fail to

spread cultivated species. On the other hand, the Aryan tribes who dwelt

originally to the north of Mesopotamia, in a land less favourable to

agriculture, spread westward and southward, driving out or subjugating

the Turanian and Dravidian nations. Their speech, and those which are

derived from it in Europe and Hindustan, show that they knew and

transported several useful species.[17] After these ancient events, of

which the dates are for the most part uncertain, the voyages of the

Phœnicians, the wars between the Greeks and Persians, Alexander’s

expedition into India, and finally the Roman rule, completed the spread

of cultivation in the interior of Western Asia, and even introduced it

into Europe and the north of Africa, wherever the climate permitted.

Later, at the time of the crusades, very few useful plants yet remained

to be brought from the East. A few varieties of fruit trees which the

Romans did not possess, and some ornamental plants, were, however, then

brought to Europe.

The discovery of America in 1492 was the last great event which caused

the diffusion of cultivated plants into all countries. The American

species, such as the potato, maize, the prickly pear, tobacco, etc.,

were first imported into Europe and Asia. Then a number of species from

the old world were introduced into America. The voyage of Magellan

(1520-1521) was the first direct communication between South America and

Asia. In the same century the slave trade multiplied communications

between Africa and America. Lastly, the discovery of the Pacific Islands

in the eighteenth century, and the growing facility of the means of

communication, combined with a general idea of improvement, produced

that more general dispersion of useful plants of which we are witnesses

at the present day.

5. _Philology._ The common names of cultivated plants are usually well

known, and may afford indications touching the history of a species, but

there are examples in which they are absurd, based upon errors, or vague

and doubtful, and this involves a certain caution in their use.

I could quote a number of such names in all languages; it is enough to

mention, in French, _blé de Turquie_, maize, a plant which is not a

wheat, and which comes from America; in English, Jerusalem artichoke

(_Helianthus tuberosus_), which does not come from Jerusalem, but from

North America, and is no artichoke.

A number of names given to foreign plants by Europeans when they are

settled in the colonies, express false or insignificant analogies. For

instance, the _New Zealand flax_ resembles the true flax as little as

possible; it is merely that a textile substance is obtained from its

leaves. The _mahogany apple_ (cashew) of the French West India Isles is

not an apple, nor even the fruit of a pomaceous tree, and has nothing to

do with mahogany.

Sometimes the common names have changed, in passing from one language to

another, in such a manner as to give a false or absurd meaning. Thus the

tree of Judea of the French (_Cercis Siliquastrum_) has become the

Judas tree in English. The fruit called by the Mexicans _ahuaca_, is

become the _avocat_ (lawyer) of the French colonists.

Not unfrequently names of plants have been taken by the same people at

successive epochs or in different provinces, sometimes as generic,

sometimes as specific names. The French word _blé_, for instance, may

mean several species of the genus Triticum, and even of very different

nutritious plants (maize and wheat), or a given species of wheat.

Several common names have been transferred from one plant to another

through error or ignorance. Thus the confusion made by early travellers

between the sweet potato (_Convolvulus Batatas_) and the potato

(_Solanum tuberosum_) has caused the latter to be called potato in

English and _patatas_ in Spanish.

If modern, civilized peoples, who have great facilities for comparing

species, learning their origin and verifying their names in books, have

made such mistakes, it is probable that ancient nations have made many

and more grave errors. Scholars display vast learning in explaining the

philological origin of a name, or its modifications in derived

languages, but they cannot discover popular errors or absurdities. It is

left for botanists to discover and point them out. We may note, in

passing, that the double or compound names are the most doubtful. They

may consist of two mistakes; one in the root or principal name, the

other in the addition or accessory name, destined almost always to

indicate the geographical origin, some visible quality, or some

comparison with other species. The shorter a name is, the better it

merits consideration in questions of origin or antiquity; for it is by

the succession of years, of the migrations of peoples, and of the

transport of plants, that the addition of often erroneous epithets takes

place. Similarly, in symbolic writing, like that of the Chinese and the

Egyptians, unique and simple signs indicate long-known species, not

imported from foreign countries, while complicated signs are doubtful or

indicate a foreign origin. We must not forget, however, that the signs

have often been rebuses, based on chance resemblances in the words, or

on superstitious and fanciful ideas.

The identity of a common name for a given species in several languages

may have two very different explanations. It may be because a plant has

been spread by a people which has been dispersed and scattered. It may

also result from the transmission of a plant from one people to another

with the name it bore in its original home. The first case is that of

the hemp, of which the name is similar, at least as to the root, in all

the tongues derived from the primitive Aryan stock. The second is seen

in the American name of tobacco, the Chinese of tea, which have spread

into a number of countries, without any philological or ethnographic

filiation. This case has occurred oftener in modern than in ancient

times, because the rapidity of communications allows of the simultaneous

introduction of a plant and of its name, even where the distance is

great.

The diversity of names for the same species may also spring from various

causes. As a rule, it indicates an early existence in different

countries, but it may also arise from the mixture of races, or from

names of varieties which take the place of the original name. Thus in

England we find, according to the county, a Keltic, Saxon, Danish, or

Latin name; and flax bears in Germany the names of _flachs_ and _lein_,

words which are evidently of different origin.

When we desire to make use of the common names to gather from them

certain probabilities regarding the origin of species, it is necessary

to consult dictionaries and the dissertations of philologists; but we

must take into account the chances of error in these learned men, who,

since they are neither cultivators nor botanists, may have made mistakes

in the application of a name to a species.

The most considerable collection of common names is that of Nemnich,

published in 1793.[18] I have another in manuscript which is yet more

complete, drawn up in our library by an old pupil of mine, Moritzi, by

means of floras and of several books of travel written by botanists.

There are, besides, dictionaries of the names of the species in given

countries or in some special language. This kind of glossary does not

often contain explanations of etymology; but in spite of what Hehn[19]

may say, a naturalist possessed of an ordinary general education can

recognize the connection or the fundamental differences between certain

names in different languages, and need not confound modern with ancient

languages. It is not necessary to be initiated into the mysteries of

suffixes or affixes, of dentals and labials. No doubt the researches of

a philologist into etymologies are more profound and valuable, but this

is rarely necessary when our researches have to do with cultivated

plants. Other sciences are more useful, especially that of botany; and

philologists are more often deficient in these than naturalists are

deficient in philology, for the very evident reason that more place is

given to languages than to natural history in general education. It

appears to me, moreover, that philologists, notably those who are

occupied with Sanskrit, are always too eager to find the etymology of

every name. They do not allow sufficiently for human stupidity, which

has in all time given rise to absurd words, without any real basis, and

derived only from error or superstition.

The filiation of modern European tongues is known to every one. That of

ancient languages has, for more than half a century, been the object of

important labours. Of these I cannot here give even a brief notice. It

is sufficient to recall that all modern European languages are derived

from the speech of the Western Aryans, who came from Asia, with the

exception of Basque (derived from the Iberian language), Finnish,

Turkish, and Hungarian, into which, moreover, words of Aryan origin have

been introduced. On the other hand, several modern languages of India,

Ceylon, and Java, are derived from the Sanskrit of the Eastern Aryans,

who left Central Asia after the Western Aryans. It is supposed, with

sufficient probability, that the first Western Aryans came into Europe

2500 B.C., and the Eastern Aryans into India a thousand years later.

Basque (or Iberian), the speech of the Guanchos of the Canary Isles, of

which a few plant names are known, and Berber, are probably connected

with the ancient tongues of the north of Africa.

Botanists are in many cases forced to doubt the common names attributed

to plants by travellers, historians, and philologists. This is a

consequence of their own doubts respecting the distinction of species

and of the well-known difficulty of ascertaining the common name of a

plant. The uncertainty becomes yet greater in the case of species which

are more easily confounded or less generally known, or in the case of

the languages of little-civilized nations. There are, so to speak,

degrees of languages in this respect, and the names should be accepted

more or less readily according to these degrees.

In the first rank, for certainty, are placed those languages which

possess botanical works. For instance, it is possible to recognize a

species by means of a Greek description by Dioscorides or Theophrastus,

and by the less complete Latin texts of Cato, Columella, or Pliny.

Chinese books also give descriptions. Dr. Bretschneider, of the Russian

legation at Pekin, has written some excellent papers upon these books,

from which I shall often quote.[20]

The second degree is that of languages possessing a literature composed

only of theological and poetical works, or of chronicles of kings and

battles. Such works make mention here and there of plants, with epithets

or reflections on their mode of flowering, their ripening, their use,

etc., which allow their names to be divined, and to be referred to

modern botanical nomenclature. With the added help of a knowledge of the

flora of the country, and of the common names in the languages derived

from the dead language, it is possible to discover approximately the

sense of some words. This is the case with Sanskrit,[21] Hebrew,[22] and

Armenian.[23]

Lastly, a third category of dead languages offers no certainty, but

merely presumptions or hypothetical and rare indications. It comprehends

those tongues in which there is no written work, such as Keltic, with

its dialects, the ancient Sclavonic, Pelasgic, Iberian, the speech of

the primitive Aryans, Turanians, etc. It is possible to guess certain

names or their approximate form in these dead languages by two methods,

both of which should be employed with caution.

The first and best is to consult the languages derived, or which we

believe to be derived, directly from the ancient tongues, as Basque for

the Iberian language, Albanian for the Pelasgic, Breton, Erse, and

Gaelic for Keltic. The danger lies in the possibility of mistake in the

filiation of the languages, and especially in a mistaken belief in the

antiquity of a plant-name which may have been introduced by another

people. Thus the Basque language contains many words which seem to have

been taken from the Latin at the time of the Roman rule. Berber is full

of Arab words, and Persian of words of every origin, which probably did

not exist in Zend.

The other method consists in reconstructing a dead language which had no

literature, by means of those which are derived from it; for instance,

the speech of the Western Aryans, by means of the words common to

several European languages which have sprung from it. Fick’s dictionary

will hardly serve for the words of ancient Aryan languages, for he gives

but few plant-names, and his arrangement renders it unintelligible to

those who have no knowledge of Sanskrit. Adolphe Pictet’s work[24] is

far more important to naturalists, and a second edition, augmented and

improved, has been published since the author’s death. Plant-names and

agricultural terms are explained and discussed in this work, in a manner

all the more satisfactory that an accurate knowledge of botany is

combined with philology. If the author attributes perhaps too much

importance to doubtful etymologies, he makes up for it by other

knowledge, and by his excellent method and lucidity.

The plant-names of the Euskarian or Basque language have been considered

from the point of view of their probable etymology by the Comte de

Charencey, in _Les Actes de la Société Philologique_ (vol. i. No. 1,

1869). I shall have occasion to quote this work, of which the

difficulties were great, in the absence of all literature and of all

derived languages.

6. _The necessity for combining the different methods._ The various

methods of which I have spoken are of unequal value. It is clear that

when we have archæological records about a given species, like those of

the Egyptian monuments, or of the Swiss lake-dwellings, these are facts

of remarkable accuracy. Then come the data furnished by botany,

especially those on the spontaneous existence of a species in a given

country. These, if examined with care, may be very important. The

assertions contained in the works of historians or even of naturalists

respecting an epoch at which science was only beginning, have not the

same value. Lastly, the common names are only an accessory means,

especially in modern languages, and a means which, as we have seen, is

not entirely trustworthy. So much may be said in a general way, but

in each particular case one method or the other may be more or less

important.

Each can only lead to probabilities, since we are dealing with facts of

ancient date which are beyond the reach of direct and actual

observation. Fortunately, if the same probability is attained in three

or four different ways, we approach very near to certainty. The same

rule holds good for researches into the history of plants as for

researches into the history of nations. A good author consults

historians who have spoken of events, the archives in which unpublished

documents are found, the inscriptions on ancient monuments, the

newspapers, private letters, finally memoirs and even tradition. He

gathers probabilities from every source, and then compares these

probabilities, weighs and discusses them before deciding. It is a labour

of the mind which requires intelligence and judgment. This labour

differs widely from observation employed in natural history, and from

pure reason which is proper to the exact sciences. Nevertheless, when,

by several methods, we reach the same probability, I repeat that the

latter is very nearly a certainty. We may even say that it is as much a

certainty as historical science can pretend to attain.

