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THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.
ORIGIN OF
CULTIVATED PLAINTS.
BY
ALPHOXSE DE CANDOLLE,
FOKKIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE INSTTTrTE OF FRANCE J
FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE EOTAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON, EDINBURGH,
AND DUBLIN ; OF THE ACADEMIES OF ST. PETEESBrRO,
STOCKHOLM, BERLIN, MUNICH, BRUP8EL8, COPENHAGEN, AMSTERDAM,
ROME, TURIN, MADRID, BOSTON, ETC.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON" AND COMPANY,
1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET.
1890.
n
n
^/.
^
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 archse-
ologists. 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 discovei-ing 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
vi author's preface.
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 pro-
pagation of erroneous ideas. I believe that three out
of four of LinnfBUs' indications of the original home of
cultivated plants are incomplete or incorrect. His state-
ments 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 oi varied character, of which
some portion is quite recent, and even unpublished ; and
this evidence should be sifted as we sift evidence in his-
torical 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 tc
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
AUTHORS PREFACE. vii
spontaneous, that is, wild condition, or at any rate this
condition is not proved. Questions of this nature are
subtle. Tlie}'', 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, earth amine, very rarely found wild, appear
to be in course of extinction. The number of cultivated
plants with which I am here concerned bein<r two hun-
dred 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 phane-
rogams. This destruction of forms must have taken
VIll AUTHORS PREFACE.
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.
PAET I.
GENERAL REMARKS.
CPAPTEB PAGE
I. In what Manxer and at what Epochs Cultivation began
IN Different Cointries ... ... ... ... 1
II. Methods for discovering or proving the Origin of Species 8
PAET II.
OX THE STUDY OF SPECIES, CONSIDERED AS TO THEIR
ORIGIN, THEIti 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 Le:aves... ... 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
PAET III.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.
L General Table op Species, with their Origin and the
Epoch op their Earliest Cultivation ... ... 436
XL General Observations and Conclusions ... ... 447
Index ... ... ... ... .. 463
ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
PAKT L
General Remarks.
CHAPTER L
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
ao-riculture 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
2 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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 com-
mand the cultivation of a plant, and institute some cere-
monial 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 de-
termining 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 Patago-
nians shows that if they do not consider them productive
and easy to rear, they do not entertain the idea of culti-
vating them. Other conditions are suflBciently evident : a
not too rigorous climate; in hot countries, the moderate
duration of drought ; some degree of security and settle-
ment ; lastly, a pressing necessit}^ 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 brealfruit 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 tliemselves by natural con-
ditions, 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 thereb}^ divert3d from the cultivation of
PRIMITIVE AGRICULTURE. 3
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 pre-
ferred 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 intro-
duced there late, and it was possible to dispense with the
good species of the south without great sufi'ering. It
was difi'erent 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
4) ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
reason of the distance, and those of the intertropical
zone were exchidcd by pjreat droufrlitor by the absence of
a hi^h teinporature. At the same time, tlic indigenous
species are very pooi'. It is not merely the ^vant of
intelligence or of security "which lias prevented the in-
habitants from cultivating them. The nature of the
indigenous Hora 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 Tctva-
(jonla, an insignificant green vegetable. I am aware
that Sir Joseph Hooker^ has CTnunerated more than a
liundred Australian si)ecies which may be used in some
"way; but as a matter of lact they were not cultivated
by the natives, and, in spite of the improved methoils of
the English colonists, no one does cultivate them. This
clearly tlemonstiates the ])rinciple of which I spoke just
now, that the choice of species is more important tlian
the selection of varieties, and that there must be valuable
qualities in a wild plant in order to lead to its cultivation.
In s])ite of the obscurity of the beginnings of culti-
vation in each region, it is certain that they occurred at
very different periods. One of the most ancient examples
of cultivated i>lants is in a drawinir reiiresentincf iiL's,
found in Egypt in the pyramid of Ciizeh. The epoch of
the construction of this monument is unceitain. Authors
have assigned a date varying between fifteen hundred and
four thousaml two hundred years before the Christian era.
Sujiposing it to l)e two thousand years, its actual age
would be four thousand years. !Now, the construction
of the pyramids could oidy have been the work of a
numerous, oi'ganized people, possessing a certain degree of
civilization, and conseipiently 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 ])lants ai'e sown rice, sweet potato,
wheat, and two kinds of millet.'^ These plants must
ITookor, Flora Taamaniiv, \. p. ex.
BiolBclinoidLT, On the Sduhj and Value of Chinese Butanical Works,
p. 7.
PRIMITIVE AGRICULTURE. 6
have been cultivated for some time in ci'itaiu localities
before they attracted the emperor's attention to such a
degree. Agriculture aii])ears, then, to be as ancient in
China as in Egypt. The constant relations between
Kgypt and Mesoi)otamia lead us to suppose that an
almost contemporaneous cultivation existed in the valleys
of the Euphrates and the ISile. And it may have been
(Minally early in India and in the Malay Archipelago.
The history of the Uravidian and Malay peoples does
not reacli far back, and is suthciently obscure, but there
is no reason to believe that cultivation has not been
known among them for a very long time, particularly
alouii the banks of the rivers.
The ancient Egyi)tians and the Phoenicians propa-
gated many plants in the region of the Mediterranean,
a!ul 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,
Has(jue, 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. ^ 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 njiture of which does not admit any
renniant 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
' De Nai'laillac, Les Premiers Hommes et Ics Temps Prt^istoriqnes,
i. pp. 266, 208. The absence of traces of agi-icuUure among these
remains is, moreover, corroborated by Ueer and Cartailhac, both well
versed in the discoveries of archseology.
6 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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.^
The ancient inhabitants of Eastern Switzerland, at a
time when they possessed instruments of poHshed stone
and no metals, cultivated several plants, of which some
were of Asiatic origin. Heer^ 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 pos-
sessed bronze, their agricultui-e was more varied. It
seems that the lake-dwellers of Italy, when in possession
of this metal, cultivated fewer species than those of
Savoy,^ and tliis maybe 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
ceieals have been found at Laybach, and but a single
grain of wheat at the Mondsee.^ The backward conditfon
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 beibre
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
* M. Montelius, from Cartailhac, Revue, 1875, p. 2:57.
* Heer, Lie I'Jlanzen der P/ahlbauten, in 4to, Zurich, 18C5. See the
article on " Flax."
* Perrin, Etude Pr^istorique de la Savoie, in 4to, 1870 ; Castelfranco,
Notizte tntorno alia Stazione lacustre di Lagozza ; and SordcUi, Sulle
pxante della torbiera della Lagozza, in the Acies de la Soc. Ital. des Scien.
Nat., 1880.
Much, Mittheil d. Anthropol. Ges. in Wien, vol. vi. ; Sacken, Sitzler.
Akad. Wien., vol. vi. Letter of Heer on these works and analysis of
thera in Naidaillac, i. p. 247.
PRIMITIVE AGRICULTURE. 7
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. How-
ever, the widespread cultivation of certain plants, such
as maize, tobacco, and the sweet potato, argues a con-
siderable antiquity, perhaps two thousand years or there-
abouts. History is at fault in this matter, and we can
only hope to be enlightened by the discoveries of archaeo-
logy and geology.
y
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 w^e need a research similar to
those made by historians and archaeologists a varied
research, in which sometimes one process is employed,
sometimes another ; and these are afterw^ards 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 dis-
covering 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
METHODS FOR PROVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. [)
by consulting floras, works upon specif s 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 inter-
pretation 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
caT'goes. Such cases present themselves with respect
to common species, much more so with respect to culti-
vated 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 cultiva-
tion, 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
10 OPvIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
African and southern species whicTi 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 ^L 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 Andre on the plants of
America. This zealous traveller was kind enouoh 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 geogra])hical, 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
METHODS FOR PROVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 11
ti'ojncs, have been once naturalized ; that is to say, they
liave, from gecgrapbical and physical circumstances,
passed from one region to another. When, in 1855, I
piit 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 m}^ two
volumes of geographical botany ^ it was received with
considerable surprise. It is true that general considera-
tions of palaeontology had just led Dr. Unger,^ a German
savant, to adopt similar ideas, and before him Edward
Forbes had, with regard to some species of th3 southern
counties of the British Isles, suggested the hypothesis
of an ancient connection with Spain.^ But the proof
that it is impossible to explain the habitations of the
whole number of present species by means of the con-
ditions existing for some thousands of years, made a
greajcr 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 aui 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 dis-
cover how it has affected each particular case. Luckily,
so far as cultivated plants are concerned, the questions
wliich occur do not make it necessary to go back to
very ancient times, nor to dates wdiich 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 hemi-
' Alph. de Candolle, Geographie Botanique Eaisonn^e, chap. x. p.
1055 ; chap, xi., xix., xxvii.
^ Unger, Versuch einer Geschichte der PJlanzenwelt, 1852.
^ Porbss, On the Connection between the Distribution of the Existing
Funna and Flora of the British Isles, ivith the Geological Changes which
]inrp affected their Area, in 8vo, Memoirs of the Geological Surrey, vol. i.
18 i6. '"
12 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
sphere a ])lienomenon 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 com-
posed 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 culti-
vated 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.
METHODS FOR PROVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 13
Geographical botany teaches us what countries have
genera and even species in common, in spite of a certain
distance, and what, on the contrar}^, are very different,
in spite of similarity of climate or inconsiderable dis-
tance. 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 gi'eat assist-
ance in determining the probable origin of a given
species. Naturalized plants spread rapidly. I have
(juoted examples elsewhere^ 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 Alsinastruvi into the rivers of Europe is well
known, and that of many European plants in New
Zealand, Australia, California, etc., mentioned in several
Horas or modern travels.
The great abundance of a species is no proof of its
anti(][uity. 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 invaaing species makes rapid way, while
extinction is, on the contrary, the result of the strife of
several centuries asjainst unfavourable circumstances.^
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 buddinfj, orraftinor 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,
' A. de Candolle, Geographie Botanique Raisonnee, chap. vii. and x.
Ibid., chap. viii. p. 8'I4.
14 OllIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
of wliicli the cultivator takes no note, because they are
useless to him. We may e.Kpoct, therefore, to find the
fruit of a wild fruit tree small and of a doubtfully
a(Treea1)le flavour, the cfrain of a cereal in its "wild state
small, the tubercles of a wild potato small, the leaves of
indigenous tobacco narrow, etc., without, however, goin<f
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
])roper to designate as constituting a species. Botanists
alone are competent to pronounce an opinion on this
question, since they are accustomed to appreciate differ-
ences 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 applica-
tion 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 corre-
spond to a species, and I have sought the geographical
origin of these forms as though they were ret lly specific.
To sum up: botany furnisl es 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 s^)ot
or district, and who draws up a flora or a catalogu.' 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 geogianhical botany
and on the qiie=^tions of classification, wl ich cannot 1 e
done by travelling or collecting. Other researches, of
which I shall .speak presently, must be comLiaed with
Mh;TI10D3 FOR PROVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 15
those of botany if we would arrive at satisfactory con-
clusions.
