PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES.
_Article I._—+Vegetables+.
+Common Cabbage+—_Brassica oleracea_, Linnæus.
The cabbage in its wild state, as it is represented in _Eng. Bot._, t.
637, the _Flora Danica_, t. 2056, and elsewhere, is found on the rocks
by the sea-shore: (1) in the Isle of Laland, in Denmark, the island of
Heligoland, the south of England and Ireland, the Channel Isles, and the
islands off the coast of Charente Inférieure;[323] (2) on the north
coast of the Mediterranean, near Nice, Genoa, and Lucca.[324] A
traveller of the last century, Sibthorp, said that he found it at Mount
Athos, but this has not been confirmed by any modern botanist, and the
species appears to be foreign in Greece, on the shores of the Caspian,
as also in Siberia, where Pallas formerly said he had seen it, and in
Persia.[325] Not only the numerous travellers who have explored these
countries have not found the cabbage, but the winters of the east of
Europe and of Siberia appear to be too severe for it. Its distribution
into somewhat isolated places, and in two different regions of Europe,
suggests the suspicion either that plants apparently indigenous may in
several cases be the result of self-sowing from cultivation,[326] or
that the species was formerly common, and is tending to disappear. Its
presence in the western islands of Europe favours the latter hypothesis,
but its absence in the islands of the Mediterranean is opposed to
it.[327]
Let us see whether historical and philological data add anything to the
facts of geographical botany.
In the first place, it is in Europe that the countless varieties of
cabbage have been formed,[328] principally since the days of the ancient
Greeks. Theophrastus distinguished three, Pliny double that number,
Tournefort twenty, De Candolle more than thirty. These modifications did
not come from the East—another sign of an ancient cultivation in Europe
and of a European origin.
The common names are also numerous in European languages, and rare or
modern in those of Asia. Without repeating a number of names I have
given elsewhere,[329] I shall mention the five or six distinct and
ancient roots from which the European names are derived.
_Kap_ or _kab_ in several Keltic and Slav names. The French name _cabus_
comes from it. Its origin is clearly the same as that of _caput_,
because of the head-shaped form of the cabbage.
_Caul_, _kohl_, in several Latin (_caulis_, stem or cabbage), German
(_Chôli_ in Old German, _Kohl_ in modern German, _kaal_ in Danish), and
Keltic languages (_kaol_ and _kol_ in Breton, _cal_ in Irish).[330]
_Bresic_, _bresych_, _brassic_, of the Keltic and Latin (_brassica_)
languages, whence, probably, _berza_ and _verza_ of the Spaniards and
Portuguese, _varza_ of the Roumanians.[331]
_Aza_ of the Basques (Iberians), considered by de Charencey[332] as
proper to the Euskarian tongue, but which differs little from the
preceding.
_Krambai_, _crambe_, of the Greeks and Latins.
The variety of names in Keltic languages tends to show the existence of
the species on the west coast of Europe. If the Aryan Kelts had brought
the plant from Asia, they would probably not have invented names taken
from three different sources. It is easy to admit, on the contrary, that
the Aryan nations, seeing the cabbage wild, and perhaps already used in
Europe by the Iberians or the Ligurians, either invented names or
adopted those of the earlier inhabitants.
Philologists have connected the _krambai_ of the Greeks with the Persian
name _karamb_, _karam_, _kalam_, the Kurdish _kalam_, the Armenian
_gaghamb_;[333] others with a root of the supposed mother-tongue of the
Aryans; but they do not agree in matters of detail. According to
Fick,[334] _karambha_, in the primitive Indo-Germanic tongue, signifies
“_Gemüsepflanze_ (vegetable), _Kohl_ (cabbage), _karambha_ meaning
stalk, like _caulis_.” He adds that _karambha_, in Sanskrit, is the name
of two vegetables. Anglo-Indian writers do not mention this supposed
Sanskrit name, but only a name from a modern Hindu dialect,
_kopee_.[335] Pictet, on his side, speaks of the Sanskrit word
_kalamba_, “vegetable stalk, applied to the cabbage.”
I have considerable difficulty, I must own, in admitting these Eastern
etymologies for the Greco-Latin word _crambe_. The meaning of the
Sanskrit word (if it exists) is very doubtful, and as to the Persian
word, we ought to know if it is ancient. I doubt it, for if the cabbage
had existed in ancient Persia, the Hebrews would have known it.[336]
For all these reasons, the species appears to me of European origin. The
date of its cultivation is probably very ancient, earlier than the Aryan
invasions, but no doubt the wild plant was gathered before it was
cultivated.
+Garden-Cress+—_Lepidium sativum_, Linnæus.
This little Crucifer, now used as a salad, was valued in ancient times
for certain properties of the seeds. Some authors believe that it
answers to a certain _cardamon_ of Dioscorides; while others apply that
name to _Erucaria aleppica_.[337] In the absence of sufficient
description, as the modern common name is _cardamon_,[338] the first of
these two suppositions is probably correct.
The cultivation of the species must date from ancient times and be
widely diffused, for very different names exist: _reschad_ in Arab,
_turehtezuk_[339] in Persian, _diéges_[340] in Albanian, a language
derived from the Pelasgic; without mentioning names drawn from the
similarity of taste with that of the water-cress (_Nasturtium
officinale_). There are very distinct names in Hindustani and Bengali,
but none are known in Sanskrit.[341]
At the present day the plant is cultivated in Europe, in the north of
Africa, in Eastern Asia, India, and elsewhere, but its origin is
somewhat obscure. I possess several specimens gathered in India, where
Sir Joseph Hooker[342] does not consider the species indigenous. Kotschy
brought it back from Karrak, or Karek Island, in the Persian Gulf. The
label does not say that it was a cultivated plant. Boissier[343]
mentions it without comment, and he afterwards speaks of specimens from
Ispahan and Egypt gathered in cultivated ground. Olivier is quoted as
having found the cress in Persia, but it is not said whether it was
growing wild.[344] It has been asserted that Sibthorp found it in
Cyprus, but reference to his work shows it was in the fields.[345] Poech
does not mention it in Cyprus.[346] Unger and Kotschy[347] do not
consider it to be wild in that island. According to Ledebour,[348] Koch
found it round the convent on Mount Ararat; Pallas near Sarepta; Falk on
the banks of the Oka, a tributary of the Volga; lastly, H. Martius
mentions it in his flora of Moscow; but there is no proof that it was
wild in these various localities. Lindemann,[349] in 1860, did not
reckon the species among those of Russia, and he only indicates it as
cultivated in the Crimea.[350] According to Nyman,[351] the botanist
Schur found it wild in Transylvania, while the Austro-Hungarian floras
either do not mention the species, or give it as cultivated, or growing
in cultivated ground.
I am led to believe, by this assemblage of more or less doubtful facts,
that the plant is of Persian origin, whence it may have spread, after
the Sanskrit epoch, into the gardens of India, Syria, Greece, and Egypt,
and even as far as Abyssinia.[352]
+Purslane+—_Portulaca oleracea_, Linnæus.
Purslane is one of the kitchen garden plants most widely diffused
throughout the old world from the earliest times. It has been
transported into America,[353] where it spreads itself, as in Europe, in
gardens, among rubbish, by the wayside, etc. It is more or less used as
a vegetable, a medicinal plant, and is excellent food for pigs.