I have the proof of this when I compare my present work with that which

I composed by the same methods in 1855. For the species which I then

studied, I have now more authorities and better authenticated facts, but

my conclusions on the origin of each species have scarcely altered. As

they were already based on a combination of methods, probabilities have

usually become certainties, and I have not been led to conclusions

absolutely contrary to those previously formed.

Archæological, philological, and botanical data become more and more

numerous. By their means the history of cultivated plants is perfected,

while the assertions of ancient authors lose instead of gaining in

importance. From the discoveries of antiquaries and philologists,

moderns are better acquainted than the Greeks with Chaldea and ancient

Egypt. They can prove mistakes in Herodotus. Botanists on their side

correct Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny from their knowledge of the

flora of Greece and Italy, while the study of classical authors to which

learned men have applied themselves for three centuries has already

furnished all that it has to give. I cannot help smiling when, at the

present day, savants repeat well-known Greek and Latin phrases, and draw

from them what they call conclusions. It is trying to extract juice from

a lemon which has already been repeatedly squeezed. We must say it

frankly, the works which repeat and commentate on the ancient authors of

Greece and Rome without giving the first place to botanical and

archæological facts, are no longer on a level with the science of the

day. Nevertheless, I could name several German works which have attained

to the honour of a third edition. It would have been better to reprint

the earlier publications of Fraas and Lenz, of Targioni and Heldreich,

which have always given more weight to the modern data of botany, than

to the vague descriptions of classic authors; that is to say, to facts

than to words and phrases.

PART II.

On the Study of Species, considered as to their Origin, their

early Cultivation, and the Principal Facts of their

Diffusion.[25]

CHAPTER I.

PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS, SUCH AS ROOTS,

TUBERCLES, OR BULBS.[26]

+Radish.+—_Raphanus sativus_, Linnæus.

The radish is cultivated for what is called the root, which is, properly

speaking, the lower part of the stem with the tap root.[27] Every one

knows how the size, shape, and colour of those organs which become

fleshy vary according to the soil or the variety.

There is no doubt that the species is indigenous in the temperate

regions of the old world; but, as it has been cultivated in gardens from

the earliest historic times, from China and Japan to Europe, and as it

sows itself frequently round cultivated plots, it is difficult to fix

upon its starting-point.

Formerly _Raphanus sativus_ was confounded with kindred species of the

Mediterranean region, to which certain Greek names were attributed; but

Gay, the botanist, who has done a good deal towards eliminating these

analogous forms,[28] considered _R. sativus_ as a native of the East,

perhaps of China. Linnæus also supposed this plant to be of Chinese

origin, or at least that variety which is cultivated in China for the

sake of extracting oil from the seeds.[29] Several floras of the south

of Europe mention the species as subspontaneous or escaped from

cultivation, never as spontaneous. Ledebour had seen a specimen found

near Mount Ararat, had sown the seeds of it and verified the

species.[30] However, Boissier,[31] in 1867, in his _Eastern Flora_,

says that it is only subspontaneous in the cultivated parts of Anatolia,

near Mersivan (according to Wied), in Palestine (on his own authority),

in Armenia (according to Ledebour), and probably elsewhere, which agrees

with the assertions found in European floras.[32] Buhse names a

locality, the Ssahend mountains, to the south of the Caucasus, which

appears to be far enough from cultivation. The recent _Flora of British

India_[33] and the earlier _Flora of Cochin-China_ by Loureiro, mention

the radish only as a cultivated species. Maximowicz saw it in a garden

in the north-east of China.[34] Thunberg speaks of it as a plant of

general cultivation in Japan, and growing also by the side of the

roads,[35] but the latter fact is not repeated by modern authors, who

are probably better informed.[36]

Herodotus (_Hist._, 1. 2, c. 125) speaks of a radish which he calls

_surmaia_, used by the builders of the pyramid of Cheops, according to

an inscription upon the monument. Unger[37] copied from Lepsius’ work

two drawings from the temple of Karnak, of which the first, at any rate,

appears to represent the radish.

From all this we gather, first, that the species spreads easily from

cultivation in the west of Asia and the south of Europe, while it does

not appear with certainty in the flora of Eastern Asia; and secondly,

that in the regions south of the Caucasus it is found without any sign

of culture, so that we are led to suppose that the plant is wild there.

From these two reasons it appears to have come originally from Western

Asia between Palestine, Anatolia, and the Caucasus, perhaps also from

Greece; its cultivation spreading east and west from a very early

period.

The common names support these hypotheses. In Europe they offer little

interest when they refer to the quality of the root (_radis_), or to

some comparison with the turnip (_ravanello_ in Italian, _rabica_ in

Spanish, etc.), but the ancient Greeks coined the special name

_raphanos_ (easily reared). The Italian word _ramoraccio_ is derived

from the Greek _armoracia_, which was used for _R. sativus_ or some

allied species. Modern interpreters have erroneously referred this name

to _Cochlearia Armoracia_ or horse-radish, which I shall come to

presently. Semitic[38] languages have quite different names (_fugla_ in

Hebrew, _fuil_, _fidgel_, _figl_, etc., in Arab.). In India, according

to Roxburgh,[39] the common name of a variety with an enormous root, as

large sometimes as a man’s leg, is _moola_ or _moolee_, in Sanskrit

_mooluka_. Lastly, for Cochin-China, China, and Japan, authors give

various names which differ very much one from the other. From this

diversity a cultivation which ranged from Greece to Japan must be very

ancient, but nothing can thence be concluded as to its original home as

a spontaneous plant.

A totally different opinion exists on the latter point, which we must

also examine. Several botanists[40] suspect that _Raphanus sativus_ is

simply a particular condition, with enlarged root and non-articulated

fruit, of _Raphanus raphanistrum_, a very common plant in the temperate

cultivated districts of Europe and Asia, and which is also found in a

wild state in sand and light soil near the sea—for instance, at St.

Sebastian, in Dalmatia, and at Trebizond.[41] Its usual haunts are in

deserted fields; and many common names which signify wild radish, show

the affinity of the two plants. I should not insist upon this point if

their supposed identity were a mere presumption, but it rests upon

experiments and observations which it is important to know.

In _R. raphanistrum_ the siliqua is articulated, that is to say,

contracted at intervals, and the seeds placed each in a division. In _R.

sativus_ the siliqua is continuous, and forms a single cavity. Some

botanists had made this difference the basis of two distinct genera,

_Raphanistrum_ and _Raphanus_. But three accurate observers, Webb, Gay,

and Spach, have noticed among plants of _Raphanus sativus_, raised from

the same seed, both unilocular and articulated pods, some of them

bilocular, others plurilocular. Webb[42] arrived at the same results

when he afterwards repeated these experiments, and he observed yet

another fact of some importance: the radish which sows itself by chance,

and is not cultivated, produced the siliquæ of _Raphanistrum_.[43]

Another difference between the two plants is in the root, fleshy in _R.

sativus_, slender in _R. raphanistrum_; but this changes with

cultivation, as appears from the experiments of Carrière, the head

gardener of the nurseries of the Natural History Museum in Paris.[44] It

occurred to him to sow the seeds of the slender-rooted _Raphanistrum_ in

both stiff and light soil, and in the fourth generation he obtained

fleshy radishes, of varied colour and form like those of our gardens. He

even gives the figures, which are really curious and conclusive. The

pungent taste of the radish was not wanting. To obtain these changes,

Carrière sowed in September, so as to make the plant almost biennial

instead of annual. The thickening of the root was the natural result,

since many biennial plants have fleshy roots.

The inverse experiment remains to be tried—to sow cultivated radishes in

a poor soil. Probably the roots would become poorer and poorer, while

the siliquæ would become more and more articulated.

From all the experiments I have mentioned, _Raphanus sativus_ might well

be a variety of _R. raphanistrum_, an unstable variety determined by the

existence of several generations in a fertile soil. We cannot suppose

that ancient uncivilized peoples made essays like those of Carrière, but

they may have noticed plants of _Raphanistrum_ grown in richly manured

soil, with more or less fleshy roots; and this soon suggested the idea

of cultivating them.

I have, however, one objection to make, founded on geographical botany.

_Raphanus raphanistrum_ is a European plant which does not exist in

Asia.[45] It cannot, therefore, be this species that has furnished the

inhabitants of India, China, and Japan with the radishes which they have

cultivated for centuries. On the other hand, how could _R.

raphanistrum_, which is supposed to have been modified in Europe, have

been transmitted in ancient times across the whole of Asia? The

transport of cultivated plants has commonly proceeded from Asia into

Europe. Chang-Kien certainly brought vegetables from Bactriana into

China in the second century B.C., but the radish is not named among the

number.

+Horse-radish+—_Cochlearia Armoracia_, Linnæus.

This Crucifer, whose rather hard root has the taste of mustard, was

sometimes called in French _cran_, or _cranson de Bretagne_. This was an

error caused by the old botanical name _Armoracia_, which was taken for

a corruption of _Armorica_ (Brittany). _Armoracia_ occurs in Pliny, and

was applied to a crucifer of the Pontine province, which was perhaps

_Raphanus sativus._ After I had formerly[46] pointed out this confusion,

I expressed myself as follows on the mistaken origin of the

species:—_Cochlearia Armoracia_ is not wild in Brittany, a fact now

established by the researches of botanists in the west of France. The

Abbé Delalande mentions it in his little work, entitled _Hœdic et

Houat_,[47] in which he gives so interesting an account of the customs

and productions of these two little islands of Brittany. He quotes the

opinion of M. le Gall, who, in an unpublished flora of Morbihan,

declares the plant foreign to Brittany. This proof, however, is less

strong than others, since the south coast of the peninsula of Brittany

is not yet sufficiently known to botanists, and the ancient Armorica

extended over a portion of Normandy where the wild horse-radish is now

found.[48] This leads me to speak of the original home of the species.

English botanists mention it as wild in Great Britain, but are doubtful

about its origin. Watson[49] considers it as introduced by cultivation.

The difficulty of extirpating it, he says, from places where it is

cultivated, is well known to gardeners. It is therefore not surprising

that this plant should take possession of waste ground, and persist

there so as to appear indigenous. Babington[50] mentions only one spot

where the species appears to be really wild, namely, Swansea. We will

try to solve the problem by further arguments.

_Cochlearia Armoracia_ is a plant belonging to the temperate, and

especially to the eastern regions of Europe. It is diffused from Finland

to Astrakhan, and to the desert of Cuman.[51] Grisebach mentions also

several localities in Turkey in Europe, near Enos, for instance, where

it abounds on the sea-shore.[52]

The further we advance towards the west of Europe, the less the authors

of floras appear sure that the plant is indigenous, and the localities

assigned to it are more scattered and doubtful. The species is rarer in

Norway than in Sweden,[53] in the British Isles than in Holland, where a

foreign origin is not attributed to it.[54]

The specific names confirm the impression of its origin in the east

rather than in the west of Europe; thus the name _chren_[55] in Russia

recurs in all the Sclavonic languages, _krenai_ in Lithuanian, _chren_

in Illyrian,[56] etc. It has introduced itself into a few German

dialects, round Vienna,[57] for instance, where it persists, in spite of

the spread of the German tongue. We owe to it also the French names

_cran_ or _cranson_. The word used in Germany, _Meerretig_, and in

Holland, _meer-radys_, whence the Italian Swiss dialect has taken the

name _méridi_, or _mérédi_, means sea-radish, and is not primitive like

the word _chren_. It comes probably from the fact that the plant grows

well near the sea, a circumstance common to many of the _Cruciferæ_, and

which should be the case with this species, for it is wild in the east

of Russia where there is a good deal of salt soil. The Swedish name

_peppar-rot_[58] suggests the idea that the species came into Sweden

later than the introduction of pepper by commerce into the north of

Europe. However, the name may have taken the place of an older one,

which has remained unknown to us. The English name of horse-radish is

not of such an original nature as to lead to a belief in the existence

of the species in the country before the Saxon conquest. It means a very

strong radish. The Welsh name _rhuddygl maurth_[59] is only the

translation of the English word, whence we may infer that the Kelts of

Great Britain had no special name, and were not acquainted with the

species. In the west of France, the name _raifort_, which is the

commonest, merely means strong root. Formerly it bore in France the

names of German, or Capuchin mustard, which shows a foreign and recent

origin. On the contrary, the word _chren_ is in all the Sclavonic

languages, a word which has penetrated into some German and French

dialects under the forms of _kreen_, _cran_, and _cranson_, and which is

certainly of a primitive nature, and shows the antiquity of the species

in temperate Eastern Europe. It is therefore most probable that

cultivation has propagated and naturalized the plant westward from the

east for about a thousand years.