3. Archccologj/ and Palceontology. The most direct
proof which can be conceived of the ancient existence
of a specie^ in a given country is to see its recognizable
fi-agments 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 sun'ound 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 peatmosses 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 Neuchatel; and my colleague, Professor Heer, has
favoured m^ with several facts collected at Zurich 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
IG ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
MM. Martins, Planchon, de Saporta, and other savants.
Th ir 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 acfriculture, 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 recog-
nized 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 fi-om 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 propa-^ated by the migra-
tions of ancient peoples, by travellers, or by military
expeditions.
The assertions of autliors must not, however, be
accepted without examination.
The greater number of ancient historians have con-
fused 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 becavise 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
METHODS FOll PROVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 17
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 Funicum). 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 agTicultural facts.
Fortunately, facts of botany and archaeology 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 trans-
lation 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 com-
munication 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 civiliza-
tions based upon agriculture began in the three regions
I have indicated. It is worthy of note that in the
old world acjiicultural communities established them-
selves 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 Oiinoco, are not more
unhealthy than those of the rivers of the old world.
A few words about each of the three regions.
18 OIIIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
China had ah'cady 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 satii-on, the
sesame, the walnut, the pea, spinach, the water-melon,
and other western plants,^ then unknown to the Chinese.
Chang-Kien, it will be observed, was no ordinary ambas-
sador. He considerably enlarged the geogra])hical know-
ledge, and improved the economic condition of his
couutiymen. 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 intro-
duce 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 other.s, who passed north of the Himalaj'as. A few
species spread in the same way into China from the
West before the embassy of Chang-Kien.
Kcoular communication between China and India
only began in the time of Chang-Kien, and by the cir-
cuitous way of Bactriana ; ^ but gradual transmissions
iVom 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.^
Regular communications between China and Japan
only took place about the year 57 of our era, when
an ambassatlor Avas sent; and the Chinese had no real
knowle(.l<re of their eastern nei<rhbours until the third
o o
' Brctsclincitlor, On ilie Stxidy and Value, etc., p. 15.
' Ibid. " Ibid., p. 23.
METHODS FOR PROVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 19
century, when the Chinese character was introduced
into Japan.^
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 Eg3'pt, but they succeeded to
tribes which had already cultivated certain plants. Agri-
culture 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 em-
pires afterwards fought for supremacy, and in their
struggles they transported whole nations, which could
not fail to spread cultivated species. On the other hand,
tlic Aryan tribes who dwelt originally to the north of
Mesopotamia, in a land less favourable to agriculture,
spread westward and southward, driving out or subju-
gating the Turanian and Dravidian nations. Their speech,
and those which are derived from it in Europe and Hin-
dustan, show that they knew and transported several
useful species.^ After these ancient events, of which the
dates are for the most part uncertain, the voyages of the
Phoenicians, 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 Euroj)e and
the north of Africa, wherever the climate permitted.
Later, at the time of the crusades, very few useful
]ilants yet . remained to be brought from the East. A
* Atsuma-gusa. Recueil pour sen-ir a la connaissance de I'extrSme
Orient, Turretini, vol. vi., pp. 200, 293.
* There are in the French lang^iage two excellent works, which pive
the sum of modern knowledge with regard to the East and Egypt. Ti;e
one is the Manuel de I'Histoire Ancienne de I'Orient, by Francjois Lenor-
mand, 3 vols, in 12mo, Paris, 1869; the other, L'Hisfoire Ancienne da
Peuples de VOrient, by Muspero, 1 vol. iu 8vo, Paris, 1878.
20 OUIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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. Tlio 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 tlie 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 touch-
ing 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 couhl quote a number of such names in all languages;
it is enough to mention, in French, hie de Turquie, maize,
a plant which is not a wheat, and which comes from
America; in English, Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus
tiiberosus), which does not come from Jerusalem, but
from North America, and is no artichoke.
A number of names given to foreign plants by
Europeans Avhcn they are settled in the colonies, ex-
press false or insignificant analogies. For instance, the
A^eiu Zealand Jiax 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 poma?eous tree, and has nothing to do with
mahogany.
Sometimes the common names have changed, in
METHODS FOR PROVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 21
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 Siliquastrmn) 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 ble, 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
t]ie 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 po^tutas 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 tw^o 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
22 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
indicate lojT^^-lsnown species, not imported from foreign
countries, while complicated signs are doubtful or indi-
cate a foreiun origin. We must not for^ret, however, that
the signs have ol'ten 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 ditlerent ex-
])lanatiuns. 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
liome. 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 often er 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 difierent 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
Eniiland we find, according to the county, a Keltic,
Saxon, Danish, or Latin name ; and fiax bears in Germany
the names of Jlachs and kin, words wdiich are evidently of
different orio-in.
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
METHODS FOR PEOVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 23
that of Neninicli, published in 1793.^ 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 etymo-
logy ; but in spite of what Hehn ^ 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 con-
found 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 valu-
able, 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 San-
skrit, 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 fi*om Asia, with the exception of Basque (derived
from the Iberian language), Finnish, Turkish, and Hun-
* Nemnich, AVgemeiiies polyglotten-Lexicon der Naturgeschichte, 2 voh.
iu 4to.
* Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere in ihren Uebergang aus Asien,
in 8vo, 3rd edit. 1877.
24 ORIGIN OF CULilVATEB PLANTS.
garian, 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, his-
torians, 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 Avorks. 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. ^
The second degi'ee is that of languages possessing
a literature composed only of theological and poetical
works, or of chronicles of kings and battles. Such works
' Brefsclincidor, On the Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works,
with Notes on the History of Plants and Geographical Botany from Chinese
8(yurces, in 8vo, 51 pp., with illustrations, Foochoo, -without date, but the
preface boars the date Dec. Ib70. Notes on Some Botanical Questions,
in 8vo, 14 pp., 1880.
METHODS FOR PROVING ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 25
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,^ Hebrew,^ and Armenian.^
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
Wilson's dictionary contains names of plants, bnt botanists have
more confidence in the names indicated by Roxburgh in his Flora
Indica (edit, of 1832, 3 vols, in 8vo), and in Piddingtou's English Index
to the Plants of India, Calcutta, 1832. Scholai-s find a greater number
of words in the texts, but they do not give sufficient proof of the sense
of these words. As a rule, we have not in Sanskrit what we have in
Hebrew, Greek, and Chinese a quotation of phrases concerning each
word translated into a modem language.
' The best work on the plant-names in the Old Testament is that of
Rosenmiiller, Handhuch der hihlischen Alterkundfi, in 8vo, vol. iv., Leipzig,
1830. A good short work, in French, is La Botanique de la Bible, by
Fred. Hamilton, in 8vo, Nice, 1871.
* Reynier, a Swiss botanist, who had been in Egypt, has given the
sense of many plant-names in the Talmud. See his volumes entitled
Economie Publiqve et Eurale des Arabes et des Juifs, in 8vo, 1820 ;
and Economie Publique et Rurale des Egyptiens et des Carthaginois,
in 8vo, Lausanne, 1823. The more recent works of Duschak and Low
are not based upon a knowledge of Eastern plants, and are unintelligible
to botanists because of names in Syriac and Hebrew chaiacters.
26 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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 Peisian 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 dictionarv will hardlv serve for the words of
ancient Aryan languages, fur he gives but few plant-
names, and his arraniirement renders it unintelligible to
those who have no knowledge of Sanskrit. Adolphe
Pictet's work ^ is far more important to naturalists, and
a second edition, augmented and improved, has been
published since the author's death. Plant-names and
agi'icultural 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 parhaps 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
Ades de la Societe Fhilologiqiie (vol. i. No. 1, 1869). I
shall have occasion to quote this work, of which the
difficulties were gi'eat, in the absence of all literature
and of all derived languages,
6. The necessity for comhimng the different methods.
The various methods of which I have spoken are of
unequal value. It is clear that when we have archfeo-
logical 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.
Adolphe Pictet, Les Origine^, de,- Peuples Indo-Europ^ens, 3 vols, in
8vo, Paris, 1878.
METHODS FOE PEOVING OEIGIN OF SPECIES. 27
Tliese, 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 modem 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. Fortunate, ly,
if the same probabiUty 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 news-
])apers, 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 histoiy, 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.
Archaeological, philological, and botanical data become
28 OKIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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 connect Theo-
phrastus, 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 gi'V'ing the first place to
botanical and archaeological 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.^
CHAPTER L
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS,
SUCH AS ROOTS, TUBERCLES, OR BULBS.^
Radish. Raphanus sativits, Liniifeus.
The radish is cultivated for what is called the root,
which is, properly speaking, the lower part of the stem
with the tap root.^ 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
* A certain number of species whose oriorin is well known, sncli as
the carrot, sorrel, etc., are mentioned only in the summary at the begin-
ning of the last part, with an indication of the principal facts concerning
them.
'^ Some species are cultivated sometimes for their roots and some-
times for their leaves or seeds. In other chapters will be found species
cultivated sometimes for their leaves (as fodder) or for their seeds, etc.
I have classed them according to their commonest use. The alpha-
betical index refers to the place assigned to each species.
' See the young state of the plant when the part of the stem below
the cotyledons is not yet swelled. Turpin gives a drawing of it in the
Annales des Sciences Naturelles, series 1, vol. xxi. pi. 5.
30 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
itself frequently round cultivated plots, it is difTicult to
fix upon its starting-point.
Formerly Raphanus satlrus was confounded with
kindred species of the Mediterranean region, to whicli
certain Greek names were attributed ; but Gay, the
botanist, who has done a good deal towards eliminat-
ing these analogous forms,^ considered R. so.tivas as a
native of the East, perhaps of China. Linnunis also sup-
posed tliis plant to be of Chinese origin, or at least that
variety which is cultivated in China for the ^ake of ex-
tractincr oil from the seeds.^ Several floras of the south
of Europe mention the species as subspontaneous or
escaped from cultivation, never as spontaneous. Lede-
bour had seen a specimen found near Mount Ararat, had
sown the seeds of it and verified the species.^ However,
Boissier,^ in 18G7, 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 fioras.^ 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^ and the earlier Flora of Cochin-
Ghina by Loureiro, mention the radish only as a culti-
vated species. Maximowicz saw it in a garden in the
north-east of China.'^ Thunberg speaks of it as a plant
of general cultivation in Jaj)an, and growing also by
the side of the roads, but the latter fact is not repeated
by modern authors, who are probably better informed.^
Herodotus (Hist., 1. 2, c. 125) speaks of a radish which
he calls surmaia, used by the builders of the pyramid of
* In A. de Candolle, Gdogr. li^'t. Baisonnce, p. 826.
* Linnaeus, Sjicc. Plant, p. O'Mi.
* liedobour, Fl. Ross., i. p. 225.
* Biiissicr, Fl. Orient, i. p. 400.
6 Biilise, Au''zahluvg TranscaiiraMen, p. 30.
6 HookiT, Flora of British India, i. p. I'SlJ.
' Maximowicz, PriinitiiX} Florai A>nurensi-!, p. 47.
8 Tliniil.erfr, FL Jap., p. 2(\3.
* Fraiichet aud Savatier, Enum. Phi)if. Jcp., i. p. 3D.
PLiNTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERTIANEAN PARTS. 31
Cheops, according to an inscription upon the monument,
Uno-er ^ 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 cer-
tainty 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 avmoracia, which was used for R. sativus
or some allied species. Modern interpreters have erro-
neously referred this name to Cochlearia Armoracia or
horse-radish, which I shall come to presently. Semitic'-^
languages have quite difierent names (fugla in Hebrew,
fiiil, fidget, jigl, etc., in Arab.). In India, according to
Roxbvirgh,^ the common name of a variety with an
enormous root, as large sometimes as a man's leg, is
moola or inoolee, 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,
* Unger, Pflanzen des Alien ^gypfens, p. 51, fipfs. 24 and 29.
* In my manuscript dictionary of common names, drawn from the
floras of thirty years ago.
Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., iii. p. 126,
32 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
which we must also examine. Several botanists* suspect
tliat RcvphaniJbs sativus is simply a particular condition,
with enlarged root and non-articulated fruit, of RajJti-
nus raphanistriiTn, a very common plant in the tem-
perate cultivated disti-icts 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 Dal-
matia, and at Trebizond.^ Its usual haunts are in deserted
fields; and many common names which signify wild
radish, show the affiaity of the two plaits. I should not
m.^i-st upon this point if their supposed identity wtre a
mere presum})tion, but it rests upon experiments and
observations which it is important to know.
In a. raphanistrum the siliqua is articulated, that
is to say, contracted at intervals, and the seeds placed
each in a division. In B. sativus the siliqua is con-
tinuous, and forms a single cavity. Some botanists had
made this difference the basis of two distinct genera,
Raphanistrum and Raphanus. But thi'ee accurate ob-
servers, 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^ arrived at the
same results when he afterwards repeated these ex2:)eri-
ments, and he observed yet another fact of some import-
ance : the radish which sows itself by chance, and is
not cultivated, produced the siliqujB of Raphanistrum^
Another ditference between the two plants is in the
root, fleshy in R. sativus, slender in R. raphanis-
tiniTn ; but this changes with cultivation, as appears
from the experiments of Carriere, the head gardener of
the nurseries of the Natural History Museum in Paris.^
It occurred to him to sow the seeds of the slender-
' Webb, Phytngr. Canar., p. 83 ; Iter. Hisp., p. 71 ; Bontham, Fl.
Hnvg Kong, p. 17 ; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 1(3(5.
* Willkomrn and Lange, Prod. Fl. Hiip., iii. p. 71S; Viviaui, Flor.
Dalinaf.. iii. p. 104 ; Boissier, Fl. Orient., i. p. -iUl.
^ AVebb, Phytographia Canarieyisis, i. p. 83.
* Wi'bb, Iter. ni-<panien!=e, 1838. p. 72.
* Carrlfere, Orijine des Plantes Bomeiliiues d^imm.\\\: par la Ca'.lw"
du Itcdis Saurage, iu 8vo, -i pp., 18(59.
no
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS, o-i
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 con-
clusive. The pungent taste of the radish was not
wanting. To obtain these changes, Carriere 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 siliqute would
bscome more and more articulated.
From all the experiments I have mentioned, Ra-
phanus sativus might well be a vaiiety of R. ra-
phanistrum, 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 Carriere, 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.^ It can-
not, therefore, be this species that has furnished the in-
habitants 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 modilied 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. Cliang-Kien certainly brought vegetables
from Bacti-iana into China in the second century B.C.,
but the radish is not named among the number.
Horse-radish Cochlearia Armoracla,, Linnceus.
This Crucifer, whose rather hard root has the taste of
' Ledebonr, F7. Boss. ; Bois-iier, Fl. Qyient. Works on tte flora of the
valley of the Amur.
34 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
musard, was sometimes called in French cran, or cranson
(le Bretagne. 'i'liis was an error caused by the old
botanical name Arvioracia, Vv'hich was taken for a cor-
ruption of Armorica (Brittany). Armoracia occurs in
Pliny, and was applied to a crucifer of the Pontine
province, which was iperhstps BapJianiis sativus. After I
had formerly ^ 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 Abbe Delalande mentions it in
his little work, entitled Hcedic et Houat,^ in which he
gives so interesting an account of the customs and pro-
ductions 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
horee-radish is now found.^ This leads me to speak of
the original home of the species. English botanists
mention it as wihl in Great Britain, but are doubtful
about its origin. Watson ^ considers it as introduced by
cultivation. The difficulty of extirpating it, he says,
from places where it is cultivated, is well knoAvn to
gardeners. It is therefore not surprising that this plant
should take possession of wast3 ground, and persist there
so as to aj^pear indigenous. Babington ^ mentions only
one spot Mdiere the species apjiears to be really wild,
namely, Swansea. We will try to solve the problem by
further arguments.
Cochlearia Artnoracia is a plant belono;infj to the
temperate, and especially to the eastern regions of Europe.
It is difiused from Finland to Astrakhan, and to the
' A. de Candollo, G^ographie Botaniqite Rais(mn(fe, p. 654.
' Delalande, Hcedic et Hoiiat, 8vo pamphlet, Naut:^s, 1850, p. 109.
* Hardouin, Benou, and Leclerc, Catalogue du Calvadox, p. 85 ; Do
Brebisson, Fl. de Noi-inandie, p. 25.
* Watson, Cijhde, i. p. 15i).
* Babington, Manual of Biit. B)i., 2nd edit., p. 28.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 35
desert of Cimian.^ Giisebacli mentions also several
localities in Turkey in Europe, near Enos, for instance,
where it abounds on the sea-shore.^
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,^ in the British Isles than in Holland,
where a foreign origin is not attributed to it.*
The specific names confirm the impression of its origin
in the east rather than in the west of Europe; thus the
name chren^ in Russia recurs in all the Sclavonic
languages, krenai in Lithuanian, chren in Illyrian,^ etc.
It has introduced itself into a few German dialects, round
Vienna,^ 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 meridi, or
meredi, 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 Cruciferce, 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^ 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
* Ledebour, 17. Ross., i. p. 159.
* Grisebach, Spicilegium Fl. Rumel., i. p. 265.
' Fries, Suninia, p. 30.
* Miquel, Disquisitio pi. regn. Batav.
' Moritzi, Diet. Ined. des Noms Vulgaires.
' Moritzi, ihid. ; Viviani, FL Dalmat,, iii. p. 3?.a.
Neilreich, Fl. Wien, p. 502.
Linnaeus, Fl. Siiecica, No. 540.
36 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
radish. The Welsli name rhuddygl maurth ^ is only the
translation of the English word, whence we may infer
that the Kelts of Groat 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 sho^Ys
a foreign and recent origin. On the contrary, the word
chren is in all the Sclavonic languages, a wordv/hich has
penetrated into some German and French dialects under
the forms of hreen, cran, and cranson, and ^^'hich 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 attri-
buted to one of the four species of Linn^us Brassica
napus, Br. oleracea, Br. rapa, Br. cartipestris 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 ^
is iBleshy, the seed is not abundant, nor worth the trouble
of extracting the oil ; wdien 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.
' H. Davies, Weli<h, Botanology, p. G3.
* In turnips aud swedes the swelled part is, as in tlie radish, tho
lower part of the stem, below the cotyledons, with a more or less per-
ei tent part of the root. (See Torpin, Ann. Sc. Xatvr., ser. 1, vol. xxi.)
In the Kohl-rabi (Brassica oleracea caulo-rapa) it is the stem.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 37
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,^ since all the Brassicce 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 germina-
tion 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,
Linnaeus mentions that Brassica napus grows in the sand
on the sea-coast in Sweden (Gothland), Holland, and Eng-
land, which is confirmed, as far as Sweden is concerned,
by Fries,^ who, with his usual attention to questions of
this nature, mentions Br. CaTnpestris, L. (type of the
Rapa with slender roots), as really wild in the whole
Scandinavian peninsula, in Finland and Denmark.
Ledebour ^ 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.'* 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.^ Kaempfer** 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 agricul-
ture, although several varieties are nowcultivated in China.
It is just the reverse in Europe. The old languages
* This classification has been the subject of a pnper by Aagnstin
Pyramus de Candolle, Transaciions of the Horticultural Society, vol. v.
* Fries, Summa Veget. Scand., i. p. 29.
* Ledeboar, Ft. Ross., i. p. 216.
* Boissier, Flora Orientalis ; Sir J. Hooker, Flora of British India;
Thunberg, Flora Japonica ; Franchet and Savatier, Enumeratio Plan-
Uirum Japonicarum.
* Piddington, Index. ' Kaempfer, Amcen., p. 822.
38 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
have a number of names which seem to be orisrinal
Brassica rapa is called meipen or erfinen^ in Wales;
repa and Hppa in several Slav tongues,^ which answers to
the Latin rapa, and is allied to the rseipKi of the Anglo-
Saxons. The Brassica. napus is in Welsh bresych yr yd ;
in Erse hraisscagh buigh, according to Threlkeld,^ who sees
in braisscagh the root of the Latin Brassica. A Polish
name, harpiele, a Lithuanian, jellazoji,^ 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,^ but there are Arab names : selgam for the Br.
napus, and subjuvi 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 Brassicce 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 Bras-
sica napus, called Br. cainijestris, had probably from
the beginning a more extended range, from the Scan-
dinavian 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.
* Davies, TTeZsTi Botanology , p. 65.
* Moritzi, Diet. MS., compiled from published firms.
* Threlkeld, Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum, 1 vol. in 8vo, 1727.
* Moritzi, Diet. MS.
* Eosenmiiller, Biblische Naturgeschichte, vol. i., gives none.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 39
Skirret Slum Sisarum, Linnfeus,
This vivacious Umbellifer, furnished with several
fliverg-ing roots in the form of a carrot, is believed to come
from Eastern Asia. Linnaeus indicates China, doubtfully ;
and Loureiro,^ China and Cochin- China, where he says it
is cultivated. Others have mentioned Japan and the
Coiea, but in these countries there are species which it
is easy to confound with the one in question, particularly
Siimi Ninsi and Panax Ginseng. Maximowicz,^ who
has seen these plants in China and in Japan, and who
has studied the herbariums of St. Petersburcjh, 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 resfion 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,^ 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
nnediea dicendum.^ He says that Tiberius caused a
quantity to be brought every year from Germany, which
pr jves, 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
* Linnaeus, Species, p. 381; Loareiro, Fl. Cochin cUnensi?, p. 225.
* Masimowicz, Diagnoses Plantarum JaponiccB et Manshurice, in
Mdanges Biologiques du Bulletin de I' Acad., St. I*etersbiirg, decad 13, p. 18.
D oscorides. Mat. Med., 1. 2, c. 139; Colamella, 1. 11, c, 3, 18, 35;
Lenz, Bat. der Alten, p. 560.
* Plinj, Hist. Plant., 1. 19, c. 6.
to ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Russian name, certainly, but the Germans have original
names, Krizel or Grizel, Gorlein or Gierlein, which
indicate an ancient cultivation, more than the ordinary
name Zuckertuurzel, or sugar-root.^ The Danish name has
the same meaning; sokerot, whence the Encdish sJcirret.
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.^ 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 jparsnip proper, and
Sprengel ^ supports this idea.