A Sanskrit name for it is known, _lonica_ or _lounia_, which recurs in
the modern languages of India.[354] The Greek name _andrachne_ and the
Latin _portulaca_ are very different, as also the group of names,
_cholza_ in Persian, _khursa_ or _koursa_ in Hindustani, _kourfa
kara-or_ in Arab and Tartar, which seem to be the origin of _kurza noka_
in Polish, _kurj-noha_ in Bohemian, _Kreusel_ in German, without
speaking of the Russian name _schrucha_, and some others of Eastern
Asia.[355] One need not be a philologist to see certain derivations in
these names showing that the Asiatic peoples in their migrations
transported with them their names for the plant, but this does not prove
that they transported the plant itself. They may have found it in the
countries to which they came. On the other hand, the existence of three
or four different roots shows that European peoples anterior to the
Asiatic migrations had already names for the species, which is
consequently very ancient in Europe as well as in Asia.
It is very difficult to discover in the case of a plant so widely
diffused, and which propagates itself so easily by means of its enormous
number of little seeds, whether a specimen is cultivated, naturalized by
spreading from cultivation, or really wild.
It does not appear to be so ancient in the east as in the west of the
Asiatic continent, and authors never say that it is a wild plant.[356]
In India the case is very different. Sir Joseph Hooker says[357] that it
grows in India to the height of five thousand feet in the Himalayas. He
also mentions having found in the north-west of India the variety with
upright stem, which is cultivated together with the common species in
Europe. I find nothing positive about the localities in Persia, but so
many are mentioned, and in countries so little cultivated, on the shores
of the Caspian Sea, in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus, and even in
the south of Russia,[358] that it is difficult not to admit that the
plant is indigenous in that central region whence the Asiatic peoples
overran Europe. In Greece the plant is wild as well as cultivated.[359]
Further to the west, in Italy, etc., we begin to find it indicated in
floras, but only growing in fields, gardens, rubbish-heaps, and other
suspicious localities.[360]
Thus the evidence of philology and botany alike show that the species is
indigenous in the whole of the region which extends from the western
Himalayas to the south of Russia and Greece.
+New Zealand Spinach+—_Tetragonia expansa_, Murray.
This plant was brought from New Zealand at the time of Cook’s famous
voyage, and cultivated by Sir Joseph Banks, and hence its name. It is a
singular plant from a double point of view. In the first place, it is
the only cultivated species which comes from New Zealand; and secondly,
it belongs to an order of usually fleshy plants, the _Ficoideæ_, of
which no other species is used. Horticulturists[361] recommend it as an
annual vegetable, of which the taste resembles that of spinach, but
which bears drought better, and is therefore a resource in seasons when
spinach fails.
Since Cook’s voyage it has been found wild chiefly on the sea coast, not
only in New Zealand but also in Tasmania, in the south and west of
Australia, in Japan, and in South America.[362] It remains to be
discovered whether in the latter places it is not naturalized, for it is
found in the neighbourhood of towns in Japan and Chili.[363]
+Garden Celery+—_Apium graveolens_, Linnæus.
Like many Umbellifers which grow in damp places, wild celery has a wide
range. It extends from Sweden to Algeria, Egypt, Abyssinia, and in Asia
from the Caucasus to Beluchistan, and the mountains of British
India.[364]
It is spoken of in the _Odyssey_ under the name of _selinon_, and in
Theophrastus; but later, Dioscorides and Pliny[365] distinguish between
the wild and cultivated celery. In the latter the leaves are blanched,
which greatly diminishes their bitterness. The long course of
cultivation explains the numerous garden varieties. The one which
differs more widely from the wild plant is that of which the fleshy
root is eaten cooked.
+Chervil+—_Scandix cerefolium_, Linnæus; _Anthriscus cerefolium_,
Hoffmann.
Not long ago the origin of this little Umbellifer, so common in our
gardens, was unknown. Like many annuals, it sprang up on rubbish-heaps,
in hedges, in waste places, and it was doubted whether it should be
considered wild. In the west and south of Europe it seems to have been
introduced, and more or less naturalized; but in the south-east of
Russia and in western temperate Asia it appears to be indigenous.
Steven[366] tells us that it is found “here and there in the woods of
the Crimea.” Boissier[367] received several specimens from the provinces
to the south of the Caucasus, from Turcomania and the mountains of the
north of Persia, localities of which the species is probably a native.
It is wanting in the floras of India and the east of Asia.
Greek authors do not mention it. The first mention of the plant by
ancient writers occurs in Columella and Pliny,[368] that is, at the
beginning of the Christian era. It was then cultivated. Pliny calls it
_cerefolium_. The species was probably introduced into the Greco-Roman
world after the time of Theophrastus, that is in the course of the three
centuries which preceded our era.
+Parsley+—_Petroselinum sativum_, Mœnch.
This biennial Umbellifer is wild in the south of Europe, from Spain to
Turkey. It has also been found at Tlemcen in Algeria, and in
Lebanon.[369]
Dioscorides and Pliny speak of it under the names of _Petroselinon_ and
_Petroselinum_,[370] but only as a wild medicinal plant. Nothing proves
that it was cultivated in their time. In the Middle Ages Charlemagne
counted it among the plants which he ordered to be cultivated in his
gardens.[371] Olivier de Serres in the sixteenth century cultivated
parsley. English gardeners received it in 1548.[372] Although this
cultivation is neither ancient nor important, it has already developed
two varieties, which would be called species if they were found wild;
the parsley with crinkled leaves, and that of which the fleshy root is
edible.
+Smyrnium+, or +Alexanders+—_Smyrnium olus-atrum_, Linnæus.
Of all the Umbellifers used as vegetables, this was one of the commonest
in gardens for nearly fifteen centuries, and it is now abandoned. We can
trace its beginning and end. Theophrastus spoke of it as a medicinal
plant under the name of _Ipposelinon_, but three centuries later
Dioscorides[373] says that either the root or the leaves might be eaten,
which implies cultivation. The Latins called it _olus-atrum_,
Charlemagne _olisatum_, and commanded it to be sown in his farms.[374]
The Italians made great use of it under the name _macerone_.[375] At the
end of the eighteenth century the tradition existed in England that this
plant had been formerly cultivated; later English and French
horticulturists do not mention it.[376]
The _Smyrnium olus-atrum_ is wild throughout Southern Europe, in
Algeria, Syria, and Asia Minor.[377]
+Corn Salad+, or +Lamb’s Lettuce+—_Valerianella olitoria_, Linnæus.
Frequently cultivated as a salad, this annual, of the Valerian family,
is found wild throughout temperate Europe to about the sixtieth degree
of latitude, in Southern Europe, in the Canary Isles, Madeira, and the
Azores, in the north of Africa, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus.[378] It
often grows in cultivated ground, near villages, etc., which renders it
somewhat difficult to know where it grew before cultivation. It is
mentioned, however, in Sardinia and Sicily, in the meadows and mountain
pastures.[379] I suspect that it is indigenous only in these islands,
and that everywhere else it is introduced or naturalized. The grounds
for this opinion are the fact that no name which it seems possible to
assign to this plant has been found in Greek or Latin authors. We cannot
even name any botanist of the Middle Ages or of the sixteenth century
who has spoken of it. Neither is it mentioned among the vegetables used
in France in the seventeenth century, either by the _Jardinier Français_
of 1651, or by Laurenberg’s work, _Horticultura_ (Frankfurt, 1632). The
cultivation and even the use of this salad appear to be modern, a fact
which has not been noticed.
+Cardoon+—_Cynara cardunculus_, Linnæus.
+Artichoke+—_Cynara scolymus_, Linnæus; _C. cardunculus_, var. _sativa_,
Moris.