+Turnips+—_Brassica species et varietates radice in crassata._

The innumerable varieties and sub-varieties of the turnip known as

swedes, Kohl-rabi, etc., may be all attributed to one of the four

species of Linnæus—_Brassica napus_, _Br. oleracea_, _Br. rapa_, _Br.

campestris_—of which the two last should, according to modern authors,

be fused into one. Other varieties of the species are cultivated for the

leaves (cabbages), for the inflorescence (cauliflowers), or for the oil

which is extracted from the seed (colza, rape, etc.). When the root or

the lower part of the stem[60] is fleshy, the seed is not abundant, nor

worth the trouble of extracting the oil; when those organs are slender,

the production of the seed, on the contrary, becomes more important, and

decides the economic use of the plant. In other words, the store of

nutritious matter is placed sometimes in the lower, sometimes in the

upper part of the plant, although the organization of the flower and

fruit is similar, or nearly so.

Touching the question of origin, we need not occupy ourselves with the

botanical limits of the species, and with the classification of the

races, varieties, and sub-varieties,[61] since all the _Brassicæ_ are of

European and Siberian origin, and are still to be seen in these regions

wild, or half wild, in some form or other.

Plants so commonly cultivated and whose germination is so easy often

spread round cultivated places; hence some uncertainty regarding the

really wild nature of the plants found in the open country.

Nevertheless, Linnæus mentions that _Brassica napus_ grows in the sand

on the sea-coast in Sweden (Gothland), Holland, and England, which is

confirmed, as far as Sweden is concerned, by Fries,[62] who, with his

usual attention to questions of this nature, mentions _Br. Campestris_,

L. (type of the _Rapa_ with slender roots), as really wild in the whole

Scandinavian peninsula, in Finland and Denmark. Ledebour[63] indicates

it in the whole of Russia, Siberia, and the Caspian Sea.

The floras of temperate and southern Asia mention rapes and turnips as

cultivated plants, never as escaped from cultivation.[64] This is

already an indication of foreign origin. The evidence of philology is no

less significant.

There is no Sanskrit name for these plants, but only modern Hindu and

Bengalee names, and those only for _Brassica rapa_ and _B.

oleracea_.[65] Kæmpfer[66] gives Japanese names for the turnip—_busei_,

or more commonly _aona_—but there is nothing to show that these names

are ancient. Bretschneider, who has made a careful study of Chinese

authors, mentions no _Brassica_. Apparently they do not occur in any of

the ancient works on botany and agriculture, although several varieties

are now cultivated in China.

It is just the reverse in Europe. The old languages have a number of

names which seem to be original. _Brassica rapa_ is called _meipen_ or

_erfinen_[67] in Wales; _repa_ and _rippa_ in several Slav tongues,[68]

which answers to the Latin _rapa_, and is allied to the _neipa_ of the

Anglo-Saxons. The _Brassica napus_ is in Welsh _bresych yr yd_; in Erse

_braisscagh buigh_, according to Threlkeld,[69] who sees in _braisscagh_

the root of the Latin _Brassica_. A Polish name, _karpiele_, a

Lithuanian, _jellazoji_,[70] are also given, without speaking of a host

of other names, transferred sometimes in popular speech from one

species to another. I shall speak of the names of _Brassica oleracea_

when I come to vegetables.

The Hebrews had no names for cabbages, rapes, and turnips,[71] but there

are Arab names: _selgam_ for the _Br. napus_, and _subjum_ or _subjumi_

for _Br. rapa_; words which recur in Persian and even in Bengali,

transferred perhaps from one species to another. The cultivation of

these plants has therefore been diffused in the south-west of Asia since

Hebrew antiquity.

Finally, every method, whether botanical, historical, or philological,

leads us to the following conclusions:—

Firstly, the _Brassicæ_ with fleshy roots were originally natives of

temperate Europe.

Secondly, their cultivation was diffused in Europe before, and in Asia

after, the Aryan invasion.

Thirdly, the primitive slender-rooted form of _Brassica napus_, called

_Br. campestris_, had probably from the beginning a more extended range,

from the Scandinavian peninsula towards Siberia and the Caucasus. Its

cultivation was perhaps introduced into China and Japan, through

Siberia, at an epoch which appears not to be much earlier than

Greco-Roman civilization.

Fourthly, the cultivation of the various forms or species of _Brassica_

was diffused throughout the south-west of Asia at an epoch later than

that of the ancient Hebrews.

+Skirret+—_Sium Sisarum_, Linnæus.

This vivacious Umbellifer, furnished with several diverging roots in the

form of a carrot, is believed to come from Eastern Asia. Linnæus

indicates China, doubtfully; and Loureiro,[72] China and Cochin-China,

where he says it is cultivated. Others have mentioned Japan and the

Corea, but in these countries there are species which it is easy to

confound with the one in question, particularly _Sium Ninsi_ and _Panax

Ginseng_. Maximowicz,[73] who has seen these plants in China and in

Japan, and who has studied the herbariums of St. Petersburgh, recognizes

only the Altaic region of Siberia and the North of Persia as the home of

the wild _Sium Sisarum_. I am very doubtful whether it is to be found in

the Himalayas or in China, since modern works on the region of the river

Amoor and on British India make no mention of it.

It is doubtful whether the ancient Greeks and Romans knew this plant.

The names _Sisaron_ of Dioscorides, _Siser_ of Columella and of

Pliny,[74] are attributed to it. Certainly the modern Italian name

_sisaro_ or _sisero_ seems to confirm this idea; but how could these

authors have failed to notice that several roots descend from the base

of the stem, whereas all the other umbels cultivated in Europe have but

a single tap-root? It is just possible that the _siser_ of Columella, a

cultivated plant, may have been the parsnip; but what Pliny says of the

_siser_ does not apply to it. According to him it was a medicinal plant,

_inter medica dicendum_.[75] He says that Tiberius caused a quantity to

be brought every year from Germany, which proves, he adds, that it

thrives in cold countries.

If the Greeks had received the plant direct from Persia, Theophrastus

would probably have known it. It came perhaps from Siberia into Russia,

and thence into Germany, in which case the anecdote about Tiberius might

well apply to the skirret. I cannot find any Russian name, certainly,

but the Germans have original names, _Krizel_ or _Grizel_, _Görlein_ or

_Gierlein_, which indicate an ancient cultivation, more than the

ordinary name _Zuckerwurzel_, or sugar-root.[76] The Danish name has the

same meaning—_sokerot_, whence the English _skirret_. The name _sisaron_

is not known in modern Greece; nor was it known there even in the Middle

Ages, and the plant is not now cultivated in that country.[77] There are

reasons for doubt as to the true sense of the words _sisaron_ and

_siser_. Some botanists of the sixteenth century thought that _sisaron_

was perhaps the _parsnip_ proper, and Sprengel[78] supports this idea.

The French names _chervis_ and _girole_[79] would perhaps teach us

something if we knew their origin. Littré derives _chervis_ from the

Spanish _chirivia_, but the latter is more likely derived from the

French. Bauhin[80] mentions the low Latin names _servillum_,

_chervillum_, or _servillam_, words which are not in Ducange’s

dictionary. This may well be the origin of _chervis_, but whence came

_servillum_ or _chervillum_?

+Arracacha+ or +Arracacia+—_Arracacha esculenta_, de Candolle.

An umbel generally cultivated in Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador as

a nutritious plant. In the temperate regions of those countries it bears

comparison with the potato, and even yields, we are assured, a lighter

and more agreeable _fecula_. The lower part of the stem is swelled into

a bulb, on which, when the plant thrives well, tubercles, or lateral

bulbs, form themselves, and persist for several months, which are more

prized than the central bulb, and serve for future planting.[81]

The species is probably indigenous in the region where it is cultivated,

but I do not find in any author a positive assertion of the fact. The

existing descriptions are drawn from cultivated stocks. Grisebach indeed

says that he has seen (presumably in the herbarium at Kew) specimens

gathered in New Granada, in Peru, and in Trinidad,[82] but he does not

say whether they were wild. The other species of the same genus, to the

number of a dozen, grow in the same districts of America, which renders

the above-mentioned origin more probable.

The introduction of the arracacha into Europe has been attempted several

times without success. The damp climate of England accounts for the

failure of Sir William Hooker’s attempts; but ours, made at two

different times, under very different conditions, have met with no

better success. The lateral bulbs did not form, and the central bulb

died in the house where it was placed for the winter. The bulbs

presented to different botanical gardens in France and Italy and

elsewhere shared the same fate. It is clear that if the plant is in

America really equal to the potato in productiveness and taste, this

will never be the case in Europe. Its cultivation does not in America

spread as far as Chili and Mexico, like that of the potato and sweet

potato, which confirms the difficulty of propagation observed elsewhere.

+Madder+—_Rubia tinctorum_, Linnæus.

The madder is certainly wild in Italy, Greece, the Crimea, Asia Minor,

Syria, Persia, Armenia, and near Lenkoran.[83] As we advance westward in

the south of Europe, the wild, indigenous nature of the plant becomes

more and more doubtful. There is uncertainty even in France. In the

north and east the plant appears to be “naturalized in hedges and on

walls,”[84] or “subspontaneous,” escaped from former cultivation.[85] In

Provence and Languedoc it is more spontaneous or wild, but here also it

may have spread from a somewhat extensive cultivation. In the Iberian

peninsula it is mentioned as “subspontaneous.”[86] It is the same in the

north of Africa.[87] Evidently the natural, ancient, and undoubted

habitation is western temperate Asia and the south-east of Europe. It

does not appear that the plant has been found beyond the Caspian Sea in

the land formerly occupied by the Indo-Europeans, but this region is

still little known. The species only exists in India as a cultivated

plant, and has no Sanskrit name.[88]

Neither is there any known Hebrew name, while the Greeks, Romans, Slavs,

Germans, and Kelts had various names, which a philologist could perhaps

trace to one or two roots, but which nevertheless indicate by their

numerous modifications an ancient date. Probably the wild roots were

gathered in the fields before the idea of cultivating the species was

suggested. Pliny, however, says[89] that it was cultivated in Italy in

his time, and it is possible that the custom was of older date in Greece

and Asia Minor.

The cultivation of madder is often mentioned in French records of the

Middle Ages.[90] It was afterwards neglected or abandoned, until Althen

reintroduced it into the neighbourhood of Avignon in the middle of the

eighteenth century. It flourished formerly in Alsace, Germany, Holland,

and especially in Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria, whence the exportation

was considerable; but the discovery of dyes extracted from inorganic

substances has suppressed this cultivation, to the great detriment of

the provinces which drew large profits from it.

+Jerusalem Artichoke+—_Helianthus tuberosus_, Linnæus.

It was in the year 1616 that European botanists first mentioned this

Composite, with a large root better adapted for the food of animals than

of man. Columna[91] had seen it in the garden of Cardinal Farnese, and

called it _Aster peruanus tuberosus_. Other authors of the same century

gave it epithets showing that it was believed to come from Brazil, or

from Canada, or from the Indies, that is to say, America. Linnæus[92]

adopted, on Parkinson’s authority, the opinion of a Canadian origin, of

which, however, he had no proof. I pointed out formerly[93] that there

are no species of the genus Helianthus in Brazil, and that they are, on

the contrary, numerous in North America.

Schlechtendal,[94] after having proved that the Jerusalem artichoke can

resist the severe winters of the centre of Europe, observes that this

fact is in favour of the idea of a Canadian origin, and contrary to the

belief of its coming from some southern region. Decaisne[95] has

eliminated from the synonymy of _H. tuberosus_ several quotations which

had occasioned the belief in a South American or Mexican origin. Like

the American botanists, he recalls what ancient travellers had narrated

of certain customs of the aborigines of the Northern States and of

Canada. Thus Champlain, in 1603, had seen, “in their hands, roots which

they cultivate, and which taste like an artichoke.” Lescarbot[96] speaks

of these roots with the artichoke flavour, which multiply freely, and

which he had brought back to France, where they began to be sold under

the name of _topinambaux_. The savages, he says, call them _chiquebi_.