The French names chervis and girole^ v/ould perhaps
teach us something if we knew their origin. Littrd
derives chen-is from the Spanish chirivia, but the latter is
more likely derived from the French. Bauhin ^ mentions
the low Latin names servillmn, chervillum, or sei^illam,
words which are not in Ducange's dictionary. This may
well be the origin of chervis, but whence came servilluni
or cJiervilluni ?
Arracacha orArracacia Arracachaescidenta,de Can-
dolle.
An umbel generally cultivated in Venezuela, New
Granada, and Ecuador as a nutritious plant. In the tem-
perate 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
SAvelled 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. "^
The species is probably indigenous in the region where
Nemnich, Polygl. Lexicon, ii. p. 1313.
* Leiiz, Uof. dcrAlten, p. 560; Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlandgj
Lau^kavel, Bot. der Spateren Griechen.
Sprengel, Dioscoj-idis, etc., ii. p. 462.
* Olivier de Serres, Theatre de I' Agriculture, p. 471.
' Bauhin, Hist. PL, iii. p. 154.
* The best information about the cultivation of this plant was given by
Bancroft to Sir W. Hooker, and may be found in the Botanical Magazine,
jil. 3092. A. P. de Candolle published, in La 5' Notice sur les Plavtes Rares
des Jardin Bot. de Genvt-e, an illustration show ng the principal bulb.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOE THEIR SUBTEREANEAX PARTS. 41
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,^ 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 latenal 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 pro-
pagation observed elsewhere.
Madder Ruhia tinctorum, Linn?eus.
The madder is certainly wild in Italy, Greece, the
Crimea, Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, Armenia, and near
Lenkoran.^ 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," ^ or " subspon-
taneous," escaped from former cultivation.* In Provence
and Languedoc it is more spontaneous or wild, but here
also it may have spread from a somewhat extensive
' Grisebach, Flora of British West-India Islands.
* Bertoloni, Flora Italica, ii. p. 146 ; Decaisne, Rechercl>es sur la
Garance, p. 68; Boissier, Flora Orientalis, iii. p. 17; Ledebciur, Flora
Uossica, ii. p. 405.
* Cosson and Germain, Flore des Environs de Paris, ii. p. 365.
* Kirschleger, Flore d' Alsace, i. p. 359.
42 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
cultivation. In the Iberian peninsula it is mentioned as
"subspontaneous."^ It is the same in the north of Africa.^
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.^
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 w^ere gathered in the fields before the idea of
cultivating the species was suggested. Pliny, however,
says * that it was cultivated in Italy in his time, and it
is possible that the custom Vv^as of older date in Greece
and Asia Minor.
The cultivation of madder is often mentioned in
French records oi the Mi<ldle Ages.^ 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 wdiich drew large profits from it.
Jerusalem Artichoke Hcliantkus tuberosus, Linnreus.
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 ^
had seen it in the garden of Cardinal Farnese, and called
it Aster peruanus tuberosus. Other authors of the same
' Winkotnm and Lanpe, Prodromus Florae Hispanicce, ii. p. 307.
Ball, SpicUe'jium Florae Maroccartce, Tp. 483; Munby, Catal. Plant.
Alger., edit. 2, p. 17.
Fiddinston, Jnd<fa). * Plinin=, lib. 19, cap. 3.
' Do Gasparin, Traits d' Agriculture, iv. p. 253.
Columna, Ecphrasis, ii. p. 11.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 43
century gave it epithets showing that it was believed to
come irom Brazil, or from Canada, or from the Indies,
that is to say, America. Linnaeus^ adopted, on Parkinson's
authority, the opinion of a Canadian origin, of which,
however, he had no proof I pointed out formerly ^ that
there are no species of the genus Helianthus in Brazil,
and that they are, on the contrary, numerous in North
America.
Schlechtendal,^ after having proved that the Jeru-
salem 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*
has eliminated from the synonymy of H. tuherosus
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 cul-
tivate, and which taste like an artichoke." Lescarbot ^
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 topinamhaiix. The savages, he says, call them
chiquehi. 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 compre-
hended 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.^
' Linnsens, Hortus Cliffortianus, p. 420.
' A. de Candolle, Geogr. Bot. Raisonnce, p. 824.
Schlechtendal, Bot. 'Zeit. 1858, p. 113.
* Decaisne, Eecherches sur I'Origine de quelques-tines de nos Plantes
Alimenfaires, in Fl(yre des Serres et Jardiihi, vol. 23, 1881, p. 112.
* Lescarbot, Uistoire de la NouveUe France, edit. 3, 1618, t. vi. p. 931.
* Pickering, Chron. Arravg., pp. 749, 972.
H ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Botanical analogies and the testimony of con-
tempoi'aries agree, as we have seen, in considering this
plant to be a native of the north-east of Amsrica. Dr.
Asa Gray, seeing that it is not found wild, had formerly
supposed it to be a variety o^ 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.^ The French name tojnnamhour
comes apparently from some real or supposed Indian
name. The English name Jerusalem artichoke is a cor-
ruption of the Italian girasole, sunflower, combined with
an allusion to the artichoke flavour of the root.
Salsify Tragopogon jporrifolmm, Linnseus.
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.^ It
frequently escapes from gardens in the west of Europe,
and becomes half-naturalized.^
Commentators* 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 culti-
vated 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 hisjxmica, Linnseus.
Tills 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 e'corce noire in some French
provinces.
It is wild in Europe, from Spain, where it abounds, the
' Catalogue of Indiana Plants, 1881, p. 15.
* Boissier, Ft. Orient, iii. p. 745; Viviani, Fl. Dalmaf., ii. p. 108;
Bertoloni, Fl. Ital, viii. p. 348; Gussone, Si/nopsis Fl. Siculce, ii. p. 384;
Munby, Catal. Alger., edit. 2, p. 22.
* A. de Candolle, Geogr. Bot. liaisonn^e, p. 671.
* Fraas, Synopsis Fl. Class., p. 196 ; Lenz, Bot. der Alten, p. 485.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 45
south of France, and Germany, to the region of Cau-
casus, and perhaps even as far as Siberia, but it is wanting
in Sicily and Greece.^ In several parts of Germany the
.species is probably naturalized from cultivation.
It seems that this plant has only been cultivated
v/ithin 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,^ have declared the origin of the
word to be escorso, viper in Spanish or Catalan. Viper
is in Spanish more commonly vihora.
There exists in Sicily a Scorzonera deliciosa, Gussone,
whose very sugary root is used in the confection of
bonbons and sherbets, at Palermo.^ How is it that its
cultivation has not been tried ? It is true that I tasted
at Naples Scorzonera ices, und found them detestable, but
they were perhaps made of the common species {Scorzo-
nera hispanica).
Potato Solanum tuberosum, Linnaeus.
In 1855 I stated and discussed what was then known
about the origin of the potato, and about its introduction
into Europe.* 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.
V It is proved beyond a doubt that at the time of the
discovery of America the cultivation of the potato was
> Willkomm and Lange, Prodromus Florm Hispanicw, ii. p. 223;
De Candolle, Flore Franqaise, iv. p. 59 ; Koch, Syyiopsis Fl. Germ., edit.
2, p. 488; Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 794; Boissier, Fl. Orientalis, iii. p.
767; Bertoloni, Fl.,Ital., viii. p. 365.
* Tournefort, Elements de Bofanique, p. 379.
' Gassone, Synopsis Florae Siculce.
* A. de Candolle, GSogr. Bot. Raisonnde, pp. 810, 816.
tG OIUGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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,^ and Pedro
Cieca, quoted by de I'Ecluse,^ 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.^ According to
Humboldt it was unknown in Mexico,* 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.^
Its name in its own country was oj^enaick. From
Herriott's description of the plant, quoted by Sir Joseph
Banks,^ there is no doubt that it was the potato, and not
the batata, which^ at that period was sometimes con-
founded with it, Z' Besides, Gerard' 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 tuherosmn.
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.
' Acosta, p. 1G3, verso.
* Do I'Ecluse (or Clusius), Bariarum Plantarum Historice, 1601, lib.
4:. p. Ixxix., with illustration.
* De Martius, Flora Brat^il., vol. x. p. 12.
* Von Hnmboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, edit. 2, toI. ii. p. 451 j Essai sur la
G^rirjraphie des Plantes, p. 29.
* At that epoch Virginia was not distinguished from Carol'na.
* Banks, Trails. Hort. Soc, 1805, vol. i. p. 8.
' Gerard, Herbal, 1597, p. 781, with illustration.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 47
'( The species could scarcely liave 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 intmiately
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 cairied tubers of the potato as pro-
visions, 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 ^ and DunaP were right to insist
upon the fact that the potato was first introduced by the
Sjjaniard, since for a long time the credit was generally
given to Sir Walter Raleigh, who was the second intro-
ducer, and even to other Englishmen, who had introduced,
not the potato but the batata (sweet potato), which is
more or less confounded with it.^ VA celebrated botanist,
de I'Ecluse,* had nevertheless defined the facts in a
> Banks, Trans. Hort. Soc, 1805, voL i. p. 8.
' Dunal, Hist. Nat. des Solarium, in 4to.
' The plant imported by Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake
was c'early the sweet potato, Sir J. Banks says ; whence it results that
the questions discussed by Humboldt touching the localities visited by
these travellers do not apply to the potato.
De I'Eclase, Rarlarum Plantarum Historia, 1601, lib. 4, p. Ixxviii.
48 OHIGIN OF CUI-TIVATED PLANTS.
reniai^kable 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 longi-
tudinal stripes of green, as is often seen now. No doubt
numerous varieties have been obtained, but the original
form has not been lost. De I'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 I'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
I'Ecluse adds that the species had been irxtroduced into
Italy from Spain or America (certivin est vel ex Hispania,
vel ex America hahuisse), 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 ^ 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 I'Ecluse
asserts, but he quotes Father Magazzini of Vallombrosa,
whose posthumous work, published in 1G23, 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 I'Ecluse and the agriculturist of Vallombrosa
' Targioni-Tozzetti, Lezzioni, ii. p. 10 ; Cenni Storiii sulV Introduziove
di Varie Plants nelV Ajricoltura di Toscaiia, 1 vol. iu 8vo, Floreuce, 1S53,
p. 37.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 49
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. inaglia
of Molina, a Chili species; S. immite of Dunal, a
native of Peru ; and >S'. verrttcosum ^ of Schlechtendal,
which OTows in IMexico. These three kinds of Solanum
have smaller tubers than S. tuberosum, and differ also
in other characteristics indicated in special works on
botany. Theoreticall}", it may be believed that all these,
and other forms growing in America, are derived from a
single eailier 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 tiy 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 Ay res as far as Mexico, con-
firms 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
* Solanum. verrucosum, whose introduction into the neighbourhood
of Gex, near Geneva, I mentioned in 1855, has since been abandoned
because its tubers are too small, and because it does not, as it was hoped,
withstand the potato-fungus.