For a long time botanists have held the opinion that the artichoke is
probably a form obtained by cultivation from the wild cardoon.[380]
Careful observations have lately proved this hypothesis. Moris,[381] for
instance, having cultivated, in the garden at Turin, the wild Sardinian
plant side by side with the artichoke, affirmed that true characteristic
distinctions no longer existed.
Willkomm and Lange,[382] who have carefully observed the plant in Spain,
both wild and cultivated, share the same opinion. Moreover, the
artichoke has not been found out of gardens; and since the Mediterranean
region, the home of all the _Cynaræ_, has been thoroughly explored, it
may safely be asserted that it exists nowhere wild.
The cardoon, in which we must also include _C. horrida_ of Sibthorp, is
indigenous in Madeira and in the Canary Isles, in the mountains of
Marocco near Mogador, in the south and east of the Iberian peninsula,
the south of France, of Italy, of Greece, and in the islands of the
Mediterranean Sea as far as Cyprus.[383] Munby[384] does not allow _C.
cardunculus_ to be wild in Algeria, but he does admit _Cynara humilis_
of Linnæus, which is considered by a few authors as a variety.
The cultivated cardoon varies a good deal with regard to the division of
the leaves, the number of spines, and the size—diversities which
indicate long cultivation. The Romans eat the receptacle which bears the
flowers, and the Italians also eat it, under the name of _girello_.
Modern nations cultivate the cardoon for the fleshy part of the leaves,
a custom which is not yet introduced into Greece.[385]
The artichoke offers fewer varieties, which bears out the opinion that
it is a form derived from the cardoon. Targioni,[386] in an excellent
article upon this plant, relates that the artichoke was brought from
Naples to Florence in 1466, and he proves that ancient writers, even
Athenæus, were not acquainted with the artichoke, but only with the wild
and cultivated cardoons. I must mention, however, as a sign of its
antiquity in the north of Africa, that the Berbers have two entirely
distinct names for the two plants: _addad_ for the cardoon, _taga_ for
the artichoke.[387]
It is believed that the _kactos_, _kinara_, and _scolimos_ of the
Greeks, and the _carduus_ of Roman horticulturists, were _Cynara
cardunculus_,[388] although the most detailed description, that of
Theophrastus, is sufficiently confused. “The plant,” he said, “grows in
Sicily”—as it does to this day—“and,” he added, “not in Greece.” It is,
therefore, possible that the plants observed in our day in that country
may have been naturalized from cultivation. According to Athenæus,[389]
the Egyptian king Ptolemy Energetes, of the second century before
Christ, had found in Libya a great quantity of wild _kinara_, by which
his soldiers had profited.
Although the indigenous species was to be found at such a little
distance, I am very doubtful whether the ancient Egyptians cultivated
the cardoon or the artichoke. Pickering and Unger[390] believed they
recognized it in some of the drawings on the monuments; but the two
figures which Unger considers the most admissible seem to me extremely
doubtful. Moreover, no Hebrew name is known, and the Jews would probably
have spoken of this vegetable had they seen it in Egypt. The diffusion
of the species in Asia must have taken place somewhat late. There is an
Arab name, _hirschuff_ or _kerschouff_, and a Persian name,
_kunghir_,[391] but no Sanskrit name, and the Hindus have taken the
Persian word _kunjir_,[392] which shows that it was introduced at a late
epoch. Chinese authors do not mention any _Cynara_.[393] The cultivation
of the artichoke was only introduced into England in 1548.[394] One of
the most curious facts in the history of _Cynara cardanculus_ is its
naturalization in the present century over a vast extent of the Pampas
of Buenos Ayres, where its abundance is a hindrance to travellers.[395]
It is becoming equally troublesome in Chili.[396] It is not asserted
that the artichoke has anywhere been naturalized in this manner, and
this is another sign of its artificial origin.
+Lettuce+—_Latuca Scariola_, var. _sativa_.
Botanists are agreed in considering the cultivated lettuce as a
modification of the wild species called _Latuca Scariola_.[397] The
latter grows in temperate and southern Europe, in the Canary Isles,
Madeira,[398] Algeria,[399] Abyssinia,[400] and in the temperate
regions of Eastern Asia. Boissier speaks of specimens from Arabia Petrea
to Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.[401] He mentions a variety with
crinkled leaves, similar therefore to some of our garden lettuces, which
the traveller Hausknecht brought with him from the mountains of
Kurdistan. I have a specimen from Siberia, found near the river Irtysch,
and it is now known with certainty that the species grows in the north
of India, in Kashmir, and in Nepal.[402] In all these countries it is
often near cultivated ground or among rubbish, but often also in rocky
ground, clearings, or meadows, as a really wild plant.
The cultivated lettuce often spreads from gardens, and sows itself in
the open country. No one, as far as I know, has observed it in such a
case for several generations, or has tried to cultivate the wild _L.
Scariola_, to see whether the transition is easy from the one form to
the other. It is possible that the original habitat of the species has
been enlarged by the diffusion of cultivated lettuces reverting to the
wild form. It is known that there has been a great increase in the
number of cultivated varieties in the course of the last two thousand
years. Theophrastus indicated three;[403] _le Bon Jardinier_ of 1880
gives forty varieties existing in France.
The ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated the lettuce, especially as a
salad. In the East its cultivation possibly dates from an earlier epoch.
Nevertheless it does not appear, from the original common names both in
Asia and Europe, that this plant was generally or very anciently
cultivated. There is no Sanskrit nor Hebrew name known, nor any in the
reconstructed Aryan tongue. A Greek name exists, _tridax_; Latin,
_latuca_; Persian and Hindu, _kahn_; and the analogous Arabic form
_chuss_ or _chass_. The Latin form exists also, slightly modified, in
the Slav and Germanic languages,[404] which may indicate either that the
Western Aryans diffused the plant, or that its cultivation spread with
its name at a later date from the south to the north of Europe.
Dr. Bretschneider has confirmed my supposition[405] that the lettuce is
not very ancient in China, and that it was introduced there from the
West. He says that the first work in which it is mentioned dates from
A.D. 600 to A.D. 900.[406]
+Wild Chicory+—_Cichorium Intybus_, Linnæus.
The wild perennial chicory, which is cultivated as a salad, as a
vegetable, as fodder, and for its roots, which are used to mix with
coffee, grows throughout Europe, except in Lapland, in Marocco, and
Algeria,[407] from Eastern Europe to Afghanistan and Beluchistan,[408]
in the Punjab and Kashmir,[409] and from Russia to Lake Baikal in
Siberia.[410] The plant is certainly wild in most of these countries;
but as it often grows by the side of roads and fields, it is probable
that it has been transported by man from its original home. This must be
the case in India, for there is no known Sanskrit name.
The Greeks and Romans employed this species wild and cultivated,[411]
but their notices of it are too brief to be clear. According to
Heldreich, the modern Greeks apply the general name of _lachana_, a
vegetable or salad, to seventeen different chicories, of which he gives
a list.[412] He says that the species commonly cultivated is _Cichorium
divaricatum_, Schousboe (_C. pumilum_, Jacquin); but it is an annual,
and the chicory of which Theophrastus speaks was perennial.
+Endive+—_Cichorium Endivia_, Linnæus.