Decaisne also quotes two French horticulturists of the seventeenth

century, Colin and Sagard, who evidently speak of the Jerusalem

artichoke, and say it came from Canada. It is to be noted that the name

Canada had at that time a vague meaning, and comprehended some parts of

the modern United States. Gookin, an American writer on the customs of

the aborigines, says that they put pieces of the Jerusalem artichoke

into their soups.[97]

Botanical analogies and the testimony of contemporaries agree, as we

have seen, in considering this plant to be a native of the north-east of

America. Dr. Asa Gray, seeing that it is not found wild, had formerly

supposed it to be a variety of _H. doronicoides_ of Lamarck, but he has

since abandoned this idea (_American Journal of Science_, 1883, p. 224).

An author gives it as wild in the State of Indiana.[98] The French name

_topinambour_ comes apparently from some real or supposed Indian name.

The English name Jerusalem artichoke is a corruption of the Italian

_girasole_, sunflower, combined with an allusion to the artichoke

flavour of the root.

+Salsify+—_Tragopogon porrifolium_, Linnæus.

The salsify was more cultivated a century or two ago than it is now. It

is a biennial composite, found wild in Greece, Dalmatia, Italy, and even

in Algeria.[99] It frequently escapes from gardens in the west of

Europe, and becomes half-naturalized.[100]

Commentators[101] give the name _Tragopogon_ (goat’s beard) of

Theophrastus sometimes to the modern species, sometimes to _Tragopogon

crocifolium_, which also grows in Greece. It is difficult to know if the

ancients cultivated the salsify or gathered it wild in the country. In

the sixteenth century Olivier de Serres says it was a new culture in his

country, the south of France. Our word _Salsifis_ comes from the Italian

_Sassefrica_, that which rubs stones, a senseless term.

+Scorzonera+—_Scorzonera hispanica_, Linnæus.

This plant is sometimes called the Spanish salsify, from its resemblance

to _Tragopogon porrifolium_; but its root has a brown skin, whence its

botanical name, and the popular name _écorce noire_ in some French

provinces.

It is wild in Europe, from Spain, where it abounds, the south of France,

and Germany, to the region of Caucasus, and perhaps even as far as

Siberia, but it is wanting in Sicily and Greece.[102] In several parts

of Germany the species is probably naturalized from cultivation.

It seems that this plant has only been cultivated within the last

hundred or hundred and fifty years. The botanists of the sixteenth

century speak of it as a wild species introduced occasionally into

botanical gardens. Olivier de Serres does not mention it.

It was formerly supposed to be an antidote against the bite of adders,

and was sometimes called the viper’s plant. As to the etymology of the

name _Scorzonera_, it is so evident, that it is difficult to understand

how early writers, even Tournefort,[103] have declared the origin of

the word to be _escorso_, viper in Spanish or Catalan. Viper is in

Spanish more commonly _vibora_.

There exists in Sicily a _Scorzonera deliciosa_, Gussone, whose very

sugary root is used in the confection of bonbons and sherbets, at

Palermo.[104] How is it that its cultivation has not been tried? It is

true that I tasted at Naples _Scorzonera_ ices, and found them

detestable, but they were perhaps made of the common species

(_Scorzonera hispanica_).

+Potato+—_Solanum tuberosum_, Linnæus.

In 1855 I stated and discussed what was then known about the origin of

the potato, and about its introduction into Europe.[105] I will now add

the result of the researches of the last quarter of a century. It will

be seen that the data formerly acquired have become more certain, and

that several somewhat doubtful accessory questions have remained

uncertain, though the probabilities in favour of what formerly seemed

the truth have grown stronger.

It is proved beyond a doubt that at the time of the discovery of America

the cultivation of the potato was practised, with every appearance of

ancient usage, in the temperate regions extending from Chili to New

Granada, at altitudes varying with the latitude. This appears from the

testimony of all the early travellers, among whom I shall name Acosta

for Peru,[106] and Pedro Cieca, quoted by de l’Ecluse,[107] for Quito.

In the eastern temperate region of South America, on the heights of

Guiana and Brazil, for instance, the potato was not known to the

aborigines, or if they were acquainted with a similar plant, it was

_Solanum Commersonii_, which has also a tuberous root, and is found wild

in Montevideo and in the south of Brazil. The true potato is certainly

now cultivated in the latter country, but it is of such recent

introduction that it has received the name of the English Batata.[108]

According to Humboldt it was unknown in Mexico,[109] a fact confirmed

by the silence of subsequent authors, but to a certain degree

contradicted by another historical fact. It is said that Sir Walter

Raleigh, or rather Thomas Herriott, his companion in several voyages,

brought back to Ireland, in 1585 or 1586, some tubers of the Virginian

potato.[110] Its name in its own country was _openawk_. From Herriott’s

description of the plant, quoted by Sir Joseph Banks,[111] there is no

doubt that it was the potato, and not the batata, which at that period

was sometimes confounded with it. Besides, Gerard[112] tells us that he

received from Virginia the potato which he cultivated in his garden, and

of which he gives an illustration which agrees in all points with

_Solanum tuberosum_. He was so proud of it that he is represented, in

his portrait at the beginning of the work, holding in his hand a

flowering branch of this plant.

The species could scarcely have been introduced into Virginia or

Carolina in Raleigh’s time (1585), unless the ancient Mexicans had

possessed it, and its cultivation had been diffused among the aborigines

to the north of Mexico. Dr. Roulin, who has carefully studied the works

on North America, has assured me that he has found no signs of the

potato in the United States before the arrival of the Europeans. Dr. Asa

Gray also told me so, adding that Mr. Harris, one of the men most

intimately acquainted with the language and customs of North American

tribes, was of the same opinion. I have read nothing to the contrary in

recent publications, and we must not forget that a plant so easy of

cultivation would have spread itself even among nomadic tribes, had they

possessed it. It seems to me most likely that some inhabitants of

Virginia—perhaps English colonists—received tubers from Spanish or

other travellers, traders or adventurers, during the ninety years which

had elapsed since the discovery of America. Evidently, dating from the

conquest of Peru and Chili, in 1535 to 1585, many vessels could have

carried tubers of the potato as provisions, and Sir Walter Raleigh,

making war on the Spaniards as a privateer, may have pillaged some

vessel which contained them. This is the less improbable, since the

Spaniards had introduced the plant into Europe before 1585.

Sir Joseph Banks[113] and Dunal[114] were right to insist upon the fact

that the potato was first introduced by the Spaniard, since for a long

time the credit was generally given to Sir Walter Raleigh, who was the

second introducer, and even to other Englishmen, who had introduced, not

the potato but the _batata_ (sweet potato), which is more or less

confounded with it.[115] A celebrated botanist, de l’Ecluse,[116] had

nevertheless defined the facts in a remarkable manner. It is he who

published the first good description and illustration of the potato,

under the significant name of _Papas Peruanorum_. From what he says, the

species has little changed under the culture of nearly three centuries,

for it yielded in the beginning as many as fifty tubers of unequal size,

from one to two inches long, irregularly ovoid, reddish, ripening in

November (at Vienna). The flower was more or less pink externally, and

reddish within, with five longitudinal stripes of green, as is often

seen now. No doubt numerous varieties have been obtained, but the

original form has not been lost. De l’Ecluse compares the scent of the

flower with that of the lime, the only difference from our modern plant.

He sowed seeds which produced a white-flowered variety, such as we

sometimes see now.

The plants described by de l’Ecluse were sent to him in 1588, by

Philippe de Sivry, Seigneur of Waldheim and Governor of Mons, who had

received them from some one in attendance on the papal legate in

Belgium. De l’Ecluse adds that the species had been introduced into

Italy from Spain or America (_certum est vel ex Hispania, vel ex America

habuisse_), and he wonders that, although the plant had become so common

in Italy that it was eaten like a turnip and given to the pigs, the

learned men of the University of Padua only became acquainted with it by

means of the tuber which he sent them from Germany. Targioni[117] has

not been able to discover any proof that the potato was as widely

cultivated in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century as de l’Ecluse

asserts, but he quotes Father Magazzini of Vallombrosa, whose posthumous

work, published in 1623, mentions the species as one previously brought,

without naming the date, from Spain or Portugal by barefooted friars. It

was, therefore, towards the end of the sixteenth or at the beginning of

the seventeenth century that the cultivation of the potato became known

in Tuscany. Independently of what de l’Ecluse and the agriculturist of

Vallombrosa say of its introduction from the Iberian peninsula, it is

not at all likely that the Italians had any dealings with Raleigh’s

companions.

No one can doubt that the potato is of American origin; but in order to

know from what part of that vast continent it was brought, it is

necessary to know if the plant is found wild there, and in what

localities.

To answer this question clearly, we must first remove two causes of

error: the confusion of allied species of the genus _Solanum_ with the

potato; and the other, the mistakes made by travellers as to the wild

character of the plant.

The allied species are _Solanum Commersonii_ of Dunal, of which I have

already spoken; _S. maglia_ of Molina, a Chili species; _S. immite_ of

Dunal, a native of Peru; and _S. verrucosum_[118] of Schlechtendal,

which grows in Mexico. These three kinds of _Solanum_ have smaller

tubers than _S. tuberosum_, and differ also in other characteristics

indicated in special works on botany. Theoretically, it may be believed

that all these, and other forms growing in America, are derived from a

single earlier species, but in our geological epoch they present

themselves with differences which seem to me to justify specific

distinctions, and no experiments have proved that by crossing one with

another a product would be obtained of which the seed (not the tubers)

would propagate the race. Leaving these more or less doubtful questions

of species, let us try to ascertain whether the common form of _Solanum

tuberosum_ has been found wild, and merely remark that the abundance of

tuberous solanums growing in the temperate regions of America, from

Chili or Buenos Ayres as far as Mexico, confirms the fact of an American

origin. If we knew nothing more, this would be a strong presumption in

favour of this country being the original home of the potato.

The second cause of error is very clearly explained by the botanist

Weddell,[119] who has carefully explored Bolivia and the neighbouring

countries. “When we reflect,” he says, “that on the arid Cordillera the

Indians often establish their little plots of cultivation on points

which would appear almost inaccessible to the great majority of our

European farmers, we understand that when a traveller chances to visit

one of these cultivated plots, long since abandoned, and finds there a

plant of _Solanum tuberosum_ which has accidentally persisted, he

gathers it in the belief that it is really wild; but of this there is no

proof.”

We come now to facts. These abound concerning the wild character of the

plant in Chili.

In 1822, Alexander Caldcleugh,[120] English consul, sent to the London

Horticultural Society some tubers of the potato which he had found in

the ravines round Valparaiso. He says that these tubers are small,

sometimes red, sometimes yellowish, and rather bitter in taste.[121] “I

believe,” he adds, “that this plant exists over a great extent of the

littoral, for it is found in the south of Chili, where the aborigines

call it _maglia_.” This is probably a confusion with _S. maglia_ of

botanists; but the tubers of Valparaiso, planted in London, produced the

true potato, as we see from a glance at Sabine’s coloured figure in the

_Transactions of the Horticultural Society_. The cultivation of this

plant was continued for some time, and Lindley certified anew, in 1847,

its identity with the common potato.[122] Here is the account of the

Valparaiso plant, given by a traveller to Sir William Hooker.[123] “I

noticed the potato on the shore as far as fifteen leagues to the north

of this town, and to the south, but I do not know how far it extends. It

grows on cliffs and hills near the sea, and I do not remember to have

seen it more than two or three leagues from the coast. Although it is

found in mountainous places, far from cultivation, it does not exist in

the immediate neighbourhood of the fields and gardens where it is

planted, excepting when a stream crosses these enclosures and carries

the tubers into uncultivated places.” The potato described by these two

travellers had white flowers, as is seen in some cultivated European

varieties, and like the plant formerly reared by de l’Ecluse. We may

assume that this is the natural colour of the species, or at least one

of the most common in its wild state.

Darwin, in his voyage in the _Beagle_, found the potato growing wild in

great abundance on the sand of the sea-shore, in the archipelago of

Southern Chili, and growing with a remarkable vigour, which may be

attributed to the damp climate. The tallest plants attained to the

height of four feet. The tubers were small as a rule, though one of them

was two inches in diameter. They were watery, insipid, but with no bad

taste when cooked. “The plant is undoubtedly wild,” says the

author,[124] “and its specific identity has been confirmed first by

Henslow, and afterwards by Sir Joseph Hooker in his _Flora

Antarctica_.[125]”

A specimen in the herbarium collected by Claude Gay, considered by Dunal

to be _Solanum tuberosum_, bears this inscription: “From the centre of

the Cordilleras of Talcagouay, and of Cauquenes, in places visited only

by botanists and geologists.” The same author, Gay, in his _Flora

Chilena_,[126] insists upon the abundance of the wild potato in Chili,

even among the Araucanians in the mountains of Malvarco, where, he says,

the soldiers of Pincheira used to go and seek it for food. This evidence

sufficiently proves its wild state in Chili, so that I may omit other

less convincing testimony—for instance, that of Molina and Meyen, whose

specimens from Chili have not been examined.