50 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
by the botanist Weddell,^ who has carefully explored
Bolivia and the neighbouring countries. " When we
reflect/' he says, " that on the arid Cordillera the Indians
often establish their Httle 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,^ English consul,
sent to the London Horticultural Society some tubers of
the potato which he had found in the ravines round
Valparaiso. He sa3^s that these tubers are small, some-
times red, sometimes yellowish, and rather bitter in taste.^
" 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.^ Here is the account
of the Valparaiso plant, given by a traveller to Sir
William Hooker.^ "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
' Clitoris. Andina, in 4to, p. 103.
* Sabine, Trans. Hort. Soc, vol. v. p. 24-9.
' No importance should be attached to this flavonr, nor to the watery
quality of some of the tubers, since in hot countries, even in the south
of Europe, the potato is often poor. The tubers, which are subter-
ranean ramifications of the stem, are turned green by exposure to tJio
light, and are rendered bitter.
* Journal Hort. Soc, vol. iii. p. 66.
* Hooker, Botanical Miscellajiies, 1S31, vol. ii. p. 203.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 51
groY/s 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 en-
closures and carries the tubers into unculti^'ated 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 I'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 remai'kable vigour, which may be attri-
buted to the damp climate. The tallest plants attained
to the heic^ht of four feet. The tubers were small as a
rule, thouffh 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,^ "and its specific identity has been confii-med
fii'st by Henslow, and afterwards by Sir Joseph Hooker
in his Flora Antarctica?'
A specimen in the herbarium collected by Claude
Gay, considered by Dunal to be Sclanum 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,^ insists upon the abundance of the
Avild 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
* Journal of the Voyage, etc., edit. 1852, p. 285.
Vol. i. part 2, p. 329. * VoL v. p. 74.
52 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
the heights as we follow the chain of the Andes, and the
cultivation of the potato is of ancient date in the tem-
perate regions of Peru, but the wild character of the
species there is not so entirely proved as in the case of
(Jliili.^ 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, ac-
cording to Dunal,^ to another species, to which he has
given the name of S. iinmite. I have seen the authentic
specimen, and have no doubt that it belongs to a species
distinct from the 8. tuberosum. Sir W. Hooker ^ 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 belonfx, accordino; to Sir
Joseph/ to varieties which differ a little from the true
potato. Mr. Hemsley,^ 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,^ whose caution in this matter we already
know, expresses himself as follows: "I have never
found Solammi tuberosum in Peru under such circum-
stances 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, hithei-to considered as indigenous."
On the other hand, M. Ed. Andr^'' 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. Andre has been
kind enough to lend them to me. I have compared
them attentively with the types of Dunal's species in
' Ruiz and Pavon, Flora Peruviana, ii. p. 38.
* Dunal, Prodromus, xiii., sect. i. p. 22.
' Hooker, Bat. iliscelL, ii. * Hooker, Fl. Antarctica,
* Journal Hort. Soc, new series, toI. v.
* Weddell, Chloris Andina, p. 103.
' Andre, in Illustraiion UortiroJe, 1877, p. 114.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR TEEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 53
my herbarium and in that of M. Boissier, None of
these Solanacese 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. columbianuvi of the same author than to 8. tuberosum,
or S. immite. The specimen from Mount Quindio presents
a singular characteristic it has pointed ovoid berries.^
In Mexico the tuberous Solanums attributed to
S. tuberosum,, or, according to Hemsley,^ to allied forms,
do not appear to be identical with the cultivated plant.
They belong to S. Fendleri, which Dr. Asa Gray con-
sidered at first as a separate species, and afterwards^
as a variety of S. tuberosum or of S. verrucosum.
We may sura 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.*
Batata, or Sweet Potato Convolvulus batatas, Ldn-
nseus; Batatas cdulis, Choisy.
The roots of this plant, swelled into tubers, resemble
potatoes, whence it arose that sixteenth-century navi-
gators 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
' The form of the berries in S. columhiamim and S. immite is not yet
known.
* Hemsley, Journal JTort. Soc, new series, vol. v.
* Asa Gray, Synoptical Flora of North America, ii. p. 227.
* See, for the successive introduction into the different parts of
Europe, Clos, Quelques Documents sur I'Histoire de la Pomme da
Terre, in 8vc, 1874, in Journal d'Agric. Pratiq. du Midi de la France.
54 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
parts of the former are roots, those of the latter subter-
i-anean branches.^ 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.^
Its orio^in is, accardino: to a ofreat number of authors,
doubtful. Humboldt,^ Meyen,^ and Boissier^ hold to its
American, Boyer,^ Choisy,' etc., to its Asiatic origin. The
same diversity is observed in earlier works. The question
is the more difficult since the Convolvulacese 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.
Marco^raff ^ 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^ 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, saj^s he had
eaten some in the south of Spain, where it was supposed
to have come from the new world.^" He quotes the
' Turpin gives figures which clearly show these facts. Mdm. du
Museum, vol. xis. plates 1, 2, 5.
* Dr. Sagot gives interesting details on the method of cultivation,
the product, etc., in the Journal Soc. d'Hortic, de France, second series,
vol. V. pp. 450158.
Humboldt, Koiivelle Espagne, edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 470.
* Meyen, Grundrisse Pjlanz. Geogr., p. 373.
* Boissier, Voyage Botanique en Espagne.
* Boyer, Hort. Maurit., p. 225. ^ Choisy, in Prodromua, p. 33S,
* Marcgraff, Bres., p. IG, with illustration.
Sloane, Hist. Jam., i. p. 150 j Hughes, Barb., p. 22S.
' Clusius, Hist., ii. p. 77.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 55
names Batatas, camotes, aniotes, ajes} which were foreign
to the languages of the old world. The date of his
book is IGOl. Humboldt'^ says that, according to
Goraara, 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 six-
teenth century. Oviedo,^ 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 * 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,^ 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 Encyclopcedia of Agricul-
ture speaks of the sweet potato, and mentions different
varieties ; ^ but Bretschneider '^ 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,^ 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 uinara, giiraarra, a,nd giiinaUa, described by
Forster^ under the name of Convolvulus cicrysorldzus, is,
* J Jes was a name for the yam (Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne).
* Humboldt, ihid.
3 Oviedo, Ramusio's translation, vol. iii. pt. 3.
* Rumphius, Ainhoin., v. p. 368.
5 Forskal, p. 54 ; Delile, III.
D'Hervey Saint-Denys, Rech. siir VAgric. des Chin., 1850, p. 109.
' Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Worlcs, p. 13.
* Thunberg, Flma Japon., p. 8J-. Forster, Plantce EscuL, p. 5G.
5G ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
according to Sir Joseph' Hooker, the sweet potato.^
Secmann^ 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 be-
came general in Hindustan in the eighteenth century.^
Several popular names are attributed to it, and even,
according to Piddington,* a Sanskrit name, ruJdalu,
which has no analog}^ with any name known to me, and
is not in Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary. According to a
note given me by Adolphe Pictet, riildalu seems a
Bengalee name composed from the Sanskrit alii (RuJda
plus dlu, the name of Arum campanulatum). This
name in modern dialects designates the yam and the
potato. However, Wallich^ gives several names omitted
by Piddington. Roxburgh ^ mentions no Sanskrit name.
Rheede '' 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 contrarj^, 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,^ 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 ^ says that the traveller Lockhardt had not seen
' Hooker, HandhooTc of New Zealand Flora, p. 194.
* Seeaiaim, Journal of Bot., 1866, p. 328.
Roxburgh, edit. Wall., ii. p. 69.' * riddingtoii, Index.
Wallich, Flora Ind. Roxburgb, edit. 1832, vol. i. p. 483.
' Hhcede, MuL, vii. p. 95. Meyer, PriiJiitice Fl. Esscq., p. lU3.
* li. Brown, Bot. Congo, p. 55.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 57
the sweet potato of whose cultivation the Portuguese
missionaries make mention. Thonning ^ 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 panictdata of Choisy. It
was, therefore, a plant cultivated for ornament or for
medicinal purposes, for its root is purgative.^ It might
1)0 supposed that in certain countries in the nld or new
world Ipomcea tuherosa, L., had been confounded with
the sweet potato; but Sloane^ tells us that its enormous
roots are not eatable.*
Ijwmma rnammosa, Choisy (Convolvulus Tnaminosus,
Loureiro ; Batata fnammosa, Rumphius), is a Convol-
vulaceous 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 culti-
vated. It is prized in Cochin-China.
As for the sweet potato (Batatas edidis), no botanist,
as far as I know, has asserted that he found it wild him-
self, either in India or America.^ Clusius ^ affirms upon
hearsay that it grows wild in the new world and in the
neicrhbouring islands.
In spite of the probability of an American origin,
there remains, as we have seen, much that is unknown
or uncertain touchins: the original home and the trans-
port of this species, which is a valuable one in hot coun-
tries. 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
' Schumaclier and Thonning, Beslc. Guin.
* Wallicli, in Roxbm-o:h, Fl. Inch, ii. p. 63.
' Sloane, Jam., i. p. 152.
* Several Convolvulaceas have larp^e roots, or more properly root-
stocks, but in this case it is the bape of the stem with a part of the root
which is swelled, and this root-stock is always purgative, as in the Jalap
!ind Turbitb, while in the sweet potato it is the lateral roots, a different
organ, which swell.
No. 701 of Schomburgh, coll. 1, is wild in Guiana. According
to Choisy, it is a variety of the Batatas edidis; according to Bentham
(Hook, Jour. Bot., v. p. 352), of the Batatas paniculata. My specimen,
svhich is rather imperfect, seems to me to be different from both.
Clusias, Hist., ii. p. 77.
58 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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 in-
applicable to the present case. The order Convolvidacece is
one of those rare families of dicotyledons in which certain
species have a widely extended area, extending even to
distant continents.^ 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. Accordinor 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.^
Beetroot Beta vulgaris and B. maritwia, Linnaeus ;
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,^ perhaps even as
' A. de CandoUe, G^ogr. Bot. Raisonnd, pp. 1041-1043, and pp.
510-51 8.
^ Dr. Bretscbneider, after liavinjj read the above, wrote to me from
Pekin that the cultivated sweet potato is of origin foreign to China,
according to Chinese authors. The handbook of agriculture of Nung.
chang-tsuan-shu, whose author died in 1(133, asserts this fact. He
speaks of a sweet potato wild in China, called chu, the cultivated species
being han-chu. The Min-shu, published in the sixteenth century, says
that the introduction took place between 1573 and 1G20. The American
origin thus receives a further proof.
* Moquin-Tandon, in Prodromus, vol. xiii. pt. 2, p. 55; Boissier,
Flora Ofientalis, iv. p. 898; Ledcbour, Fl. Rosnica, iii. p. 692.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOE THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 59
far as the west of India, whence a specimen was brought
by Jaqnemont, 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,^ whence it may be inferred
that the Aryans had not brought it from western tem-
perate Asia, where it exists. The nations of Aiyan race
v/ho 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 teutlioii;^ the Romans,
beta. Heldreich^ gives also the ancient Greek name
sevkle, or sfekelie which resembles the Arab name selg,
silq,^ 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.^
Manioc Manihot utilissima, Pohl ; Jatroi>ha ina-
nihot, Linnseus.
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
' Roxburgh, Flora Indira, ii. p. 59 ; PiddingtoD, Index.