The white chicories or endives of our gardens are distinguished from
_Cichorium Intybus_, in that they are annuals, and less bitter to the
taste. Moreover, the hairs of the pappus which crowns the seed are four
times longer, and unequal instead of being equal. As long as this plant
was compared with _C. Intybus_, it was difficult not to admit two
species. The origin of _C. Endivia_ is uncertain. When we received,
forty years ago, specimens of an Indian _Cichorium_, which Hamilton
named _C. cosmia_, they seemed to us so like the endive that we supposed
the latter to have an Indian origin, as has been sometimes
suggested;[413] but Anglo-Indian botanists said, and continue to assert,
that in India the plant only grows under cultivation.[414] The
uncertainty persisted as to the geographical origin. After this, several
botanists[415] conceived the idea of comparing the endive with an annual
species, wild in the region of the Mediterranean, _Cichorium pumilum_,
Jacquin (_C. divaricatum_, Schousboe), and the differences were found to
be so slight that some have suspected, and others have affirmed, their
specific identity. For my part, after having seen wild specimens from
Sicily, and compared the good illustrations published by Reichenbach
(_Icones_, vol. xix., pls. 1357, 1358), I am disposed to take the
cultivated endives for varieties of the same species as _C. pumilum_. In
this case the oldest name being _C. Endivia_, it is the one which ought
to be retained, as has been done by Schultz. It resembles, moreover, a
popular name common to several languages.
The wild plant exists in the whole region, of which the Mediterranean is
the centre, from Madeira,[416] Marocco,[417] and Algeria,[418] as far as
Palestine,[419] the Caucasus, and Turkestan.[420] It is very common in
the islands of the Mediterranean and in Greece. Towards the west, in
Spain and Madeira, for instance, it is probable that it has become
naturalized from cultivation, judging from the positions it occupies in
the fields and by the wayside.
No positive proof is found in ancient authors of the use of this plant
by the Greeks and Romans;[421] but it is probable that they made use of
it and several other _Cichoria_. The common names tell us nothing, since
they may have been applied to two different species. These names vary
little,[422] and suggest a cultivation of Græco-Roman origin. A Hindu
name, _kasni_, and a Tamul one, _koschi_,[423] are mentioned, but no
Sanskrit name, and this indicates that the cultivation of this plant was
of late origin in the east.
+Spinach+—_Spinacia oleracea_, Linnæus.
This vegetable was unknown to the Greeks and Romans.[424] It was new to
Europe in the sixteenth century,[425] and it has been a matter of
dispute whether it should be called _spanacha_, as coming from Spain, or
_spinacia_, from its prickly fruit.[426] It was afterwards shown that
the name comes from the Arabic _isfânâdsch_, _esbanach_, or _sepanach_,
according to different authors.[427] The Persian name is _ispany_, or
_ispanaj_,[428] and the Hindu _isfany_, or _palak_, according to
Piddington, and also _pinnis_, according to the same and to Roxburgh.
The absence of any Sanskrit name shows a cultivation of no great
antiquity in these regions. Loureiro saw the spinach cultivated at
Canton, and Maximowicz in Mantschuria;[429] but Bretschneider tells us
that the Chinese name signifies _herb of Persia_, and that Western
vegetables were commonly introduced into China a century before the
Christian era.[430] It is therefore probable that the cultivation of
this plant began in Persia from the time of the Græco-Roman
civilization, or that it did not quickly spread either to the east or to
the west of its Persian origin. No Hebrew name is known, so that the
Arabs must have received both plant and name from the Persians. Nothing
leads us to suppose that they carried this vegetable into Spain. Ebn
Baithar, who was living in 1235, was of Malaga; but the Arabic works he
quotes do not say where the plant was cultivated, except one of them,
which says that its cultivation was common at Nineveh and Babylon.
Herrera’s work on Spanish agriculture does not mention the species,
although it is inserted in a supplement of recent date, whence it is
probable that the edition of 1513 did not speak of it; so that the
European cultivation must have come from the East about the fifteenth
century.
Some popular works repeat that spinach is a native of Northern Asia, but
there is nothing to confirm this supposition. It evidently comes from
the empire of the ancient Medes and Persians. According to Bosc,[431]
the traveller, Olivier brought back some seeds of it, found in the East
in the open country. This would be a positive proof, if the produce of
these seeds had been examined by a botanist in order to ascertain the
species and the variety. In the present state of our knowledge it must
be owned that spinach has not yet been found in a wild state, unless it
be a cultivated modification of _Spinacia tetandra_, Steven, which is
wild to the south of the Caucasus, in Turkestan, in Persia, and in
Afghanistan, and which is used as a vegetable under the name of
_schamum_.[432]
Without entering here into a purely botanical discussion, I may say
that, after reading the descriptions quoted by Boissier, and looking at
Wight’s[433] plate of _Spinacia tetandra_, Roxb., cultivated in India,
and the specimens of several herbaria, I see no decided difference
between this plant and the cultivated spinach with prickly fruit. The
term _tetandra_ implies that one of the plants has five and the other
four stamens, but the number varies in our cultivated spinaches.[434]
If, as seems probable, the two plants are two varieties, the one
cultivated, the other sometimes wild and sometimes cultivated, the
oldest name, _S. oleracea_, ought to persist, especially as the two
plants are found in the cultivated grounds of their original country.
The _Dutch_ or _great spinach_, of which the fruit has no spines, is
evidently a garden product. Tragus, or Bock was the first to mention it
in the sixteenth century.[435]
+Amaranth+—_Amarantus gangeticus_, Linnæus.
Several annual amaranths are cultivated as a green vegetable in
Mauritius, Bourbon, and the Seychelles Isles, under the name of _brède
de Malabar_.[436] This appears to be the principal species. It is much
cultivated in India. Anglo-Indian botanists mistook it for a time for
_Amarantus oleraceus_ of Linnæus, and Wight gives an illustration of it
under this name,[437] but it is now acknowledged to be a different
species, and belongs to _A. gangeticus_. Its numerous varieties,
differing in size, colour, etc., are called in the Telinga dialect _tota
kura_, with the occasional addition of an adjective for each. There
are other names in Bengali and Hindustani. The young shoots sometimes
take the place of asparagus at the table of the English.[438] _A.
melancholicus_, often grown as an ornamental plant in European gardens,
is considered one of the forms of this species.
Its original home is perhaps India, but I cannot discover that the plant
has ever been found there in a wild state; at least, this is not
asserted by any author. All the species of the genus _Amarantus_ spread
themselves in cultivated ground, on rubbish-heaps by the wayside, and
thus become half-naturalized in hot countries as well as in Europe.
Hence the extreme difficulty in distinguishing the species, and above
all in guessing or proving their origin. The species most nearly akin to
_A. gangeticus_ appear to be Asiatic.
_A. gangeticus_ is said by trustworthy authorities to be wild in Egypt
and Abyssinia;[439] but this is perhaps only the result of such
naturalization as I spoke of just now. The existence of numerous
varieties and of different names in India, render its Indian origin most
probable.
The Japanese cultivate as vegetables _A. caudatus_, _A. mangostanus_,
and _A. melancholicus_ (or _gangeticus_) of Linnæus,[440] but there is
no proof that any of them are indigenous. In Java _A. polystachyus_,
Blume, is cultivated; it is very common among rubbish, by the wayside,
etc.[441]
I shall speak presently of the species grown for the seed.
+Leek+—_Allium ampeloprasum_, var. _Porrum_.
