PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLOWERS, OR FOR THE ORGANS WHICH ENVELOP
THEM.
+Clove+—_Caryophyllus aromaticus_, Linnæus.
The clove used for domestic purposes is the calix and flower-bud of a
plant belonging to the order of Myrtaceæ. Although the plant has been
often described and very well drawn from cultivated specimens, some
doubt remains as to its nature when wild. I spoke of it in my
_Geographical Botany_ in 1855, but it does not appear that the question
has made any further progress since then, which induces me to repeat
here what I said then.
“The clove must have come originally from the Moluccas,” as Rumphius
asserts,[777] for its cultivation was limited two centuries ago to a few
little islands in this archipelago. I cannot, however, find any proof
that the true clove tree, with peduncles and aromatic buds, has been
found in a wild state. Rumphius[778] considers that a plant of which he
gives a description, and a drawing under the name _Caryophyllum
sylvestre_, belongs to the same species, and this plant is wild
throughout the Moluccas. A native told him that the cultivated clove
trees degenerate into this form, and Rumphius himself found a plant of
_C. sylvestre_ in a deserted plantation of cultivated cloves.
Nevertheless plate 3 differs from plate 1 of the cultivated clove in the
shape of the leaves and of the teeth of the calix. I do not speak of
plate 2, which appears to be an abnormal form of the cultivated clove.
Rumphius says that _C. sylvestre_ has no aromatic properties; now, as a
rule, the aromatic properties are more developed in the wild plants of a
species than in the cultivated plants. Sonnerat[779] also publishes
figures of the true clove and of a spurious clove found in a small
island near the country of the Papuans. It is easy to see that his
false clove differs completely by its blunt leaves from the true clove,
and also from the two species of Rumphius. I cannot make up my mind to
class all these different plants, wild and cultivated, together, as all
authors have done.[780] It is especially necessary to exclude plate 120
of Sonnerat, which is admitted in the _Botanical Magazine_. An
historical account of the cultivation of the clove, and of its
introduction into different countries, will be found in the last-named
work, in the _Dictionnaire d’Agriculture_, and in the dictionaries of
natural history.
If it be true, as Roxburgh says,[781] that the Sanskrit language had a
name, _luvunga_, for the clove, the trade in this spice must date from a
very early epoch, even supposing the name to be more modern than the
true Sanskrit. But I doubt its genuine character, for the Romans would
have known of a substance so easily transported, and it does not appear
that it was introduced into Europe before the discovery of the Moluccas
by the Portuguese.
+Hop+—_Humulus Lupulus_, Linnæus.
The hop is wild in Europe from England and Sweden as far south as the
mountains of the Mediterranean basin, and in Asia as far as Damascus, as
the south of the Caspian Sea, and of Eastern Siberia,[782] but it is not
found in India, the north of China, or the basin of the river Amur.[783]
In spite of the entirely wild appearance of the hop in Europe in
districts far from cultivation, it has been sometimes asked if it is not
of Asiatic origin.[784] I do not think this can be proved, nor even that
it is likely. The fact that the Greeks and Latins have not spoken of the
use of the hop in making beer is easily explained, as they were almost
entirely unacquainted with this drink. If the Greeks have not mentioned
the plant, it is simply perhaps because it is rare in their country.
From the Italian name _lupulo_ it seems likely that Pliny speaks of it
with other vegetables under the name _lupus salictarius_.[785] That the
custom of brewing with hops only became general in the Middle Ages
proves nothing, except that other plants were formerly employed, as is
still the case in some districts. The Kelts, the Germans, other peoples
of the north and even of the south who had the vine, made beer[786]
either of barley or of other fermented grain, adding in certain cases
different vegetable substances—the bark of the oak or of the tamarisk,
for instance, or the fruits of _Myrica gale_.[787] It is very possible
that they did not soon discover the advantages of the hop, and that even
after these were recognized, they employed wild hops before beginning to
cultivate them. The first mention of hop-gardens occurs in an act of
donation made by Pepin, father of Charlemagne, in 768.[788] In the
fourteenth century it was an important object of culture in Germany, but
it began in England only under Henry VIII.[789]
The common names of the hop only furnish negative indications as to its
origin. There is no Sanskrit name,[790] and this agrees with the absence
of the species in the region of the Himalayas, and shows that the early
Aryan peoples had not noticed and employed it. I have quoted before[791]
some of the European names, showing their diversity, although some few
of them may be derived from a common stock. Hehn, the philologist, has
treated of their etymology, and shown how obscure it is, but he has not
mentioned the names totally distinct from _humle_, _hopf_ or _hop_, and
_chmeli_ of the Scandinavian, Gothic, and Slav races; for example,
_Apini_ in Lette, _Apwynis_ in Lithuanian, _tap_ in Esthonian, _blust_
in Illyrian,[792] which have evidently other roots. This variety tends
to confirm the theory that the species existed in Europe before the
arrival of the Aryan nations. Several different peoples must have
distinguished, known, and used this plant successively, which confirms
its extension in Europe and in Asia before it was used in brewing.