* Theophrastus and Dioscorides, quoted by Lenz, Bntanih der Grie-
chen und Romer, p. 446; Fraas, Synopsis Fl. Class., p. 233.
' Heldreich, Die Nutzpjlanzen Griechenlands, p. 22.
* Alawam, Agriculture nabatheen7ie, from E. Meyer, Geschichte der
Botanik, iii. p. 75.
* Notice swr V Amelioration des Plantes par le Semis, p. 15.
GO ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
flecidedly of modern introduction. It is propagated Ly
budding.
Botanists are divided in opinion whether the innu-
merable varieties of manioc should be regarded as form-
ing one, two, or several dilierent species. Polil ^ admitted
several besides his Manihot utilissima, and Dr. Miiller,^
in his monograph on the EuphorbiacefP, places the variety
aipi in an allied species, 31. 'pahnata, 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 asser-
tions of the natives. Dr. Sagot,^ 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 b}^ the example of
the potato. The Manihot and Solanum tuheroswni
both belong to suspected families {Euphorhiacece and
Sulanaceai). 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 tlie
volatile parts.^ 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 quali-
ties 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 propertion of fecula with
' Pohl, PJantai~uvi Brasilice Icones et Descriptiovef!. in fol., vo\. i.
* J. Jliiller, in Prodromus, xv., sect. 2, x>P- 10(>2-10G4.
Sagot, Bull, de la Soc. Bof. de France, Dec. 8, 1871.
* I give the essentials of the preparation ; the details vary accorJing
to the country. See on this head: Aublet, Guyane, ii. p. 67; De-
courtilz, Flora des Antilles, iii. p. 113; Sagot, etc.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 61
inucli sap, are not good to eat, and would cause positive
hann 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 dis-
tillation, and which varies with several causes ; but only
matter foreio-n 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 Abbe Raynal had formerly spread the erroneous
opinion that the manioc was imported into America from
Africa. Robert Brown ^ denied this in 1818, but without
giving reasons in support of his opinion ; and Humboldt,^
Moreau de Jonnes,^ and Saint Hilaire * 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,^
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
resfions at a distance from the west coast. It is known
that manioc was introduced into the Isle of Bourbon by
the Governour Labourdonnais.^ In Asiatic countries,
where a plant so easy to cultivate would probably have
spread had it been long known on the x\.frican continent,
it is mentioned here and there as an object of curiosity
of foreign origin.'
' E. Brown, Botany of the Congo, p. 50.
* Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 398.
' Hist, de I' Acad, des Sciences, 1824.
* Guillemin, Archives de Botanique, i. p. 239.
* Acosta, Hist. Nat. des Indes, French trans., 1598, p. 163.
* Thomas, Statistique de Bourbon, ii. p. 18.
' The catalogue of the botanical, wardens of Bnitenzorg, 1806, p. 222,
says expressly that the Manihot utili.'i.'iitna comes from Bourbon and
America.
62 ORIGIN CF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
3. The natives of America had several ancient na,mes
for the varieties of manioc, es])ecially in Brazil,^ which
does not appear to have been the case in Africa, even on
the coast of Guinea.^
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.^ It is very unlikely that
a single species, and tha,t the cultivated one, was a native
both of the old and of the new woi-ld, and all the more so
since in the family Euphorbiacece 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 ManiJiot utilissima and the allied species or
variety called a?pi, 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,^ 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 ]\lartius, and had
* Aypi, wa/ndioca, manihot, manioch, ynca, etc., in Pohl, Icones and
Desc, i. pp. 30, 33. Martius, Beit rage z. Ethiwr/niphic, etc., Brazilien^,
ii. p. 122, f^ves a immLer of names.
* Thonuiugf (in Schumacher, Besk. Guin.), who is accustomed to
quote the common names, gives nond for tlie manioc.
* J. Miillcr, in Prod nun u.i, xv., eect. 1, p. 1057.
* Kunrb, in Humboldt and B Nova Genera, ii. p. 108.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOK THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 63
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'^ of the
province of Goyaz, a plant of small size, and considered
as a true species or as a variety of Manihot palmata.^
Martins declared in 1867, that is after havinsf received a
quantity of information of a later date than his journey,
that the plant was not known in a wild state.^ An early
traveller, usually accurate, Piso,* speaks of a wild mandi-
Jtoca, 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 illustra-
tion he gives of it appears unsatisfactory to authors who
have studied the maniocs. Polil attributes it to his
21. aipi, and Dr. Miiller 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.^ If we do not
accept the origin in eastern tropical Brazil, we must
have recourse to tv.'"o 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 sativunn, Linnieus.
Linnreus, in his Species Plantamm, indicates Sicily
as the home of the common garlic ; but in his Hortiis
Clijfortianus, v.'here 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
' Pohl, Icones et Descr., i. p. 3fi, pL 2fi. * Miiller, in Prodromus.
' De Martius, Beitrdge zur EthnograpJde, etc., i. pp. 19, 138.
* Piso, Historia Naturalis Braziliw, in folio, 1658, p. 55, cum icone.
^ Jatropia Sylvestris Veil. Fl. Flum., 16, t. 83. See Miiller, in
D. C. Prodromus, xv. p. 1033.
64 OrJGIN OV CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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 ^ mentions that the
species is found in Egypt. According to authors who are
more accurate^ 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,^
and specimens were afterwards seen by RegeL* The
latter author also says that he saw a specimen which
Wallich had gathered as wild in British India ; but
Baker,^ who had access to the rich herbarium at Kew,
does not speak of it in his review of the "AUiiuns 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.^ The floras of Japan ' 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. Archaeologists have not found the proof
of this in the monuments, but this may be because the
plant was considered unclean by the priests.^
' KuTjfli, Eiriim., iv. p. 381.
* Solnveinfurth and Ascherson, Aufzahlunrj, p. 29-4.
Ledebour, Flora Altaica, ii. p. 4; Flora Hvssica, iv. p. 162.
Kegel, Allior. Monogr., p. 41'.
Baker, in Journnl of Bot., 187-4, p. 295.
* Bretschiieider, Study and Vahie, etc., pp. 15, 4, and 7.
' Thunberg, Fl. Jap. ; Franchet and Savatier, Fnumeratio, 1876,
vol. ii.
Unger, PJlanzen def: Alien JEgyptens, p. 42.
PLANTS CULTIVATI.D FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS, 65
There is a Sanskrit name, mahoiishouda} become
loshoun in Bengali, and to wliich appears to be related
the Hebrew name schouni or schumin,^ which has pro-
duced the Ai'ab thoum or toiiin. The Basque name hara-
tchouria is thought by de Charencey ^ 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 A;i2JZo/i/i:s,tlieEsthonians krunslauk,vi'hence 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 qidnen,^ the Welsh craf, cenhinnen, or
(farlleg, whence the English garlic. The Latin allium
has passed into the languages of Latin origin.^ 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
* Piddington, Index.
Hiller, Hierophyton ; Rosenraiillpr, Eiil. Alferthum, vol. IT.
" De Charencey, Actes de la Soc. Phil., 1st March, 1869.
* Davies, Welsh Botaywlogy.
* All these common names are found in my dictionary compiled by
Moritzi from floras. I could have quoted a lararer numlaer, and men-
tioned the probable etymologies, as given by philologists Hehn, for
instance, in his Kulturpflanzen aus Asien, p. 171 and following; but
this is not necessary to show its origin and early cultivation in several
different countrieB.
GQ OEIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
of its species,^ perhaps it might be found that certain
wild Eiu-o})ean forms, included by authors under A.
arenarium, L., A. arenarium, Sm., or^. scorodoprasum,
L., are only varieties of A. sativum. In that case every-
thing 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,
iriving it names more or less different.
Onion Allium Cepa, Linnaeus.
I wall state first what w^as known in 1855 ;^ I will
then add the recent botanical observations which confirm
the inferences fi'om philological data.
The onion is one of the earliest of cultivated species.
Its original country is, according to Kunth, unknown.^
Let us see if it is possible to discover it. The modern
Greeks call Allium Cepa, which they cultivate in
abundance, kronimunda} This is a good, reason for be-
lieving that the krommuon of Theophrastus ^ is the same
species, as sixteenth-century Avriters already supposed.^
Pliny' translated the word by cmpa. The ancient Greeks
and Romans knew several varieties, which they distin
guished by the names of countries : Cyprium, Cretense,
Samothraciae, etc. One variety cultivated in Egypt ^ was
held to be so excellent that it received divine honours,
to the great amusement of the Romans.^ Modern
Egyptians designate A. Cepa by the name of basal ^^ or
hussul,^^ whence it is probable that the hezalim of the
Hebrews is the same species, as commentators have said.^^
There are several distinct names pcdandu, latarJM, sa-
Icandala,^^ and a number of modern Indian names. The
species is commonly cultivated in India, Cochin-China,
' Anvales des Sc. Nat., 3rcl series, vol. viii.
' A. de CandoUe, Ge'ogr. B<>t. Raisonnde, ii. p. 823.
* Kunth, Enumer., iv. p. 394.
* Fraas, Syn. Fl. Clas.'^., p. 291.
* Theophrastus, Hist., 1. 7, c. 4.
* J. Banhin, Hist., ii. p. 548. ^ Pliny, Hist., 1. 19, c. 6. * Hid.
* Juvenalis, Sat. 15. '* Forskal, p. 65.
" Ainslie's Mat. Med. Ind., i. p. 269.
" Hiller, Hieroph., ii. p. 3o; Rosenmiillcr, Handhk. Bibl. Alterk., iv,
p. 96.
* Piddington, Index ; Ainslie's Mat. Med. Ind.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 67
China,* and even in Japan.^ It was largely consumed
by the ancient Egyptians. The drawings on their
monuments often represent this species.^ Thus its
cultivation in Southern Asia and the eastern region of
the Mediterranean dates from a very early epoch. More-
over, 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 ^ 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 insuflicient, 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.^
The specimens collected by Anglo-Indian botanists, of
which Wallich gave the first idea, are now better known.
Stokes discovered Alliuin 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.^ Boissier
possesses a wildspecimen found inthe mountainous regions
of the Khorassan, The umbels are smaller than in the
' Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., ii. ; Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 249.
Thnnberg, Fl. Jap., p. 132.
Unger, Pjlanzen d. AH. Mjxjpt, p. 42, figs. 22, 23, 24!.
* Hasselquist, Voy. and Trav., p. 279.
* Ledebour, Fl. Rossica, iv. p. 169.
* Aitchison, J. Catalogue of the Plants of the Punjab and the Sindh,
in Svo, 1869, p. 19; Baker, in Journal of Bot., 1874, p. 295.
G8 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
cultivated plant, but there is no other difference. Dr.
Kegel, jun., found it to the south of Kuldscha, in Western
Siberia.^ 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.^ I very much doubt, how
ever, that the area extends so far to the east.
Humboldt ^ saj^s 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 Alliurti
cultivated in Jamaica {A. Cepa), and that was in a garden
with other European vegetables.* The word xonacatl is
not in Hernandez, and Acosta^ 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, Linn?eus.