According to the careful monograph by J. Gay,[442] the leek, as early
writers[443] suspected, is only a cultivated variety of _Allium
ampeloprasum_ of Linnæus, so common in the East, and in the
Mediterranean region, especially in Algeria, which in Central Europe
sometimes becomes naturalized in vineyards and round ancient
cultivations.[444] Gay seems to have mistrusted the indications of the
floras of the south of Europe, for, contrary to his method with other
species of which he gives the localities out of Algeria, he only quotes
in the present case the Algerian localities; admitting, however, the
identity of name in the authors for other countries.
The cultivated variety of _Porrum_ has not been found wild. It is only
mentioned in doubtful localities, such as vineyards, gardens, etc.
Ledebour[445] indicates for _A. ampeloprasum_ the borders of the Crimea,
and the provinces to the south of the Caucasus. Wallich brought a
specimen from Kamaon, in India,[446] but we cannot be sure that it was
wild. The works on Cochin-China (Loureiro), China (Bretschneider), and
Japan (Franchet and Savatier) make no mention of it.
_Article II._—+Fodder.+
+Lucern+—_Medicago sativa_, Linnæus.
The lucern was known to the Greeks and Romans. They called it in Greek
_medicai_, in Latin medica, or _herba medica_, because it had been
brought from Media at the time of the Persian war, about 470 years
before the Christian era.[447] The Romans often cultivated it, at any
rate from the beginning of the first or second century. Cato does not
speak of it,[448] but it is mentioned by Varro, Columella, and Virgil.
De Gasparin[449] notices that Crescenz, in 1478, does not mention it in
Italy, and that in 1711 Tull had not seen it beyond the Alps. Targioni,
however, who could not be mistaken on this head, says that the
cultivation of lucern was maintained in Italy, especially in Tuscany,
from ancient times.[450] It is rare in modern Greece.[451] French
cultivators have often given to the lucern the name of _sainfoin_, which
belongs properly to _Onobrychis sativa_; and this transposition still
exists, for instance in the neighbourhood of Geneva. The name _lucern_
has been supposed to come from the valley of Luzerne, in Piedmont; but
there is another and more probable origin. The Spaniards had an old
name, _eruye_, mentioned by J. Bauhin,[452] and the Catalans call it
_userdas_[453] whence perhaps the patois name in the south of France,
_laouzerdo_, nearly akin to _luzerne_. It was so commonly cultivated in
Spain that the Italians have sometimes called it _herba spagna_.[454]
The Spaniards have, besides the names already given, _mielga_, or
_melga_, which appears to come from _Medica_, but they principally used
names derived from the Arabic—_alfafa_, _alfasafat_, _alfalfa_. In the
thirteenth century, the famous physician Ebn Baithar, who wrote at
Malaga, uses the Arab word _fisfisat_, which he derives from the Persian
_isfist_.[455] It will be seen that, if we are to trust to the common
names, the origin of the plant would be either in Spain, Piedmont, or
Persia. Fortunately botanists can furnish direct and possible proofs of
the original home of the species.
It has been found wild, with every appearance of an indigenous plant, in
several provinces of Anatolia, to the south of the Caucasus, in several
parts of Persia, in Afghanistan, in Beluchistan,[456] and in
Kashmir.[457] In the south of Russia, a locality mentioned by some
authors, it is perhaps the result of cultivation as well as in the south
of Europe. The Greeks may, therefore, have introduced the plant from
Asia Minor as well as from India, which extended from the north of
Persia.
This origin of the lucern, which is well established, makes me note as a
singular fact that no Sanskrit name is known.[458] Clover and sainfoin
have none either, which leads us to suppose that the Aryans had no
artificial meadows.
+Sainfoin+—_Hedysarum Onobrychis_, Linnæus; _Onobrychis sativa_,
Lamarck.
This leguminous plant, of which the usefulness in the dry and chalky
soils of temperate regions is incontestable, has not been long in
cultivation. The Greeks did not grow it, and their descendants have not
introduced it into their agriculture to this day.[459] The plant called
_Onobrychis_ by Dioscorides and Pliny, is _Onobrychis Caput-Galli_ of
modern botanists,[460] a species wild in Greece and elsewhere, which is
not cultivated. The sainfoin, or _lupinella_ of the Italians, was highly
esteemed as fodder in the south of France in the time of Olivier de
Serres,[461] that is to say, in the sixteenth century; but in Italy it
was only in the eighteenth century that this cultivation spread,
particularly in Tuscany.[462]
Sainfoin is a herbaceous plant, which grows wild in the temperate parts
of Europe, to the south of the Caucasus, round the Caspian Sea,[463] and
even beyond Lake Baikal.[464] In the south of Europe it grows only on
the hills. Gussone does not reckon it among the wild species of Sicily,
nor Moris among those of Sardinia, nor Munby among those of Algeria.
No Sanskrit, Persian, or Arabic names are known. Everything tends to
show that the cultivation of this plant originated in the south of
France as late perhaps as the fifteenth century.
+French Honeysuckle+, or +Spanish Sainfoin+—_Hedysarum coronarium_,
Linnæus.
The cultivation of this leguminous plant, akin to the sainfoin, and of
which a good illustration may be found in the _Flora des Serres et des
Jardins_, vol. xiii. pl. 1382, has been diffused in modern times through
Italy, Sicily, Malta, and the Balearic Isles.[465] Marquis Grimaldi, who
first pointed it out to cultivators in 1766, had seen it at Seminara,
in Lower Calabria; De Gasparin[466] recommends it for Algeria, and it is
probable that cultivators under similar conditions in Australia, at the
Cape, in South America or Mexico, would do well to try it. In the
neighbourhood of Orange, in Algeria, the plant did not survive the cold
of 6° centigrade.
_Hedysarum coronarium_ grows in Italy from Genoa to Sicily and
Sardinia,[467] in the south of Spain[468] and in Algeria,[469] where it
is rare. It is, therefore, a species of limited geographical area.
+Purple Clover+—_Trifolium pratense_, Linnæus.
Clover was not cultivated in ancient times, although the plant was
doubtless known to nearly all the peoples of Europe and of temperate
Western Asia. Its use was first introduced into Flanders in the
sixteenth century, perhaps even earlier, and, according to Schwerz, the
Protestants expelled by the Spaniards carried it into Germany, where
they established themselves under the protection of the Elector
Palatine. It was also from Flanders that the English received it in
1633, through the influence of Weston, Earl of Portland, then Lord
Chancellor.[470]
_Trifolium pratense_ is wild throughout Europe, in Algeria,[471] on the
mountains of Anatolia, in Armenia, and in Turkestan,[472] in Siberia
towards the Altaï Mountains,[473] and in Kashmir and Garwhall.[474]
The species existed, therefore, in Asia, in the land of the Aryan
nations; but no Sanskrit name is known, whence it may be inferred that
it was not cultivated.
+Crimson+ or +Italian Clover+—_Trifolium incarnatum_, Linnæus.
An annual plant grown for fodder, whose cultivation, says Vilmorin, long
confined to a few of the southern departments, becomes every day more
common in France.[475] De Candolle, at the beginning of the present
century, had only seen it in the department of Ariège.[476] It has
existed for about sixty years in the neighbourhood of Geneva. Targioni
does not think that it is of ancient date in Italy,[477] and the trivial
name _trafoglio_ strengthens his opinion.
The Catalan _fé_, _fench_,[478] and, in the patois of the south of
France,[479] _farradje_ (Roussillon), _farratage_ (Languedoc),
_feroutgé_ (Gascony), whence the French name _farouch_, have, on the
other hand, an original character, which indicates an ancient
cultivation round the Pyrenees. The term which is sometimes used,
“clover of Roussillon,” also shows this.