The climate of the coast of Chili is continued upon the heights as we

follow the chain of the Andes, and the cultivation of the potato is of

ancient date in the temperate regions of Peru, but the wild character of

the species there is not so entirely proved as in the case of

Chili.[127] Pavon declared he found it on the coast at Chancay, and near

Lima. The heat of these districts seems very great for a species which

requires a temperate or even a rather cold climate. Moreover, the

specimen in Boissier’s herbarium, gathered by Pavon, belongs, according

to Dunal,[128] to another species, to which he has given the name of _S.

immite_. I have seen the authentic specimen, and have no doubt that it

belongs to a species distinct from the _S. tuberosum_. Sir W.

Hooker[129] speaks of McLean’s specimen, gathered in the hills round

Lima, without any information as to whether it was found wild. The

specimens (more or less wild) which Matthews sent from Peru to Sir W.

Hooker belong, according to Sir Joseph,[130] to varieties which differ a

little from the true potato. Mr. Hemsley,[131] who has seen them

recently in the herbarium at Kew, believes them to be “distinct forms,

not more distinct, however, than certain varieties of the species.”

Weddell,[132] whose caution in this matter we already know, expresses

himself as follows:—“I have never found _Solanum tuberosum_ in Peru

under such circumstances as left no doubt that it was indigenous; and I

even declare that I do not attach more belief to the wild nature of

other plants found scattered on the Andes outside Chili, hitherto

considered as indigenous.”

On the other hand. M. Ed. André[133] collected with great care, in two

elevated and wild districts of Columbia, and in another near Lima,

specimens which he believed he might attribute to _S. tuberosum_. M.

André has been kind enough to lend them to me. I have compared them

attentively with the types of Dunal’s species in my herbarium and in

that of M. Boissier. None of these Solanaceæ belong, in my opinion, to

_S. tuberosum_, although that of La Union, near the river Cauca, comes

nearer than the rest. None—and this is yet more certain—answers to _S.

immite_ of Dunal. They are nearer to _S. columbianum_ of the same author

than to _S. tuberosum_ or _S. immite_. The specimen from Mount Quindio

presents a singular characteristic—it has pointed ovoid berries.[134]

In Mexico the tuberous Solanums attributed to _S. tuberosum_, or,

according to Hemsley,[135] to allied forms, do not appear to be

identical with the cultivated plant. They belong to _S. Fendleri_, which

Dr. Asa Gray considered at first as a separate species, and

afterwards[136] as a variety of _S. tuberosum_ or of _S. verrucosum_.

We may sum up as follows:—

1. The potato is wild in Chili, in a form which is still seen in our

cultivated plants.

2. It is very doubtful whether its natural home extends to Peru and New

Granada.

3. Its cultivation was diffused before the discovery of America from

Chili to New Granada.

4. It was introduced, probably in the latter half of the sixteenth

century, into that part of the United States now known as Virginia and

North Carolina.

5. It was imported into Europe between 1580 and 1585, first by the

Spaniards, and afterwards by the English, at the time of Raleigh’s

voyages to Virginia.[137]

+Batata+, or +Sweet Potato+—_Convolvulus batatas_, Linnæus; _Batatas

edulis_, Choisy.

The roots of this plant, swelled into tubers, resemble potatoes, whence

it arose that sixteenth-century navigators applied the same name to

these two very different species. The sweet potato belongs to the

Convolvulus family, the potato to the Solanum family; the fleshy parts

of the former are roots, those of the latter subterranean branches.[138]

The sweet potato is sugary as well as farinaceous. It is cultivated in

all countries within or near the tropics, and perhaps more in the new

than in the old world.[139]

Its origin is, according to a great number of authors, doubtful.

Humboldt,[140] Meyen,[141] and Boissier[142] hold to its American,

Boyer,[143] Choisy,[144] etc., to its Asiatic origin. The same diversity

is observed in earlier works. The question is the more difficult since

the Convolvulaceæ is one of the most widely diffused families, either

from a very early epoch or in consequence of modern transportation.

There are powerful arguments in favour of an American origin. The

fifteen known species of the genus _Batatas_ are all found in America;

eleven in that continent alone, four both in America and the old world,

with possibility or probability of transportation. The cultivation of

the common sweet potato is widely diffused in America. It dates from a

very early epoch. Marcgraff[145] mentions it in Brazil under the name of

_jetica_. Humboldt says that the name _camote_ comes from a Mexican

word. The word _Batatas_ (whence comes by a mistaken transfer the word

potato) is given as American. Sloane and Hughes[146] speak of the sweet

potato as of a plant much cultivated, and having several varieties in

the West Indies. They do not appear to suspect that it had a foreign

origin. Clusius, who was one of the first to mention the sweet potato,

says he had eaten some in the south of Spain, where it was supposed to

have come from the new world.[147] He quotes the names _Batatas_,

_camotes_, _amotes_, _ajes_,[148] which were foreign to the languages of

the old world. The date of his book is 1601. Humboldt[149] says that,

according to Gomara, Christopher Columbus, when he appeared for the

first time before Queen Isabella, offered her various productions from

the new world, sweet potatoes among others. Thus, he adds, the

cultivation of this plant was already common in Spain from the beginning

of the sixteenth century. Oviedo,[150] writing in 1526, had seen the

sweet potato freely cultivated by the natives of St. Domingo, and had

introduced it himself at Avila, in Spain. Rumphius[151] says positively

that, according to the general opinion, sweet potatoes were brought by

the Spanish Americans to Manilla and the Moluccas, whence the Portuguese

diffused it throughout the Malay Archipelago. He quotes the popular

names, which are not Malay, and which indicate an introduction by the

Castillians. Lastly, it is certain that the sweet potato was unknown to

the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs; that it was not cultivated in Egypt even

eighty years ago,[152] a fact which it would be hard to explain if we

supposed its origin to be in the old world.

On the other hand, there are arguments in favour of an Asiatic origin.

The Chinese _Encyclopædia of Agriculture_ speaks of the sweet potato,

and mentions different varieties;[153] but Bretschneider[154] has proved

that the species is described for the first time in a book of the second

or third century of our era. According to Thunberg,[155] the sweet

potato was brought to Japan by the Portuguese. Lastly, the plant

cultivated at Tahiti, in the neighbouring islands, and in New Zealand,

under the names _umara_, _gumarra_, and _gumalla_, described by

Forster[156] under the name of _Convolvulus chrysorhizus_, is, according

to Sir Joseph Hooker, the sweet potato.[157] Seemann[158] remarks that

these names resemble the Quichuen name of the sweet potato in America,

which is, he says, _cumar_. The cultivation of the sweet potato became

general in Hindustan in the eighteenth century.[159] Several popular

names are attributed to it, and even, according to Piddington,[160] a

Sanskrit name, _ruktalu_, which has no analogy with any name known to

me, and is not in Wilson’s Sanskrit Dictionary. According to a note

given me by Adolphe Pictet, _ruktalu_ seems a Bengalee name composed

from the Sanskrit _alu_ (_Rukta_ plus _âlu_, the name of _Arum

campanulatum_). This name in modern dialects designates the yam and the

potato. However, Wallich[161] gives several names omitted by Piddington.

Roxburgh[162] mentions no Sanskrit name. Rheede[163] says the plant was

cultivated in Malabar, and mentions common Indian names.

The arguments in favour of an American origin seem to me much stronger.

If the sweet potato had been known in Hindustan at the epoch of the

Sanskrit language it would have become diffused in the old world, since

its propagation is easy and its utility evident. It seems, on the

contrary, that this cultivation remained long unknown in the Sunda

Isles, Egypt, etc. Perhaps an attentive examination might lead us to

share the opinion of Meyer,[164] who distinguished the Asiatic plant

from the American species. However, this author has not been generally

followed, and I suspect that if there is a different Asiatic species it

is not, as Meyer believed, the sweet potato described by Rumphius, which

the latter says was brought from America, but the Indian plant of

Roxburgh.

Sweet potatoes are grown in Africa; but either the cultivation is rare,

or the species are different. Robert Brown[165] says that the traveller

Lockhardt had not seen the sweet potato of whose cultivation the

Portuguese missionaries make mention. Thonning[166] does not name it.

Vogel brought back a species cultivated on the western coast, which is

certainly, according to the authors of the _Flora Nigritiana_, _Batatas

paniculata_ of Choisy. It was, therefore, a plant cultivated for

ornament or for medicinal purposes, for its root is purgative.[167] It

might be supposed that in certain countries in the old or new world

_Ipomœa tuberosa_. L., had been confounded with the sweet potato; but

Sloane[168] tells us that its enormous roots are not eatable.[169]

_Ipomœa mammosa_, Choisy (_Convolvulus mammosus_, Loureiro; _Batata

mammosa_, Rumphius), is a Convolvulaceous plant with an edible root,

which may well be confounded with the sweet potato, but whose botanical

character is nevertheless distinct. This species grows wild near Amboyna

(Rumphius), where it is also cultivated. It is prized in Cochin-China.

As for the sweet potato (_Batatas edulis_), no botanist, as far as I

know, has asserted that he found it wild himself, either in India or

America.[170] Clusius[171] affirms upon hearsay that it grows wild in

the new world and in the neighbouring islands.

In spite of the probability of an American origin, there remains, as we

have seen, much that is unknown or uncertain touching the original home

and the transport of this species, which is a valuable one in hot

countries. Whether it was a native of the new or of the old world, it is

difficult to explain its transportation from America to China at the

beginning of our era, and to the South Sea Islands at an early epoch, or

from Asia and from Australia to America at a time sufficiently remote

for its cultivation to have been early diffused from the Southern States

to Brazil and Chili. We must assume a prehistoric communication between

Asia and America, or adopt another hypothesis, which is not inapplicable

to the present case. The order _Convolvulaceæ_ is one of those rare

families of dicotyledons in which certain species have a widely extended

area, extending even to distant continents.[172] A species which can at

the present day endure the different climates of Virginia and Japan may

well have existed further north before the epoch of the great extension

of glaciers in our hemisphere, and prehistoric men may have transported

it southward when the climatic conditions altered. According to this

hypothesis, cultivation alone preserved the species, unless it is at

last discovered in some spot in its ancient habitation—in Mexico or

Columbia, for instance.[173]

+Beetroot+—_Beta vulgaris_ and _B. maritima_, Linnæus; _Beta vulgaris_,

Moquin.

This plant is cultivated sometimes for its fleshy root (red beet),

sometimes for its leaves, which are used as a vegetable (white beet),

but botanists are generally agreed in not dividing the species. It is

known from other examples that plants slender rooted by nature easily

become fleshy rooted from the effects of soil or cultivation.

The slender-rooted variety grows wild in sandy soil, and especially near

the sea in the Canary Isles, and all along the coasts of the

Mediterranean Sea, and as far as the Caspian Sea, Persia, and

Babylon,[174] perhaps even as far as the west of India, whence a

specimen was brought by Jaquemont, although it is not certain that it

was growing wild. Roxburgh’s Indian flora, and Aitchison’s more recent

flora of the Punjab and of the Sindh, only mention the plant as a

cultivated species.

It has no Sanskrit name,[175] whence it may be inferred that the Aryans

had not brought it from western temperate Asia, where it exists. The

nations of Aryan race who had previously migrated into Europe probably

did not cultivate it, for I find no name common to the Indo-European

languages. The ancient Greeks, who used the leaves and roots, called the

species _teutlion_;[176] the Romans, _beta_. Heldreich[177] gives also

the ancient Greek name _sevkle_, or _sfekelie_ which resembles the Arab

name _selg_, _silq_,[178] among the Nabatheans. The Arab name has passed

into the Portuguese _selga_. No Hebrew name is known. Everything shows

that its cultivation does not date from more than three or four

centuries before the Christian era.