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 Altai mountains, on the Lake Baikal in the land of
the Kirghis." The ancients did not know the plant.' It
must have come into Europe through Russia in the
Middle Ages, or a little later. Dodoens,^ an author of
the sixteenth century, has given a figure of it, hardly
recognizable, under the name of Cepa oblonga.
Shallot Allium ascalonicum, Linnreus.
It was believed, according to Pliny ,^ that this plant
lU. Hortlc, 1877, p. 167.
* Bretscliueider, Study and Value, etc., pp. 47 and 7.
* Nouvelle Espagne, 2nd edit., ii. p. 47t).
* Sloane, Jam., i. p. 75.
* Acosta, Hist. Nat. des Indes, French trans., p. 1C5.
* Lcdebour, Flora liossira, iv. p. 169.
' Lenz, Botanik. der Alten Griechen uvd Bomer, p. 295.
" Dodoens, Pewptades, p. 687. Pliuy, Hist., 1. 19, c. f^.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 69
took its name from Ascalon, in Judaea; but Dr. Foiirnier^
thinks that the Latin author mistook the meaning of the
word Ashdonion of Theophrastus. However this may-
be, the word has been retained in modern languages under
the form oiechalote in French, chalote in Spanish, scalogno
in Italian, Aschalvxh or Esddauch in German.
In 1855 I had spoken of the species as follows : ^
"According: to Roxburirh,^ 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} Evidently the distinction be-
tween the two species is not clear in Indian or Anglo-
Indian works.
" Loureiro says he saw Allium asccdonicum cul-
tivated in Cochin-China,^ 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 al)Out 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 Eg3^pt. Linnreus ^ 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 '^ I find a Cepa montana
mentioned as OTOwino^ on Mount Tabor and on a neighbour-
ing 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.
'porruiin and A. sativum. Sibthorp did not find it in
Greece, and Fraas ^ does not mention it as now cultivated
' He will treat of tliis in a publication entitled Cibaria, which will
shortly appear.
^ Ge'og. Bot. Raisonnee, p. 829.
Roxburgh, Fl. Ind.; edit. 1S32, vol. ii. p. 142.
* Piddington, Index.
* Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 251.
Linnaeus, Species, p. 429.
^ Hasselqiiis", Voy. and Trav., 17C6, pp. 281, 282.
Sibthorp, Prodr. Fraas, S'jn. Fl. Class., p. 291.
70 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
in that country. According to Koch/ it is naturalized
among the vines near Fiume. However, Viviani^ 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 cvdtivated,
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. Cej)a, or at least no
difference has been hitherto discovered, and according to
Koch ^ the only ditference in the whole plant is that the
stalk and leaves are less swelled, althoucrh fistulous."
Such was formerly my opinion.* The facts published
since 1855 do not destroy my doubts, but, on the contrary,
justify them. Kegel, 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.
ascalonieum 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,^ in his
review of the Alliums of India, China, and Japan,
mentions A. ascalonicum in districts of Beno-al and of
the Punjab, from specimens of Griffith and Aitchison ;
but he adds, " They are probably cultivated plants."
' Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ., 2nd edit., p. 833.
* Viviaiii, Fl. Dalimit., p. 138. Koch, ^[in. Fl. Oemi.
* A. lie Candolle, Gcojr. Bot. Eaisonnee, p. 821).
* Buker, in Journ. 0/ Bot., 187-i, p. 295.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 71
He attributes to A. ascalonicuvi 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 investiga-
tions 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 modifica-
tion 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 scorodojprasum, Linnteus.
If we cast a glance at the descriptions and names
of A. scorodoprasum in works on botany since the
time of Linnaeus, we shall see that the only point on
which authors are aijreed is the common name of rocam-
hole. As to the distinctive characters, they sometimes
approximate the plant to Alliiim sativum, sometimes
retjard 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,^ it
grows in the environs of Paris. According to Grenier
and Godron,^ 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 Lano-e do not consider it to be
wild in Spain,^ 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,'^ the plant which he calls
.1. scorodoprasuvi is very common in Eu-sia from Fin-
land to the Crimea. Boissier received a specimen of it
* Cosson and Germain, Flore, ii. p. 553.
* firenier and Godron, Flore de France, iii. p. 197.
' Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., i. p. 8S5.
* Ledebunr, Flora Rossica, iv. p. 163.
72
OrJGlN OF CULTIVATED rLA>;TS.
from Dobrutscha, sent by the botanist Sintenis. The
natural habitat of the species borders, tlierefore, on that
of AUium 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 Eurojje 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.^ 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. Skovlog in Denmark, keijje and
rachenholl in Sweden.^ JRockenboUe, w^hence comes the
French name, is German. It has not the meaning given
by Littrd Its etymology is Bolle, onion, growing among
the rocks, Rochen?
Chives Allium schcenoprasum, Linnreus.
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 * a remarkable circumstance, considering its Euro-
pean habitat. The variety found in the Alps is the
nearest to the cultivated form.^
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 inter-
pretation 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
n-athcrino- it in the fields existed.
> Le Grand d'Anssy, Histoire de la Tic des Franrais, vol. i. p. 122.
Nomnich, Polyglott. Lexicon, p. 187. * Ibid.
* Asi Gray, Botany of the Northern States, edit 5, p. 534.
De Candolle, Flore Franfaise, iv. p. 227.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 73
Colocasia Aruvi esculentum, Linnseus; Colocasia
antiquoruTYi, Schott.^
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 ^ formerly, and Wight ^ and
others have more recently asserted ; likewise in Ceylon,^
Sumatra,^ and several islands of the Malay Arcliipelago.*^
Chinese books make no mention of it before a work
of the year 100 B.C.' The first European navigators saw
it cultiv^ated in Japan and as far as the north of New
Zealand,^ in consequence probably of an early introduc-
tion, and without the certain co-existence of wild stocks.
When portions of the stem or of the tuber are thrown
aAvay by the side of streams, they naturalize themselves
easily. This was perhaps the case in Japan and the
Fiji Islands,^ judging from the localities indicated. The
colocasia is cultivated here and there in the W^est 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
conmion names, sometimes very ancient, totally different
from each other, which confirms their local origin. Thus
the Sanskrit name is kucJtoo, which persists in modern
* Arum Egyptium, Colnmraa, Ecphrasis, ii. p. 1, tab. 1; Rum-
phius, Amhoin, vol. v. tab. 109. Arum colocasia and A. esculenium,
Linnsens ; Colocasia antiquorum, Schott, Jfe?et., i. 18; Eugler, in D. C.
ilonog. Phaner., ii. p. 491.
* Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., iii. p. 495. * Wight, Icones, t. 786.
* Thwaites, Enum. Plant. Zeylan., p. 335.
* Miquel, Sumatra, p. 258.
* Rumphius, Amhoin, vol. v. p. 318.
' Bretschneider, On the Stiuly and Value, etc., p. 12.
* Forster, De Plantis Escul., p. 58.
* Franchet and Savatier, Emun., p. 8; Seemann. Flora Viiicr^sis,
p. 28 i.
74 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Hindu languages in Bengali, for instance.^ In Ceylon
the wild plant is styled gakala, the cultivated plant
kandallaJ^ The Malay names are kelacbjj^ tallus, taUa>t,
tales, or taloes,^ from which perhaps comes the well-
known name of the Otahitans and New Zealanders tallo
or tarro^ dalo^ in the Fiji Islands. The Japanese have
a totally distinct name, imo^ which shows an existence
of lonor duration either indiojenous 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 ^ spoke of it as the Aruim Mjyptiuin.
Prosper Alpin saw it in the sixteenth century, and
speaks of it at length.^ He says that its name in its
country is culcas, which Delile^'' 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. Da I'Ecluse ^^ had seen the plant cultivated in
Portugfal, 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}^
The name colocasia, given by the Greeks to a plant
of which the root was used by the Eg3'ptiaus, 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 neliiinho}^
which has a large root, or rather rhizome, rather stringy
Roxburgh, Fl. Ind.
* Thwaites, Enum. J'lant. Zeylan. ' Rnmphins, Amhoin,
* Miquel, Sumatra, p. 258; Hasskarl, Cat. Tlorti Bfnjur. A'fer., p. 55.
* Forster, De Plantls Escul., p. 58. * Soeniaun, Flora Vitiensia.
' Fratichet and Savatier, Enum. * I'linv, Hist.j 1. 19, c. 5.
* Alpiims, Hist. Mjypt. Naturalif!, edit. 2, vol. i. p. 166; ii. p. 192.
" Delile, Fl. J:J<jypt. 111., -p. 2S;' De la Colocase des Anciens, in Svo,
1846.
* Clusius, His'oria, ii. p. 75. '* Parlatore, Fl. Ital., ii. p. 255.
** Prosper Alpiiius, Hist. .Egypt. Naturalis ; Coluinna ; Delile, j4h>i.
du Mtis., i. p. 375; De la Coloca.fe des Anrieiis ; Roj'iiier, Ecoiiomie des
Egyptiens, p. 321.
Pl.ANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 7o
and not good to eat. The two plants are very different,
especially in the flower. The one belongs to the Aracece,
the other to the NymphceacecB ; the one belongs to the
class of Monocotyledons, the other to that of the Dico-
iyledons. The nelumbo of Indian origin has ceased to
grow in Egypt, while the colocasia of modern botanists
lias 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 suflScient to say now, if the etymology
is insisted upon, that colocasia comes from colcas in
consequence of an error.
Ape, or Large-rooted Alocasia Alocasia macrorrhiza,
Schott; Arum maerorrJtizum , Linnaeus.
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,-' 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 ape, and those of
the Friendly Isles happed In Ceylon, the common name
is hahara, according to Thwaites.^ 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.*
It is also wild iu Ceylon, according to Thwaites, who has
studied botany for a long time in that itsland. It is
' See Engler, in D. C. Monographic^ Phanerogarum, ii. p. 502.
Forster, De Plantis Esculentis Insularum Oceani Australis, p. 58.'
Thwaites, Enum. PI. Zeyl., p. 336.
* Nadeaud, Enum. des Flantcs LndijeneSf p. 40.
76 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
mentioned also in India ^ and m Australia,^ 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. More-
over, 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 Amoiyhojihallus Konjah, Koch ; A'nior-
phophallus Rivieri, du llieu, var. Koiijah, Engler.^
The konjak is a tuberous plant of the family
Aracese, extensively cviltivated by the Japanese, a culture
of which Vidal has given full details in the Bulletin de
la Societe d' Acdimatatlon of July, 1877. It is consi-
dered by Engler as a variety of AmorphoiAallus llivieri,
of Cochin-China, of which horticultural pei'iodicals
have given several illustrations in the last few years.*
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, konni-
yakou, or yainagonniyakou, yama meaning "mountain."
Franchet and Savatier^ have only seen the plant in
gardens. The Cochin-China varietv, believed to belono-
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. jajionica,
and D. alata.
The yams, monocotyledonous plants, belonging to
1 Engler, in D. C. Monog. Phaner.
* Bentliam, Flora Austr., viii. p. 155.
^ En'j:ler, in D. C Monogr. Phaner., vol. ii. p. 313.
* Gardener's Chronicle, 1873, p. 610 ; Flore des Se^fes et Jardins,
t. 1958, 1959; Hooker, lk>t. Mag., t. 6195.