The wild plant exists in Galicia, in Biscaya, and Catalonia,[480] but
not in the Balearic Isles;[481] it is found in Sardinia[482] and in the
province of Algiers.[483] It appears in several localities in France,
Italy, and Dalmatia, in the valley of the Danube and Macedonia, but in
many cases it is not known whether it may not have strayed from
neighbouring cultivation. A singular locality in which it appears to be
indigenous, according to English authors, is on the coast of Cornwall,
near the Lizard. In this place, according to Bentham, it is the pale
yellow variety, which is truly wild on the Continent, while the crimson
variety is only naturalized in England from cultivation.[484] I do not
know to what degree this remark of Bentham’s as to the wild nature of
the sole variety of a yellow colour (var. _Molinerii_, Seringe) is
confirmed in all the countries where the species grows. It is the only
one indicated by Moris in Sardinia, and in Dalmatia by Viviani,[485] in
the localities which appear natural (_in pascuis collinis_, _in
montanis_, _in herbidis_). The authors of the _Bon Jardinier_[486]
affirm with Bentham that _Trifolium Molinerii_ is wild in the north of
France, that with crimson flowers being introduced from the south; and
while they admit the absence of a good specific distinction, they note
that in cultivation the variety _Molinerii_ is of slower growth, often
biennial instead of annual.
+Alexandrine+ or +Egyptian Clover+—_Trifolium Alexandrinum_, Linnæus.
This species is extensively cultivated in Egypt as fodder. Its Arab name
is _bersym_ or _berzun_.[487] There is nothing to show that it has been
long in use; the name does not occur in Hebrew and Armenian botanical
works. The species is not wild in Egypt, but it is certainly wild in
Syria and Asia Minor.[488]
+Ervilia+—_Ervum Ervilia_, Linnæus; _Vicia Ervilia_, Willdenow.
Bertoloni[489] gives no less than ten common Italian names—_ervo_,
_lero_, _zirlo_, etc. This is an indication of an ancient and general
culture. Heldreich[490] says that the modern Greeks cultivate the plant
in abundance as fodder. They call it _robai_, from the ancient Greek
_orobos_, as _ervos_ comes from the Latin _ervum_. The cultivation of
the species is mentioned by ancient Greek and Latin authors.[491] The
Greeks made use of the seed; for some has been discovered in the
excavations on the site of Troy.[492] There are a number of common names
in Spain, some of them Arabic,[493] but the species has not been so
widely cultivated there for several centuries.[494] In France it is so
little grown that many modern works on agriculture do not mention it. It
is unknown in British India.[495]
General botanical works indicate _Ervum Ervilia_ as growing in Southern
Europe, but if we take severally the best floras, it will be seen that
it is in such localities as fields, vineyards, or cultivated ground. It
is the same in Western Asia, where Boissier[496] speaks of specimens
from Syria, Persia, and Afghanistan. Sometimes, in abridged
catalogues,[497] the locality is not given, but nowhere do I find it
asserted that the plant has been seen wild in places far from
cultivation. The specimens in my own herbarium furnish no further proof
on this head.
In all likelihood the species was formerly wild in Greece, Italy, and
perhaps Spain and Algeria, but the frequency of its cultivation in the
very regions where it existed prevent us from now finding the wild
stocks.
+Tare+, or +Common Vetch+—_Vicia sativa_, Linnæus.
_Vicia sativa_ is an annual leguminous plant wild throughout Europe,
except in Lapland. It is also common in Algeria,[498] and to the south
of the Caucasus as far as the province of Talysch.[499] Roxburgh
pronounces it to be wild in the north-west provinces and in Bengal, but
Sir Joseph Hooker admits this only as far as the variety called
_angustifolia_[500] is concerned. No Sanskrit name is known, and in the
modern languages of India only Hindu names.[501] Targioni believes it to
be the _ketsach_ of the Hebrews.[502] I have received specimens from the
Cape and from California. The species is certainly not indigenous in the
two last-named regions, but has escaped from cultivation.
The Romans sowed this plant both for the sake of the seed and as fodder
as early as the time of Cato.[503] I have discovered no proof of a more
ancient cultivation. The name _vik_, whence _vicia_, dates from a very
remote epoch in Europe, for it exists in Albanian,[504] which is
believed to be the language of the Pelasgians, and among the Slav,
Swedish, and Germanic nations, with slight modifications. This does not
prove that the species was cultivated. It is distinct enough and useful
enough to herbivorous animals to have received common names from the
earliest times.
+Flat-podded Pea+—_Lathyrus Cicera_, Linnæus.
An annual leguminous plant, esteemed as fodder, but whose seed, if used
as food in any quantity, becomes dangerous.[505]
It is grown in Italy under the name of _mochi_.[506] Some authors
suspect that it is the _cicera_ of Columella and the _ervilia_ of
Varro,[507] but the common Italian name is very different to these. The
species is not cultivated in Greece.[508] It is more or less grown in
France and Spain, without anything to show that its use dates from
ancient times. However, Wittmack[509] attributes to it, but doubtfully,
some seeds brought by Virchow from the Trojan excavations.
According to the floras, it is evidently wild in dry places, beyond the
limits of cultivation in Spain and Italy.[510] It is also wild in Lower
Egypt, according to Schweinfurth and Ascherson;[511] but there is no
trace of ancient cultivation in this country or among the Hebrews.
Towards the East its wild character becomes less certain. Boissier
indicates the plant “in cultivated ground from Turkey in Europe, and
Egypt as far as the south of the Caucasus and Babylon.”[512] It is not
mentioned in India either as wild or cultivated, and has no Sanskrit
name.[513]
The species is probably a native of the region comprised between Spain
and Greece, perhaps also of Algeria,[514] and diffused by a
cultivation, not of very ancient date, over Western Asia.
+Chickling Vetch+—_Lathyrus sativus_, Linnæus.
An annual leguminous plant, cultivated in the South of Europe, from a
very early age, as fodder, and also for the seeds. The Greeks called it
_lathyros_[515] and the Latins _cicercula_.[516] It is also cultivated
in the temperate regions of Western Asia, and even in the north of
India;[517] but it has no Hebrew[518] nor Sanskrit name,[519] which
argues a not very ancient cultivation in these regions.
Nearly all the floras of the south of Europe and of Algeria give the
plant as cultivated and half-wild, rarely and only in a few localities
as truly wild. It is easy to understand the difficulty of recognizing
the wild character of a species often mixed with cereals, and which
persists and spreads itself after cultivation. Heldreich does not allow
that it is indigenous in Greece.[520] This is a strong presumption that
in the rest of Europe and in Algeria the plant has escaped from
cultivation.
It is probable that this was not the case in Western Asia; for authors
cite sufficiently wild localities, where agriculture plays a less
considerable part than in Europe. Ledebour,[521] for instance, mentions
specimens gathered in the desert, near the Caspian Sea, and in the
province of Lenkoran. Meyer[522] confirms the assertion with respect to
Lenkoran. Baker, in his flora of British India, after indicating the
species as scattered here and there in the northern provinces, adds,
“often cultivated,” whence it may be inferred that he considers it as
indigenous, at least in the north. Boissier asserts nothing with regard
to the localities in Persia which he mentions in his Oriental
flora.[523]
To sum up, I think it probable that the species was indigenous before
cultivation in the region extending from the south of the Caucasus, or
of the Caspian Sea, to the north of India, and that it spread towards
Europe in the track of ancient cultivation, mixed perhaps with cereals.