The red and white roots were known to the ancients, but the number of

varieties has greatly increased in modern times, especially since the

beetroot has been cultivated on a large scale for the food of cattle and

for the production of sugar. It is one of the plants most easily

improved by selection, as the experiments of Vilmorin have proved.[179]

+Manioc+—_Manihot utilissima_, Pohl; _Jatropha manihot_, Linnæus.

The manioc is a shrub belonging to the Euphorbia family, of which

several roots swell in their first year; they take the form of an

irregular ellipse, and contain a fecula (tapioca) with a more or less

poisonous juice.

It is commonly cultivated in the equatorial or tropical regions,

especially in America from Brazil to the West Indies. In Africa the

cultivation is less general, and seems to be more recent. In certain

Asiatic colonies it is decidedly of modern introduction. It is

propagated by budding.

Botanists are divided in opinion whether the innumerable varieties of

manioc should be regarded as forming one, two, or several different

species. Pohl[180] admitted several besides his _Manihot utilissima_,

and Dr. Müller,[181] in his monograph on the Euphorbiaceæ, places the

variety _aipi_ in an allied species, _M. palmata_, a plant cultivated

with the others in Brazil, and of which the root is not poisonous. This

last character is not so distinct as might be believed from certain

books and even from the assertions of the natives. Dr. Sagot,[182] who

has compared a dozen varieties of manioc cultivated at Cayenne, says

expressly, “There are maniocs more poisonous than others, but I doubt

whether any are entirely free from noxious principles.”

It is possible to account for these singular differences of properties

in very similar plants by the example of the potato. The _Manihot_ and

_Solanum tuberosum_ both belong to suspected families (_Euphorbiaceæ_

and _Solanaceæ_). Several of their species are poisonous in some of

their organs; but the fecula, wherever it is found, is never harmful,

and the same holds good of the cellular tissue, freed from all deposit;

that is to say, reduced to cellulose. In the preparation of cassava, or

manioc flour, great care is taken to scrape the outer skin of the root,

then to pound or crush the fleshy part so as to express the more or

less poisonous juice, and finally the paste is submitted to a baking

which expels the volatile parts.[183] Tapioca is the pure fecula without

the mixture of the tissues which still exist in the cassava. In the

potato the outer pellicle contracts noxious qualities when it is allowed

to become green by exposure to the light, and it is well known that

unripe or diseased tubers, containing too small a proportion of fecula

with much sap, are not good to eat, and would cause positive harm to

persons who consumed any quantity of them. All potatoes, and probably

all maniocs, contain something harmful, which is observed even in the

products of distillation, and which varies with several causes; but only

matter foreign to the fecula should be mistrusted.

The doubts about the number of species into which the cultivated

manihots should be divided are no source of difficulty regarding the

question of geographic origin. On the contrary, we shall see that they

are an important means of proving an American origin.

The Abbé Raynal had formerly spread the erroneous opinion that the

manioc was imported into America from Africa. Robert Brown[184] denied

this in 1818, but without giving reasons in support of his opinion; and

Humboldt,[185] Moreau de Jonnes,[186] and Saint Hilaire[187] insisted

upon its American origin. It can hardly be doubted for the following

reasons:—

1. Maniocs were cultivated by the natives of Brazil, Guiana, and the

warm region of Mexico before the arrival of the Europeans, as all early

travellers testify. In the West Indies this cultivation was, according

to Acosta,[188] common enough in the sixteenth century to inspire the

belief that it was also there of a certain antiquity.

2. It is less widely diffused in Africa, especially in regions at a

distance from the west coast. It is known that manioc was introduced

into the Isle of Bourbon by the Governour Labourdonnais.[189] In Asiatic

countries, where a plant so easy to cultivate would probably have spread

had it been long known on the African continent, it is mentioned here

and there as an object of curiosity of foreign origin.[190]

3. The natives of America had several ancient names for the varieties of

manioc, especially in Brazil,[191] which does not appear to have been

the case in Africa, even on the coast of Guinea.[192]

4. The varieties cultivated in Brazil, in Guiana, and in the West Indies

are very numerous, whence we may presume a very ancient cultivation.

This is not the case in Africa.

5. The forty-two known species of the genus _Manihot_, without counting

_M. utilissima_, are all wild in America; most of them in Brazil, some

in Guiana, Peru, and Mexico; not one in the old world.[193] It is very

unlikely that a single species, and that the cultivated one, was a

native both of the old and of the new world, and all the more so since

in the family _Euphorbiaceæ_ the area of the woody species is usually

restricted, and since phanerogamous plants are very rarely common to

Africa and America.

The American origin of the manioc being thus established, it may be

asked how the species has been introduced into Guinea and Congo. It was

probably the result of the frequent communications established in the

sixteenth century by Portuguese merchants and slave-traders.

The _Manihot utilissima_ and the allied species or variety called

_aipi_, which is also cultivated, have not been found in an undoubtedly

wild state. Humboldt and Bonpland, indeed, found upon the banks of the

Magdalena a plant of _Manihot utilissima_ which they called _almost_

wild,[194] but Dr. Sagot assures me that it has not been found in

Guiana, and that botanists who have explored the hot region in Brazil

have not been more fortunate. We gather as much from the expressions of

Pohl, who has carefully studied these plants, and who was acquainted

with the collections of Martius, and had no doubt of their American

origin. If he had observed a wild variety identical with those which are

cultivated, he would not have suggested the hypothesis that the manioc

is obtained from his _Manihot pusilla_[195] of the province of Goyaz, a

plant of small size, and considered as a true species or as a variety of

_Manihot palmata_.[196] Martius declared in 1867, that is after having

received a quantity of information of a later date than his journey,

that the plant was not known in a wild state.[197] An early traveller,

usually accurate, Piso,[198] speaks of a wild _mandihoca_, of which the

Tapuyeris, the natives of the coast to the north of Rio Janeiro, ate the

roots. “It is,” he says, “very like the cultivated plant;” but the

illustration he gives of it appears unsatisfactory to authors who have

studied the maniocs. Pohl attributes it to his _M. aipi_, and Dr. Müller

passes it over in silence. For my part, I am disposed to believe what

Piso says, and his figure does not seem to me entirely unsatisfactory.

It is better than that by Vellozo, of a wild manioc which is doubtfully

attributed to _M. aipi_.[199] If we do not accept the origin in eastern

tropical Brazil, we must have recourse to two hypotheses: either the

cultivated maniocs are obtained from one of the wild species modified by

cultivation, or they are varieties which exist only by the agency of man

after the disappearance of their fellows from modern wild vegetation.

+Garlic+—_Allium sativum_, Linnæus.

Linnæus, in his _Species Plantarum_, indicates Sicily as the home of the

common garlic; but in his _Hortus Cliffortianus_, where he is usually

more accurate, he does not give its origin. The fact is that, according

to all the most recent and complete floras of Sicily, Italy, Greece,

France, Spain, and Algeria, garlic is not considered to be indigenous,

although specimens have been gathered here and there which had more or

less the appearance of being so. A plant so constantly cultivated and so

easily propagated may spread from gardens and persist for a considerable

time without being wild by nature. I do not know on what authority

Kunth[200] mentions that the species is found in Egypt. According to

authors who are more accurate[201] in their accounts of the plants of

that country, it is only found there under cultivation. Boissier, whose

herbarium is so rich in Eastern plants, possesses no wild specimens of

it. The only country where garlic has been found in a wild state, with

the certainty of its really being so, is the desert of the Kirghis of

Sungari; bulbs were brought thence and cultivated at Dorpat,[202] and

specimens were afterwards seen by Regel.[203] The latter author also

says that he saw a specimen which Wallich had gathered as wild in

British India; but Baker,[204] who had access to the rich herbarium at

Kew, does not speak of it in his review of the “_Alliums_ of India,

China, and Japan.”

Let us see whether historical and philological records confirm the fact

of an origin in the south-west of Siberia alone.

Garlic has been long cultivated in China under the name of _suan_. It is

written in Chinese by a single sign, which usually indicates a long

known and even a wild species.[205] The floras of Japan[206] do not

mention it, whence I gather that the species was not wild in Eastern

Siberia and Dahuria, but that the Mongols brought it into China.

According to Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians made great use of it.

Archæologists have not found the proof of this in the monuments, but

this may be because the plant was considered unclean by the

priests.[207]

There is a Sanskrit name, _mahoushouda_,[208] become _loshoun_ in

Bengali, and to which appears to be related the Hebrew name _schoum_ or

_schumin_,[209] which has produced the Arab _thoum_ or _toum_. The

Basque name _baratchouria_ is thought by de Charencey[210] to be allied

with Aryan names. In support of his hypothesis I may add that the Berber

name, _tiskert_, is quite different, and that consequently the Iberians

seem to have received the plant and its name rather from the Aryans than

from their probable ancestors of Northern Africa. The Lettons call it

_kiplohks_, the Esthonians _krunslauk_, whence probably the German

_Knoblauch_. The ancient Greek name appears to have been _scorodon_, in

modern Greek _scordon_. The names given by the Slavs of Illyria are

_bili_ and _cesan_. The Bretons say _quinen_,[211] the Welsh _craf_,

_cenhinnen_, or _garlleg_, whence the English _garlic_. The Latin

_allium_ has passed into the languages of Latin origin.[212] This great

diversity of names intimates a long acquaintance with the plant, and

even an ancient cultivation in Western Asia and in Europe. On the other

hand, if the species has existed only in the land of the Kirghis, where

it is now found, the Aryans might have cultivated it and carried it into

India and Europe; but this does not explain the existence of so many

Keltic, Slav, Greek, and Latin names which differ from the Sanskrit. To

explain this diversity, we must suppose that its original abode extended

farther to the west than that known at the present day, an extension

anterior to the migrations of the Aryans.

If the genus Allium were once made, as a whole, the object of such a

serious study as that of Gay on some of its species,[213] perhaps it

might be found that certain wild European forms, included by authors

under _A. arenarium_, L., _A. arenarium_, Sm., or _A. scorodoprasum_,

L., are only varieties of _A. sativum_. In that case everything would

agree to show that the earliest peoples of Europe and Western Asia

cultivated such form of the species just as they found it from Tartary

to Spain, giving it names more or less different.

ONION—_Allium Cepa_, Linnæus.

I will state first what was known in 1855;[214] I will then add the

recent botanical observations which confirm the inferences from

philological data.

The onion is one of the earliest of cultivated species. Its original

country is, according to Kunth, unknown.[215] Let us see if it is

possible to discover it. The modern Greeks call _Allium Cepa_, which

they cultivate in abundance, _krommunda_.[216] This is a good reason for

believing that the _krommuon_ of Theophrastus[217] is the same species,

as sixteenth-century writers already supposed.[218] Pliny[219]

translated the word by _cœpa_. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew

several varieties, which they distinguished by the names of countries:

_Cyprium_, _Cretense_, _Samothraciae_, etc. One variety cultivated in

Egypt[220] was held to be so excellent that it received divine honours,

to the great amusement of the Romans.[221] Modern Egyptians designate

_A. Cepa_ by the name of _basal_[222] or _bussul_,[223] whence it is

probable that the _bezalim_ of the Hebrews is the same species, as

commentators have said.[224] There are several distinct names—_palandu_,

_latarka_, _sakandaka_,[225] and a number of modern Indian names. The

species is commonly cultivated in India, Cochin-China, China,[226] and

even in Japan.[227] It was largely consumed by the ancient Egyptians.

The drawings on their monuments often represent this species.[228] Thus

its cultivation in Southern Asia and the eastern region of the

Mediterranean dates from a very early epoch. Moreover, the Chinese,

Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin names have no apparent connection.

From this last fact we may deduce the hypothesis that its cultivation

was begun after the separation of the Indo-European nations, the species

being found ready to hand in different countries at once. This, however,

is not the present state of things, for we hardly find even vague

indications of the wild state of _A. Cepa_. I have not discovered it in

European or Caucasian floras; but Hasselquist[229] says, “It grows in

the plains near the sea in the environs of Jericho.” Dr. Wallich

mentioned in his list of Indian plants, No. 5072, specimens which he saw

in districts of Bengal, without mentioning whether they were cultivated.