+Carthamine+—_Carthamus tinctorius_, Linnæus.
The composite annual which produces the dye called carthamine is one of
the most ancient cultivated species. Its flowers are used for dyeing in
red or yellow, and the seeds yield oil.
The grave-cloths which wrap the ancient Egyptian mummies are dyed with
carthamine,[793] and quite recently fragments of the plant have been
found in the tombs discovered at Deir el Bahari.[794] Its cultivation
must also be ancient in India, since there are two Sanskrit names for
it, _cusumbha_ and _kamalottara_, of which the first has several
derivatives in the modern languages of the peninsula.[795] The Chinese
only received carthamine in the second century B.C., when Chang-kien
brought it back from Bactriana.[796] The Greeks and Latins were probably
not acquainted with it, for it is very doubtful whether this is the
plant which they knew as _cnikos_ or _cnicus_.[797] At a later period
the Arabs contributed largely to diffuse the cultivation of carthamine,
which they named _qorton_, _kurtum_, whence _carthamine_, or _usfur_, or
_ihridh_, or _morabu_,[798] a diversity indicating an ancient existence
in several countries of Western Asia or of Africa. The progress of
chemistry threatens to do away with the cultivation of this plant as of
many others, but it still subsists in the south of Europe, in the East,
and throughout the valley of the Nile.[799]
No botanist has found the carthamine in a really wild state. Authors
doubtfully assign to it an origin in India or Africa, in Abyssinia in
particular, but they have never seen it except in a cultivated state, or
with every appearance of having escaped from cultivation.[800]
Mr. Clarke,[801] formerly director of the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta,
who has lately studied the _Compositæ_ of India, includes the species
only as a cultivated one. The summary of our modern knowledge of the
plants of the Nile region, including Abyssinia, by Schweinfurth and
Ascherson,[802] only indicates it as a cultivated species, nor does the
list of the plants observed by Rohlfs on his recent journey mention a
wild carthamine.[803]
As the species has not been found wild either in India or in Africa, and
as it has been cultivated for thousands of years in both countries, the
idea occurred to me of seeking its origin in the intermediate region; a
method which had been successful in other cases.
Unfortunately, the interior of Arabia is almost unknown. Forskal, who
has visited the coasts of Yemen has learnt nothing about the carthamine;
nor is it mentioned among the plants of Botta and of Bové. But an Arab,
Abu Anifa, quoted by Ebn Baithar, a thirteenth-century writer, expressed
himself as follows:[804]—“_Usfur_, this plant furnishes a substance used
as a dye; there are two kinds, one cultivated and one wild, which both
grow in Arabia, of which the seeds are called _elkurthum_.” Abu Anifa
was very likely right.
+Saffron+—_Crocus sativus_, Linnæus.
The saffron was cultivated in very early times in the west of Asia. The
Romans praised the saffron of Cilicia, which they preferred to that
grown in Italy.[805] Asia Minor, Persia, and Kashmir have been for a
long time the countries which export the most. India gets it from
Kashmir[806] at the present day. Roxburgh and Wallich do not mention it
in their works. The two Sanskrit names mentioned by Piddington[807]
probably applied to the substance saffron brought from the West, for the
name _kasmirajamma_ appears to indicate its origin in Kashmir. The other
name is _kunkuma_. The Hebrew word _karkom_ is commonly translated
saffron, but it more probably applies to carthamine, to judge from the
name of the latter in Arabic.[808] Besides, the saffron is not
cultivated in Egypt or in Arabia. The Greek name is _krokos_.[809]
Saffron, which recurs in all modern European languages, comes from the
Arabic _sahafaran_,[810] _zafran_.[811] The Spaniards, nearer to the
Arabs, call it _azafran_. The Arabic name itself comes from _assfar_,
yellow.
Trustworthy authors say that _C. sativus_ is wild in Greece[812] and in
the Abruzzi mountains in Italy.[813] Maw, who is preparing a monograph
of the genus Crocus, based on a long series of observations in gardens
and in herbaria, connects with _C. sativus_ six forms which are found
wild in mountainous districts from Italy to Kurdistan. None of these, he
says,[814] are identical with the cultivated variety; but certain forms
described under other names (_C. Orisnii_, _C. Cartwrightianus_, _C.
Thomasii_), hardly differ from it. These are from Italy and Greece.
The cultivation of saffron, of which the conditions are given in the
_Cours d’Agriculture_ by Gasparin, and in the _Bulletin de la Société
d’Acclimatation_ for 1870, is becoming more and more rare in Europe and
Asia.[815] It has sometimes had the effect of naturalizing the species
for a few years at least in localities where it appears to be wild.