+Ochrus+—_Pisum ochrus_, Linnæus; _Lathyrus ochrus_, de Candolle.
Cultivated as an annual fodder in Catalonia, under the name of
_tapisots_,[524] and in Greece, particularly in the island of Crete,
under that of _ochros_,[525] mentioned by Theophrastus,[526] but without
a word of description. Latin authors do not speak of it, which argues a
rare and local cultivation in ancient times.
The species is certainly wild in Tuscany.[527] It appears to be wild
also in Greece and Sardinia, where it is found in hedges,[528] and in
Spain, where it grows in uncultivated ground;[529] but as for the south
of France, Algeria, and Sicily, authors are either silent as to the
locality, or mention only fields and cultivated ground. The plant is
unknown further east than Syria,[530] where probably it is not wild.
The fine plate published by Sibthorp, _Flora Græca_, 589, suggests that
the species is worthy of more general cultivation.
+Trigonel+, or +Fenugreek+—Trigonella fænum-græcum, Linnæus.
The cultivation of this annual leguminous plant was common in ancient
Greece and Italy,[531] either for spring forage, or for the medicinal
properties of its seeds. Abandoned almost everywhere in Europe, and
notably in Greece,[532] it is maintained in the East and in India,[533]
where it is probably of very ancient date, and throughout the Nile
Valley.[534] The species is wild in the Punjab and in Kashmir,[535] in
the deserts of Mesopotamia and of Persia,[536] and in Asia Minor,[537]
where, however, the localities cited do not appear sufficiently distinct
from the cultivated ground. It is also indicated[538] in several places
in Southern Europe, such as Mount Hymettus and other localities in
Greece, the hills above Bologna and Genoa, and a few waste places in
Spain; but the further west we go the more we find mentioned such
localities as fields, cultivated ground, etc.; and careful authors do
not fail to note that the species has probably escaped from
cultivation.[539] I do not hesitate to say that if a plant of this
nature were indigenous in Southern Europe, it would be far more common,
and would not be wanting to the insular floras, such as those of Sicily,
Ischia, and the Balearic Isles.[540]
The antiquity of the species and of its use in India is confirmed by the
existence of several different names in different dialects, and above
all of a Sanskrit and modern Hindu name, _methi_.[541] There is a
Persian name, _schemlit_, and an Arab name, _helbeh_;[542] but none is
known in Hebrew.[543] One of the names of the plant in ancient Greek,
_tailis_ τηλις, may, perhaps, be considered by philologists as akin to
the Sanskrit name,[544] but of this I am no judge. The species may have
been introduced by the Aryans, and the primitive name have left no trace
in northern languages, since it can only live in the south of Europe.
+Bird’s Foot+—_Ornithopus sativus_, Brotero; _O. isthmocarpus_, Cosson.
The true bird’s foot, wild and cultivated in Portugal, was described for
the first time in 1804 by Brotero,[545] and Cosson has distinguished it
more clearly from allied species.[546] Some authors had confounded it
with _Ornithopus roseus_ of Dufour, and agriculturists have sometimes
given it the name of a very different species, _O. perpusillus_, which
by reason of its small size is unsuited for cultivation. It is only
necessary to see the pod of _Ornithopus sativus_ to make certain of the
species, for it is when ripe contracted at intervals and considerably
bent. If there are in the fields plants of a similar appearance, but
whose pods are straight and not contracted, they are the result of a
cross with _O. roseus_, or, if the pod is curved but not contracted,
with _O. compressus_. From the appearance of these plants, it seems that
they might be grown in the same manner, and would present, I suppose,
the same advantages.
The bird’s foot is only suited to a dry and sandy soil. It is an annual
which furnishes in Portugal a very early spring fodder. Its cultivation
has been successfully introduced into Campine.[547]
_O. sativus_ appears to be wild in several districts of Portugal and the
south of Spain. I have a specimen from Tangier; and Cosson found it in
Algeria. It is often found in abandoned fields, and even elsewhere. It
is difficult to say whether the specimens are not from plants escaped
from cultivation, but localities are cited where this seems improbable;
for instance, a pine wood near Chiclana, in the south of Spain
(Willkomm).
+Spergula+, or +Corn Spurry+—_Spergula arvensis_, Linnæus.
This annual, belonging to the family of the Caryophylaceæ, grows in
sandy fields and similar places in Europe, in North Africa and
Abyssinia,[548] in Western Asia as far as Hindustan,[549] and even in
Java.[550] It is difficult to know over what extent of the old world it
was originally indigenous. In many localities we do not know if it is
really wild or naturalized from cultivation. Sometimes a recent
introduction may be suspected. In India, for instance, numerous
specimens have been gathered in the last few years; but Roxburgh, who
was so diligent a collector at the end of the last and the beginning of
the present century, does not mention the species. No Sanskrit or modern
Hindu name is known,[551] and it has not been found in the countries
between India and Turkey.
The common names may tell us something with regard to the origin of the
species and to its cultivation.
No Greek or Latin name is known. _Spergula_, in Italian _spergola_,
seems to be a common name long in use in Italy. Another Italian name,
_erba renaiola_, indicates only its growth in the sand (_rena_). The
French (_spargoule_), Spanish (_esparcillas_), Portuguese (_espargata_),
and German (_Spark_), have all the same root. It seems that throughout
the south of Europe the species was taken from country to country by the
Romans, before the division of the Latin languages. In the north the
case is very different. There is a Russian name, _toritsa_;[552] several
Danish names, _humb_ or _hum_, _girr_ or _kirr_;[553] and Swedish,
_knutt_, _fryle_, _nägde_, _skorff_.[554] This great diversity shows
that attention had long been drawn to this plant in this part of Europe,
and argues an ancient cultivation. It was cultivated in the
neighbourhood of Montbelliard in the sixteenth century,[555] and it is
not stated that it was then of recent introduction. Probably it arose in
the south of Europe during the Roman occupation, and perhaps earlier in
the north. In any case, its original home must have been Europe.
Agriculturists distinguish a taller variety of spergula,[556] but
botanists are not agreed with them in finding in it sufficient
characteristics of a distinct species, and some do not even make it a
variety.
+Guinea Grass+—_Panicum maximum_, Jacquin.[557]
This perennial grass has a great reputation in countries lying between
the tropics as a nutritious fodder, easy of cultivation. With a little
care a meadow of guinea grass will last for twenty years.[558]
Its cultivation appears to have begun in the West Indies. P. Browne
speaks of it in his work on Jamaica, published in the middle of the last
century, and it is subsequently mentioned by Swartz.
The former mentions the name guinea grass, without any remarks on the
original home of the species. The latter says, “formerly brought from
the coast of Africa to the Antilles.” He probably trusted to the
indication given by the common name; but we know how fallacious such
indications of origin sometimes are. Witness the so-called Turkey wheat,
which comes from America.
Swartz, who is an excellent botanist, says that the plant grows in the
dry cultivated pastures of the West Indies, where it is also wild, which
may imply that it has become naturalized in places where it was formerly
cultivated. I cannot find it anywhere asserted that it is really wild in
the West Indies. It is otherwise in Brazil. From data collected by de
Martius and studied by Nees,[559] data afterwards increased and more
carefully studied by Dœll,[560] _Panicum maximum_ grows in the clearings
of the forests of the Amazon valley, near Santarem, in the provinces of
Balria, Ceara, Rio de Janeiro, and Saint Paul. Although the plant is
often cultivated in these countries, the localities given, by their
number and nature, prove that it is indigenous. Dœll has also seen
specimens from French Guiana and New Granada.