This indication, however insufficient, together with the antiquity of

the Sanskrit and Hebrew names, and the communication which is known to

have existed between the peoples of India and of Egypt, lead me to

suppose that this plant occupied a vast area in Western Asia, extending

perhaps from Palestine to India. Allied species, sometimes mistaken for

_A. Cepa_, exist in Siberia.[230]

The specimens collected by Anglo-Indian botanists, of which Wallich gave

the first idea, are now better known. Stokes discovered _Allium Cepa_

wild in Beluchistan. He says, “wild on the Chehil Tun.” Griffith brought

it from Afghanistan and Thomson from Lahore, to say nothing of other

collectors, who are not explicit as to the wild or cultivated nature of

their specimens.[231] Boissier possesses a wild specimen found in the

mountainous regions of the Khorassan. The umbels are smaller than in

the cultivated plant, but there is no other difference. Dr. Regel, jun.,

found it to the south of Kuldscha, in Western Siberia.[232] Thus my

former conjectures are completely justified; and it is not unlikely that

its habitation extends even as far as Palestine, as Hasselquist said.

The onion is designated in China by a single sign (pronounced _tsung_),

which may suggest a long existence there as an indigenous plant.[233] I

very much doubt, however, that the area extends so far to the east.

Humboldt[234] says that the Americans have always been acquainted with

onions, in Mexican _xonacatl_. “Cortes,” he says, “speaking of the

comestibles sold at the market of the ancient Tenochtillan, mentions

onions, leeks, and garlic.” I cannot believe, however, that these names

applied to the species cultivated in Europe. Sloane, in the seventeenth

century, had only seen one _Allium_ cultivated in Jamaica (_A. Cepa_),

and that was in a garden with other European vegetables.[235] The word

_xonacatl_ is not in Hernandez, and Acosta[236] says distinctly that the

onions and garlics of Peru are of European origin. The species of the

genus Allium are rare in America.

+Spring+, or +Welsh Onion+—_Allium fistulosum_, Linnæus.

This species was for a long time mentioned in floras and works on

horticulture as of unknown origin; but Russian botanists have found it

wild in Siberia towards the Altaï mountains, on the Lake Baikal in the

land of the Kirghis.[237] The ancients did not know the plant.[238] It

must have come into Europe through Russia in the Middle Ages, or a

little later. Dodoens,[239] an author of the sixteenth century, has

given a figure of it, hardly recognizable, under the name of _Cepa

oblonga_.

+Shallot+—_Allium ascalonicum_, Linnæus.

It was believed, according to Pliny,[240] that this plant took its name

from Ascalon, in Judæa; but Dr. Fournier[241] thinks that the Latin

author mistook the meaning of the word _Askalônion_ of Theophrastus.

However this may be, the word has been retained in modern languages

under the form of _échalote_ in French, _chalote_ in Spanish, _scalogno_

in Italian, _Aschaluch_ or _Eschlauch_ in German.

In 1855 I had spoken of the species as follows:[242]—

“According to Roxburgh,[243] _Allium ascalonicum_ is much cultivated in

India. The Sanskrit name _pulandu_ is attributed to it, a word nearly

identical with _palandu_, attributed to _A. Cepa_.[244] Evidently the

distinction between the two species is not clear in Indian or

Anglo-Indian works.

“Loureiro says he saw _Allium ascalonicum_ cultivated in

Cochin-China,[245] but he does not mention China, and Thunberg does not

indicate this species in Japan. Its cultivation, therefore, is not

universal in the east of Asia. This fact, and the doubt about the

Sanskrit name, lead me to think that it is not ancient in Southern Asia.

Neither, in spite of the name of the species, am I convinced that it

existed in Western Asia. Rauwolf, Forskal, and Delile do not mention it

in Siberia, in Arabia, or in Egypt. Linnæus[246] mentions Hasselquist as

having found the species in Palestine. Unfortunately, he gives no

details about the locality, nor about its wild condition. In the

_Travels_ of Hasselquist[247] I find a _Cepa montana_ mentioned as

growing on Mount Tabor and on a neighbouring mountain, but there is

nothing to prove that it was this species. In his article on the onions

and garlics of the Hebrews he mentions only _Allium Cepa_, then _A.

porrum_ and _A. sativum_. Sibthorp did not find it in Greece,[248] and

Fraas[249] does not mention it as now cultivated in that country.

According to Koch,[250] it is naturalized among the vines near Fiume.

However, Viviani[251] only speaks of it as a cultivated plant in

Dalmatia.

“From all these facts I am led to believe that _Allium ascalonicum_ is

not a species. It is enough to render its primitive existence doubtful,

to remark: (1) that Theophrastus and ancient writers in general have

spoken of it as a form of the _Allium Cepa_, having the same importance

as the varieties cultivated in Greece, Thrace, and elsewhere; (2) that

its existence in a wild state cannot be proved; (3) that it is little

cultivated, or not all, in the countries where it is supposed to have

had its origin, as in Syria, Egypt, and Greece; (4) that it is commonly

without flowers, whence the name of _Cepa sterilis_ given by Bauhin, and

the number of its bulbs is an allied fact; (5) when it does flower, the

organs of the flower are similar to those of _A. Cepa_, or at least no

difference has been hitherto discovered, and according to Koch[252] the

only difference in the whole plant is that the stalk and leaves are less

swelled, although fistulous.”

Such was formerly my opinion.[253] The facts published since 1855 do not

destroy my doubts, but, on the contrary, justify them. Regel, in 1875,

in his monograph of the genus Allium, declares he has only seen the

shallot as a cultivated species. Aucher Eloy has distributed a plant

from Asia Minor under the name of _A. ascalonicum_, but judging from my

specimen this is certainly not the species. Boissier tells me that he

has never seen _A. ascalonicum_ in the East, and it is not in his

herbarium. The plant from the Morea which bears this name in the flora

of Bory and Chaubard is quite a different species, which he has named

_A. gomphrenoides_. Baker,[254] in his review of the Alliums of India,

China, and Japan, mentions _A. ascalonicum_ in districts of Bengal and

of the Punjab, from specimens of Griffith and Aitchison; but he adds,

“They are probably cultivated plants.” He attributes to _A. ascalonicum

Allium sulvia_, Ham., of Nepal, a plant little known, and whose wild

character is uncertain. The shallot produces many bulbs, which may be

propagated or preserved in the neighbourhood of cultivation, and thus

cause mistakes as to its origin.

Finally, in spite of the progress of botanical investigations in the

East and in India, this form of Allium has not been found wild with

certainty. It appears to me, therefore, more probable than ever that it

is a modification of _A. Cepa_, dating from about the beginning of the

Christian era—a modification less considerable than many of those

observed in other cultivated plants, as, for instance, in the cabbage.

+Rocambole+—_Allium scorodoprasum_, Linnæus.

If we cast a glance at the descriptions and names of _A. scorodoprasum_

in works on botany since the time of Linnæus, we shall see that the only

point on which authors are agreed is the common name of _rocambole_. As

to the distinctive characters, they sometimes approximate the plant to

_Allium sativum_, sometimes regard it as altogether distinct. With such

different definitions, it is difficult to know in what country the

plant, well known in its cultivated state as the _rocambole_, is found

wild. According to Cosson and Germain,[255] it grows in the environs of

Paris. According to Grenier and Godron,[256] the same form grows in the

east of France. Burnat says he found the species undoubtedly wild in the

Alpes-Maritimes, and he gave specimens of it to Boissier. Willkomm and

Lange do not consider it to be wild in Spain,[257] though one of the

French names of the cultivated plant is _ail_ or _eschalote d’Espagne_.

Many other European localities seem to me doubtful, since the specific

characters are so uncertain. I mention, however, that, according to

Ledebour,[258] the plant which he calls _A. scorodoprasum_ is very

common in Russia from Finland to the Crimea. Boissier received a

specimen of it from Dobrutscha, sent by the botanist Sintenis. The

natural habitat of the species borders, therefore, on that of _Allium

sativum_, or else an attentive study of all these forms will show that a

single species, comprising several varieties, extends over a great part

of Europe and the bordering countries of Asia.

The cultivation of this species of onion does not appear to be of

ancient date. It is not mentioned by Greek and Roman authors, nor in the

list of plants recommended by Charlemagne to the intendants of his

gardens.[259] Neither does Olivier de Serres speak of it. We can only

give a small number of original common names among ancient peoples. The

most distinctive are in the North. _Skovlög_ in Denmark, _keipe_ and

_rackenboll_ in Sweden.[260] _Rockenbolle_, whence comes the French

name, is German. It has not the meaning given by Littré. Its etymology

is _Bolle_, onion, growing among the rocks, _Rocken_.[261]

+Chives+—_Allium schœnoprasum_, Linnæus.

This species occupies an extensive area in the northern hemisphere. It

is found all over Europe, from Corsica and Greece to the south of

Sweden, in Siberia as far as Kamtschatka, and also in North America, but

only near the Lakes Huron and Superior and further north[262]—a

remarkable circumstance, considering its European habitat. The variety

found in the Alps is the nearest to the cultivated form.[263]

The ancient Greeks and Romans must certainly have known the species,

since it is wild in Italy and Greece. Targioni believes it to be the

_Scorodon schiston_ of Theophrastus; but we are dealing with words

without descriptions, and authors whose specialty is the interpretation

of Greek text like Fraas and Lenz, are prudent enough to affirm nothing.

If the ancient names are doubtful, the fact of the cultivation of the

plant at this epoch is yet more so. It is possible that the custom of

gathering it in the fields existed.

+Colocasia+—_Arum esculentum_, Linnæus; _Colocasia antiquorum_,

Schott.[264]

This species is cultivated in the damp districts of the tropics, for the

swelled lower portion of the stem, which forms an edible rhizome similar

to the subterraneous part of the iris. The petioles and the young leaves

are also utilized as a vegetable. Since the different forms of the

species have been properly classed, and since we have possessed more

certain information about the floras of the south of Asia, we cannot

doubt that this plant is wild in India, as Roxburgh[265] formerly, and

Wight[266] and others have more recently asserted; likewise in

Ceylon,[267] Sumatra,[268] and several islands of the Malay

Archipelago.[269]

Chinese books make no mention of it before a work of the year 100

B.C.[270] The first European navigators saw it cultivated in Japan and

as far as the north of New Zealand,[271] in consequence probably of an

early introduction, and without the certain co-existence of wild stocks.

When portions of the stem or of the tuber are thrown away by the side of

streams, they naturalize themselves easily. This was perhaps the case in

Japan and the Fiji Islands,[272] judging from the localities indicated.

The colocasia is cultivated here and there in the West Indies, and

elsewhere in tropical America, but much less than in Asia or Africa, and

without the least indication of an American origin.

In the countries where the species is wild there are common names,

sometimes very ancient, totally different from each other, which

confirms their local origin. Thus the Sanskrit name is _kuchoo_, which

persists in modern Hindu languages—in Bengali, for instance.[273] In

Ceylon the wild plant is styled _gahala_, the cultivated plant

_kandalla_.[274] The Malay names are _kelady_,[275] _tallus_, _tallas_,

_tales_, or _taloes_,[276] from which perhaps comes the well-known name

of the Otahitans and New Zealanders—_tallo_ or _tarro_,[277] _dalo_[278]

in the Fiji Islands. The Japanese have a totally distinct name,

_imo_,[279] which shows an existence of long duration either indigenous

or cultivated.

European botanists first knew the colocasia in Egypt, where it has

perhaps not been very long cultivated. The monuments of ancient Egypt

furnish no indication of it, but Pliny[280] spoke of it as the _Arum

Ægyptium_. Prosper Alpin saw it in the sixteenth century, and speaks of

it at length.[281] He says that its name in its country is _culcas_,

which Delile[282] writes _qolkas_, and _koulkas_. It is clear that this

Arab name of the Egyptian arum has some analogy with the Sanskrit

_kuchoo_, which is a confirmation of the hypothesis, sufficiently

probable, of an introduction from India or Ceylon. De l’Ecluse[283] had

seen the plant cultivated in Portugal, as introduced from Africa, under

the name _alcoleaz_, evidently of Arab origin. In some parts of the

south of Italy, where the plant has become naturalized, it is, according

to Parlatore, called _aro di Egitto_.[284]

The name _colocasia_, given by the Greeks to a plant of which the root

was used by the Egyptians, may evidently come from _colcas_, but it has

been transferred to a plant differing from the true colcas. Indeed,

Dioscorides applies it to the Egyptian bean, or _nelumbo_,[285] which

has a large root, or rather rhizome, rather stringy and not good to eat.

The two plants are very different, especially in the flower. The one

belongs to the _Araceæ_, the other to the _Nymphæaceæ_; the one belongs

to the class of _Monocotyledons_, the other to that of the

_Dicotyledons_. The nelumbo of Indian origin has ceased to grow in

Egypt, while the colocasia of modern botanists has persisted there. If

there is any confusion, as seems probable in the Greek authors, it must

be explained by the fact that the colcas rarely flowers, at least in

Egypt. From the point of view of botanical nomenclature, it matters

little that mistakes were formerly made about the plants to which the

name colocasia should be applied. Fortunately, modern scientific names

are not based upon the doubtful definitions of the ancient Greeks and

Romans, and it is sufficient to say now, if the etymology is insisted

upon, that colocasia comes from colcas in consequence of an error.

+Apé+, or +Large-rooted Alocasia+—_Alocasia macrorrhiza_, Schott; _Arum

macrorrhizum_, Linnæus.

This araceous plant, which Schott places now in the genus Colocasia, now

in the Alocasia, and whose names are far more complicated than might be

supposed from those indicated above,[286] is less frequently cultivated

than the common colocasia, but in the same manner and nearly in the same

countries. Its rhizomes attain the length of a man’s arm. They have a

distinctly bitter taste, which it is indispensable to remove by cooking.

The aborigines of Otahiti call it _apé_, and those of the Friendly Isles

_kappe_.[287] In Ceylon, the common name is _habara_, according to

Thwaites.[288] It has other names in the Malay Archipelago, which argues

an existence prior to that of the more recent peoples of these regions.

The plant appears to be wild, especially in Otahiti.[289] It is also

wild in Ceylon, according to Thwaites, who has studied botany for a

long time in that island. It is mentioned also in India[290] and in

Australia,[291] but its wild condition is not affirmed—a fact always

difficult to establish in the case of a species cultivated on the banks

of streams, and which is propagated by bulbs. Moreover, it is sometimes

confounded with the _Colocasia indica_ of Kunth, which grows in the same

manner, and is found here and there in cultivated ground; and this

species grows wild, or is naturalized in the ditches and streams of

Southern Asia, although its history is not yet well known.

+Konjak+—_Amorphophallus Konjak_, Koch; _Amorphophallus Rivieri_, du

Rieu, var. _Konjak_, Engler.[292]

The konjak is a tuberous plant of the family Araceæ, extensively

cultivated by the Japanese, a culture of which Vidal has given full

details in the _Bulletin de la Société d’Acclimatation_ of July, 1877.

It is considered by Engler as a variety of _Amorphophallus Rivieri_, of

Cochin-China, of which horticultural periodicals have given several

illustrations in the last few years.[293] It can be cultivated in the

south of Europe, like the dahlia, as a curiosity; but to estimate the

value of the bulbs as food, they should be prepared with lime-water, in

Japanese fashion, so as to ascertain the amount of fecula which a given

area will produce.

Dr. Vidal gives no proof that the Japanese plant is wild in that

country. He supposes it to be so from the meaning of the common name,

which is, he says, _konniyakou_ or _yamagonniyakou_, _yama_ meaning

“mountain.” Franchet and Savatier[294] have only seen the plant in

gardens. The Cochin-China variety, believed to belong to the same

species, grows in gardens, and there is no proof of its being wild in

the country.

+Yams+—_Dioscorea sativa_, _D. batatas_, _D. japonica_ and _D. alata_.

The yams, monocotyledonous plants, belonging to the family

_Dioscorideæ_, constitute the genus _Dioscorea_, of which botanists have

described about two hundred species, scattered over all tropical and

sub-tropical countries. They usually have rhizomes, that is, underground

stems or branches of stems, more or less fleshy, which become larger

when the annual, exposed part of the plant is near its decay.[295]

Several species are cultivated in different countries for these

farinaceous rhizomes, which are cooked and eaten like potatoes.

The botanical distinction of the species has always presented

difficulties, because the male and female flowers are on different

individuals, and because the characters of the rhizomes and the lower

part of the exposed stems cannot be studied in the herbarium. The last

complete work is that of Kunth,[296] published in 1850. It requires

revision on account of the number of specimens brought home by

travellers in these last few years. Fortunately, with regard to the

origin of cultivated species, certain historical and philological

considerations will serve as a guide, without the absolute necessity of

knowing and estimating the botanical characters of each.

Roxburgh enumerates several _Dioscoreæ_[297] cultivated in India, but he

found none of them wild, and neither he nor Piddington[298] mentions

Sanskrit names. This last point argues a recent cultivation, or one of

originally small extent, in India, arising either from indigenous

species as yet undefined, or from foreign species cultivated elsewhere.

The Bengali and Hindu generic name is _alu_, preceded by a special name

for each species or variety; _kam alu_, for instance, is _Dioscorea

alata_. The absence of distinct names in each province also argues a

recent cultivation. In Ceylon, Thwaites[299] indicates six wild species,

and he adds that _D. sativa_, L., _D. alata_, L., and _D. purpurea_,

Roxb., are cultivated in gardens, but are not found wild.

The Chinese yam, _Dioscorea batatas_ of Decaisne,[300] extensively

cultivated by the Chinese under the name of _Sain-in_, and introduced by

M. de Montigny into European gardens, where it remains as a luxury, has

not hitherto been found wild in China. Other less-known species are also

cultivated by the Chinese, especially the _chou-yu_, _tou-tchou_,

_chan-yu_, mentioned in their ancient works on agriculture, and which

has spherical rhizomes (instead of the pyriform spindles of the _D.

batatas_). The names mean, according to Stanislas Julien, mountain arum,

whence we may conclude the plant is really a native of the country. Dr.

Bretschneider[301] gives three _Dioscoreæ_ as cultivated in China (_D.

batatas_, _alata_, _sativa_), adding, “The _Dioscorea_ is indigenous in

China, for it is mentioned in the oldest work on medicine, that of the

Emperor Schen-nung.”

_Dioscorea japonica_, Thunberg, cultivated in Japan, has also been found

in clearings in various localities, but Franchet and Savatier[302] say

that it is not positively known to what degree it is wild or has strayed

from cultivation. Another species, more often cultivated in Japan, grows

here and there in the country according to the same authors. They assign

it to _Dioscorea sativa_ of Linnæus; but it is known that the famous

Swede had confounded several Asiatic and American species under that

name, which must either be abandoned or restricted to one of the species

of the Indian Archipelago. If we choose the latter course, the true _D.

sativa_ would be the plant cultivated in Ceylon with which Linnæus was

acquainted, and which Thwaites calls the _D. sativa_ of Linnæus. Various

authors admitted the identity of the Ceylon plant with others cultivated

on the Malabar coast, in Sumatra, Java, the Philippine Isles, etc.

Blume[303] asserts that _D. sativa_, L., to which he attributes pl. 51

in Rheede’s _Hortus Malabaricus_, vol. viii., grows in damp places in

the mountains of Java and of Malabar. In order to put faith in these

assertions, it would be necessary to have carefully studied the

question of species from authentic specimens.

The yam, which is most commonly cultivated in the Pacific Isles under

the name _ubi_, is the _Dioscorea alata_ of Linnæus. The authors of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries speak of it as widely spread in

Tahiti, in New Guinea, in the Moluccas, etc.[304] It is divided into

several varieties, according to the shape of the rhizome. No one

pretends to have found this species in a wild state, but the flora of

the islands whence it probably came, in particular that of Celebes and

of New Guinea, is as yet little known.

Passing to America, we find there also several species of this genus

growing wild, in Brazil and Guiana, for instance, but it seems more

probable that the cultivated varieties were introduced. Authors indicate

but few cultivated species or varieties (Plumier one, Sloane two) and

few common names. The most widely spread is _yam_, _igname_, or

_inhame_, which is of African origin, according to Hughes, and so also

is the plant cultivated in his time in Barbados.[305]

He says that the word _yam_ means “to eat,” in several negro dialects on

the coast of Guinea. It is true that two travellers nearer to the date

of the discovery of America, whom Humboldt quotes,[306] heard the word

_igname_ pronounced on the American continent: Vespucci in 1497, on the

coast of Paria; Cabral in 1500, in Brazil. According to the latter, the

name was given to a root of which bread was made, which would better

apply to the manioc, and leads me to think there must be some mistake,

more especially since a passage from Vespucci, quoted elsewhere by

Humboldt,[307] shows the confusion he made between the manioc and the

yam. _D. Cliffortiana_, Lam., grows wild in Peru[308] and in

Brazil,[309] but it is not proved to be cultivated. Presl says

_verosimiliter colitur_, and the _Flora Brasiliensis_ does not mention

cultivation.

The species chiefly cultivated in French Guiana, according to

Sagot,[310] is _Dioscoreæ triloba_, Lam., called Indian yam, which is

also common in Brazil and the West India Islands. The common name argues

a native origin, whereas another species, _D. cayennensis_, Kunth, also

cultivated in Guiana, but under the name of _negro-country yam_, was

most likely brought from Africa, an opinion the more probable that Sir

W. Hooker likens a yam cultivated in Africa on the banks of the Nun and

the Quorra,[311] to _D. cayennensis_. Lastly, the _free yam_ of Guiana

is, according to Dr. Sagot, _D. alata_ introduced from the Malay

Archipelago and Polynesia.

In Africa there are fewer indigenous _Dioscoreæ_ than in Asia and

America, and the culture of yams is less widely spread. On the west

coast, according to Thonning,[312] only one or two species are

cultivated; Lockhardt[313] only saw one in Congo, and that only in one

locality. Bojer[314] mentions four cultivated species in Mauritius,

which are, he says, of Asiatic origin, and one, _D. bulbifera_, Lam.,

from India, if the name be correct. He asserts that it came from

Madagascar, and has spread into the woods beyond the plantations. In

Mauritius it bears the name _Cambare marron_. Now, _cambare_ is

something like the Hindu name _kam_, and _marron_ (marroon) indicates a

plant escaped from cultivation. The ancient Egyptians cultivated no

yams, which argues a cultivation less ancient in India than that of the

colocasia. Forskal and Delile mention no yams cultivated in Egypt at the

present day.

To sum up: several _Dioscoreæ_ wild in Asia (especially in the Asiatic

Archipelago), and others less numerous growing in America and in Africa,

have been introduced into cultivation as alimentary plants, probably

more recently than many other species. This last conjecture is based on

the absence of a Sanskrit name, on the limited geographical range of

cultivation, and on the date, which appears to be not very ancient, of

the inhabitants of the Pacific Isles.

+Arrowroot+—_Maranta arundinacea_, Linnæus. A plant of the family of the

_Scitamineæ_, allied to the genus _Canna_, of which the underground

suckers[315] produce the excellent fecula called arrowroot. It is

cultivated in the West India Islands and in several tropical countries

of continental America. It has also been introduced into the old

world—on the coast of Guinea, for instance.[316]

_Maranta arundinacea_ is certainly American. According to Sloane,[317]

it was brought from Dominica to Barbados, and thence to Jamaica, which

leads us to suppose that it was not indigenous in the West Indies.

Körnicke, the last author who studied the genus Maranta,[318] saw

several specimens which were gathered in Guadaloupe, in St. Thomas, in

Mexico, in Central America, in Guiana, and in Brazil; but he did not

concern himself to discover whether they were taken from wild,

cultivated, or naturalized plants. Collectors hardly ever indicate this;

and for the study of the American continent (excepting the United

States) we are unprovided with local floras, and especially with floras

made by botanists residing in the country. In published works I find the

species mentioned as cultivated[319] or growing in plantations,[320] or

without any explanation. A locality in Brazil, in the thinly peopled

province of Matto Grosso, mentioned by Körnicke, supposes an absence of

cultivation. Seemann[321] mentions that the species is found in sunny

spots near Panama.

A species is also cultivated in the West Indies, Maranta_ indica_,

which, Tussac says, was brought from the East Indies. Körnicke believes

that _M. ramosissima_ of Wallich found at Sillet, in India, is the same

species, and thinks it is a variety of _M. arundinacea_. Out of

thirty-six more or less known species of the genus Maranta, thirty at

least are of American origin. It is therefore unlikely that two or three

others should be Asiatic. Until Sir Joseph Hooker’s _Flora of British

India_ is completed, these questions on the species of the _Scitamineæ_

and their origin will be very obscure.

Anglo-Indians obtain arrowroot from another plant of the same family,

_Curcuma angustifolia_, Roxburgh, which grows in the forests of the

Deccan and in Malabar.[322] I do not know whether it is cultivated.