With respect to Africa, Sir William Hooker[561] mentioned specimens
brought from Sierra Leone, from Aguapim, from the banks of the Quorra,
and from the Island of St. Thomas, in Western Africa. Nees[562]
indicates the species in several districts of Cape Colony, even in the
bush and in mountainous country. Richard[563] mentions places in
Abyssinia, which also seem to be beyond the limits of cultivation, but
he owns to being not very sure of the species. Anderson, on the
contrary, positively asserts that _Panicum maximum_ was brought from the
banks of the Mozambique and of the Zambesi rivers by the traveller
Peters.[564]
The species is known to have been introduced into Mauritius by the
Governour Labourdonnais,[565] and to have become naturalized from
cultivation as in Rodriguez and the Seychelles Isles. Its introduction
into Asia must be recent, for Roxburgh and Miquel do not mention the
species. In Ceylon it is only cultivated.[566]
On the whole, it seems to me that the probabilities are in favour of an
African origin, as its name indicates, and this is confirmed by the
general, but insufficiently grounded opinion of authors.[567] However,
as the plant spreads so rapidly, it is strange that it has not reached
Egypt from the Mozambique or Abyssinia, and that it was introduced so
late into the islands to the east of Africa. If the co-existence of
phanerogamous species in Africa and America previous to cultivation were
not extremely rare, it might be inferred in this case; but this is
unlikely in the case of a cultivated plant of which the diffusion is
evidently very easy.
_Article III._—+Various Uses of the Stem and Leaves.+
+Tea+—_Thea sinensis_, Linnæus.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, when the shrub which produces
tea was still very little known, Linnæus gave it the name of _Thea
sinensis_. Soon afterwards, in the second edition of the _Species
Plantarum_, he judged it better to distinguish two species, _Thea bohea_
and _Thea viridis_, which he believed to correspond to the commercial
distinction between black and green teas. It has since been proved that
there is but one species, comprehending several varieties, from all of
which either black or green tea may be obtained according to the process
of manufacture. This question was settled, when another was raised, as
to whether _Thea_ really forms a genus by itself distinct from the genus
_Camellia_. Some authors make _Thea_ a section of the old genus
_Camellia_; but from the characters indicated with great precision by
Seemann,[568] it seems to me that we are justified in retaining the
genus _Thea_, together with the old nomenclature of the principal
species.
A Japanese legend, related by Kæmpfer,[569] is often quoted. A priest
who came from India into China in A.D. 519, having succumbed to sleep
when he had wished to watch and pray, in a movement of anger cut off his
two eyelids, which were changed into a shrub, the tea tree, whose
leaves are eminently calculated to prevent sleep. Unfortunately for
those people who readily admit legends in whole or in part, the Chinese
have never heard of this story, although the event is said to have taken
place in their country. Tea was known to them long before 519, and
probably it was not brought from India. This is what Bretschneider tells
us in his little work, rich in botanical and philological facts.[570]
The _Pent-sao_, he says, mentions tea 2700 B.C., the _Rye_ 300 or 600
B.C.; and the commentator of the latter work, in the fourth century of
our era, gave details about the plant and about the infusion of the
leaves. Its use is, therefore, of very ancient date in China. It is
perhaps more recent in Japan, and if it has been long known in
Cochin-China, it is possible, but not proved, that it formerly spread
thither from India; authors cite no Sanskrit name, nor even any name in
modern Indian languages. This fact will appear strange when contrasted
with what we have to say on the natural habitat of the species.
The seeds of the tea-plant often sow themselves beyond the limits of
cultivation, thereby inspiring doubt among botanists as to the wild
nature of plants encountered here and there. Thunberg believed the
species to be wild in Japan, but Franchet and Savatier[571] absolutely
deny this. Fortune,[572] who has so carefully examined the cultivation
of tea in China, does not speak of the wild plant. Fontanier[573] says
that the tea-plant grows wild abundantly in Mantschuria. It is probable
that it exists in the mountainous districts of South-eastern China,
where naturalists have not yet penetrated. Loureiro says that it is
found both “cultivated and uncultivated” in Cochin-China.[574] What is
more certain is, that English travellers gathered specimens in Upper
Assam[575] and in the province of Cachar.[576] So that the tea-plant
must be wild in the mountainous region which separates the plains of
India from those of China, but the use of the leaves was not formerly
known in India.
The cultivation of tea, now introduced into several colonies, has
produced admirable results in Assam. Not only is the product of a
superior quality to that of average Chinese teas, but the quantity
obtained increases rapidly. In 1870, three million pounds of tea were
produced in British India; in 1878, thirty-seven million pounds; and in
1880, a harvest of seventy million pounds was looked for.[577] Tea will
not bear frost, and suffers from drought. As I have elsewhere
stated,[578] the conditions which favour it are the opposite to those
which suit the vine. On the other hand, it has been observed that tea
flourishes in Azores, where good wine is made;[579] but it is possible
to cultivate in gardens, or on a small scale, many plants which will not
be profitable on a large scale. The vine grows in China, yet the
manufacture of wine is unimportant. Conversely, no wine-growing country
grows tea for exportation. After China, Japan, and Assam, it is in Java,
Ceylon, and Brazil that tea is most largely grown, where, certainly, the
vine is little cultivated, or not at all; while the wines of dry
regions, such as Australia and the Cape, are already known in the
market.
+Flax+—_Linum usitatissimum_, Linnæus.
The question as to the origin of flax, or rather of the cultivated flax,
is one of those which give rise to most interesting researches.
In order to understand the difficulties which it presents, we must first
ascertain what nearly allied forms authors designate—sometimes as
distinct species of the genus _Linum_, and sometimes as varieties of a
single species.
The first important work on this subject was by Planchon, in 1848.[580]
He clearly showed the differences between _Linum usitatissimum_, _L.
humile_, and _L. angustifolium_, which were little known. Afterwards
Heer,[581] when making profound researches into ancient cultivation,
went again into the characters indicated, and by adding the study of two
intermediate forms, as well as the comparison of a great number of
specimens, he arrived at the conclusion that there was a single species,
composed of several slightly different forms. I give a translation of
his Latin summary of the characters, only adding a name for each
distinct form, in accordance with the custom of botanical works.
_Linum usitatissimum._
1. _Annuum_ (annual). Root annual; stem single, upright; capsules 7 to 8
mm. long; seeds 4 to 6 mm., terminating in a point. α _Vulgare_
(common). Capsules 7 mm., not opening when ripe, and displaying glabrous
partitions. German names, _Schliesslein_, _Dreschlein_. β. _Humile_
(low). Capsules 8 mm., opening suddenly when ripe; the partitions hairy.
_Linum humile_, Miller; _L. crepitans_, Böninghausen. German names,
_Klanglein_, _Springlein_.
2. _Hyemale_ (winter). Root annual or biennial; stems numerous,
spreading at the base, and bent; capsules 7 mm., terminating in a point.
_Linum hyemale romanum._ In German, _Winterlein_.
3. _Ambiguum_ (doubtful). Root annual or perennial; stems numerous,
leaves acuminate; capsules 7 mm., with partitions nearly free from
hairs; seeds 4 mm., ending in a short point. _Linum ambiguum_, Jordan.
4. _Angustifolium_ (narrow-leaved). Root annual or perennial; stems
numerous, spreading at the base, and bent; capsules 6 mm., with hairy
partitions; seeds 3 mm., slightly hooked at the top. _Linum
angustifolium._