* Francliet and Savatier, Enwn. P;. Japoviw, ii. p. 7.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 77
the family Dioscoridece, constitute the genus Dloscorea,
of which botanists have described about two hundred
species, scattered over all tropical and sub-tropical
countries. They usually have rhizomes, that is, under-
ground stems or branches of stems, more or less fleshy,
which become larger when the annual, exposed part of
the plant is near its decay.^ Several species are culti-
vated 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 difl'erent 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,^ published in 1850. It requires
revision on accovint 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
estimatino- the botanical characters of each.
Roxburgh enumerates several Dloscorece^ cultivated
in India, but he found none of them wild, and neither
he nor Piddington ^ 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 culti-
vated elsewhere. The Bengali and Hindu generic name
is alu, preceded by a special name for each species or
variety ; kam alu, for instance, is Dloscorea alata. The
absence of distinct names in each province also argues
a recent cultivation. In Ceylon, Thwaites ^ indicates
six wild species, and he adds that D. sativa, L., i). alata,
M. Saprot, Bull, de la Sne. Bot. de France, 1871, p. 306, has well
described the growth and cultivation of yams, as he has studied them in
Cayenne.
^ Knnth, Enumeratin, vol. v.
* The83 are D. glolosi, alata, riibella , fasciculat/i, purpurea, of which
two or three appear to be merely varieties.
Piddington, Index.
Thwaites, Enum. Plant. Zeyl., p. 326.
78 OrjGlN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
L., and D. 'purpurea, Roxb., are cultivated in gardens,
but are not found wild.
The Chinese yam, D'loscorea hafatas of Dccaisne,^
extensively cultivated by the Chinese under the name
of Sain-ill, 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 B. batatas). The names mean, according to Stanis-
las Julien, mountain arum, whence we may conclude
the plant is really a native of the country. Dr.
Bretschneider ^ gives three Dioscorece 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^ say that it is not posi-
tively known to what degree it is wild or has strayed
from cultivation. Another species, more often cultivated
in Japan, gTows here and there in the country according
to the same authors. They assign it to Dioscorea
sativa of Linnaeus; but it is known that the famous
Swede had confounded several Asiatic and American
species under that name, which must either be al)an-
doned 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 Linna3us was acquainted, and which Thwaites
calls the D. sativa of Linnaeus. Various authors admitted
the identity of the Ceylon plant with others cultivated
on the Malabar coast, in Sumatra, Java, the Philippine
Isles, etc. Blume '^ asserts that D. sativa, L., to which
* Decaisne, Histoire et Cnlture de I'Ljname de Chine, in the Berne
norticnle, 1st July and Dec. 1853 ; Flore des Serves et Jardins, x. pi. 971.
^ On the Study and Value, etc., p. 12.
3 Franchet and Savatier, Emim. riant. Japonice, ii. p. 47.
* Blunie, Enum. Plant. Javw, p. 22.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 79
he attributes pi. 51 in Rheede's Hortiis 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 tibi, is the Dioscorea
alata of Linnaeus. The authors of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries speak of it as widely spread in
Tahiti, in New Guinea, in the Moluccas, etc.-^ 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 culti-
vated species or varieties (Plumier one, Sloane two) and
few common names. The most widely spread is yam,
ignaTue, or inhaine, which is of African origin, according
to Hughes, and so also is the plant cultivated in his time
in Barbados.^
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,^ heard the word
ignaine pronounced on the American continent : Ves-
pucci in 1497, on the coast of Paria ; Cabral in 1.500, 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,^ shows the
' Forstcr, Plant. Esculent., p. 56; RuTnpliius, Amhoin, vol. v., pi
120, 121, etc.
^ Hughes, Hist. Nat. Barh., 1750, p. 226.
* Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, 2ncl edit., vol. ii. p. 4G8.
Ibid., p. 403.
80 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
confusion he made between tlie manioc and the yam.
i>. Clifortiana, Lam., grows wild in Peiu^ and. in
Brazil,^ but it is not proved to be cultivated. Presl says
verosiviiliter colitur, and the Flora Brasiliensis does
not mention cultivation.
The species chiefly cultivated in French Guiana,
according to Sagot,^ is Lioscorea triloba, Lam., called
Lidian 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
i-icgro-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,^ 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 Blosconce than
in Asia and America, and the culture of yams is less
widely spread. On the west coast, according to Thon-
ning,^ only one or two species are cultivated ; Lockhardt*^
only saw one in Congo, and that only in one locality.
Bojer'' mentions four cultivated species in Mauritius,
which are, he says, of Asiatic origin, and one, B. hid-
bifera, 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 lann, and marron
(marroon) indicates a plant escaped from cultivation.
The ancient Egyptians cultivated no yams, which aroues
a cultivation less ancient in India than that of the colo-
casia. Forskal and Delile mention no yams cultivated
in Egypt at the ]:)resent day.
To sum up : several JUioscorece wild in Asia (especially
' Hsenke, in Presl, Rel, p. 133. Martius, Fl. Bras., v. p. 43.
Sagot, Bull. Soc. hot. France, 1871, p. 3U5.
* Hooker, Fl. Nigrit, p. 53.
* Sehumacher and Tlionning, Besk. Giiin, p. 417.
" Brown, Congo, p. 49. ' Bo^er, Hurtits Mauritianue.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 81
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, Linnjeus. A
plant of the family of the Scitaminece, allied to the genus
Canna, of which the underground suckers ^ 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.^
Maranta arundinacea is certainly American. Ac-
cording to Sloan e,^ 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.
Kornicke, the last author who studied the genus Ma-
i-anta,* 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 con-
cern 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 unpro-
vided with local floras, and especially with floras made
by botanists residing in the country. In published
works I find the species mentioned as cultivated ^ or
growing in plantations,^ or without any explanation. A
locality in Brazil, in the thinly peopled province of
Matto Grosso, mentioned by Kornicke, supposes an
absence of cultivation. Seemann '^ mentions that the
species is found in sunny spots near Panama.
* See Tussac's description, Flore des Antilles, i. p. 183.
* Hooker, Niger Flora, p. 531.
' Sloane, Jamaica, 1707, voL i. p. 254.
* In Bull. Sac. des Natur. de Moscou, 1822, voL i. p. 34.
Aublet, Guyane, i. p. 3. ^ Meyer, Flora Essequibo, p. 11.
' Seemann, Bot. of Herald., p. 213.
82 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATiiD PLANTS.
A species is also cultivated in the West Indies, Ma-
raiita indica, which, Tussac says, was brought from the
East Indies. Kornicke believes that M. ramosissima of
Wallich found at Sillet, in India, is the same species,
and thinks it is a variety of 31. 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 sliould be
Asiatic. Until Sir Joseph Hooker's Flora of British
India is completed, these questions on the species of the
Scitaminecv and their origin will be very obscure.
Anglo- Indians obtain arrowi'oot from another plant
of the same family, Curcuma angustifolia, Roxburgh,
which grows in the forests of the Deccan and in Mala-
bar.^ I do not know whether it is cultivated.
Roxbiirpli, Fl. Ind., i. p. 31; Porter, The Tropical Agiiculturalist,
p. 2-il 3 AiusHc, Materia Medica,i. p. 19.
CHAPTER, 11.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES.
Article I. Vegetables.
Common Cabbage Brassica oleracea, Linnpeus.
The cabbage in its wild state, as it is represented in
Eng. Bot., t. 637, tlie 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
ort' the coast of Charente Inferieure; ^ (2) on the north
coast of the Mediterranean, near Nice, Genoa, and Lucca.^
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.^ 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 difierent regions of Europe,
suggests the suspicion either that plants apparently indi-
' Fries, Summa,p 29; Nylander, Conspectus, p. 46 ; Benthnm, Randb.
Brit. FL, edit. 4, p. 40; Mackay, Fl. Uibcrn., p. 28; Brebisson, Fl. de
Normandie, edit. 2, p. 18; BabbiTigton, Primitice Fl. Sarnicai, p. 8;
Clavaud, Flore de la Gironde, i. p. 68.
* Bertoloni, Fl. Ital., vii. p. 146; Nylander, Conspectus.
" Ijdebour, Fl. Ross.; Grleshach, Spicilijiuin J' I. Runiel. ; Boissier,'
llora OvientaHs, etc.
5
84 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
genous may in several cases be tlie result of self-sowing
from cultivation/ or that the species was formerly com-
mon, 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.^
Let us see whether historical and philological data
add anything to the facts of geograplucai botany.
In the first place, it is in Europe that the countless
varieties of cabbage have been formed,^ principally since
the days of the artcient Greeks, Theophrastus dis-
tinguished three, Pliny double that number, Tournefort
twenty, De Candolle more than thirty. These modifica-
tions 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
lanffuaires, and rare or modern in those of Asia. Without
repeating a number of names I have given elsewhere,^ I
shall mention the five or six distinct and ancient roots
from which the European names are derived.
Kap or Imh in several Keltic and Slav names. The
French name cahus comes from it. Its origin is clear Ij^
the same as that of caput, because of the head-shaped
form of the cabbasre.
Caul, kohl, in several Latin (caulls, stem or cabbage),
German (ChSli in Old German, Kohl in modern German,
kaal in Danish), and Keltic languages [Jcaol and kol in
Breton, cat in Irish).^
Bi'esic, hresych, hrasslc, of the Keltic and Latin
(brassica) languages, whence, probably, be rza and verza of
the Spaniards and Portuguese, varza of the Roumanians.^
' Watson, who is careful on these points, doubts whether the cabbigo
is indigenous in England {Compendium of the Ctjbele, p. 103), Out most
authors of British floras admit it to be so.
^ Br. halearica and Br. cretica are perennial, almost woody, not
biennial ; and botanists are agreed in separating them from Br. ohtracea.
' Aug. Pyr. de Candolle has published a paper on the divisions and
iibdi visions of Br. oleracea (Tran^'actionf; of fhe Hort. Sac, vol. v., trans,
iated into German v.nl in French in the Bibl. Univ. Agric, vol. viii.),
wliich is often quoted.
* A\ph. do Candolle, Ge gr. Bot. Raisonnde, p. 839.
* Ad. Pictet, Les.Ori'jines Indo'Europdennes, edit. 2, vol. i. p 3S0.
* Urandza, Prodr. Fl. Romane, p. 122.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 85
Azci of the Basques (Iberians), considered by de
Charencey^ as proper to the Euskarian tongue, but which
differs little from the preceding.
Krainhai, cramhe, 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.
Philoloofists have connected the krambai of the
Greeks with the Persian name Jcaramh, karam, kalam,
the Kurdish kalam, the Armenian gaghanih ; ^ others
with a root of the supposed mother-tongue of the Aryans ;
but they do not agree in matters of detail. According to
Fick,^ karanibha, in the primitive Indo-Germanic tongue,
signifies " Gemilsepflanze (vegetable), Kohl (cabbage),
karambha meaning stalk, like caulis." He adds that
karainhha, 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.'^ Pictet, on his side, speaks of the Sanskrit
word kalamba, " vegetable stalk, ap])lied to the cabbage."
I have considerable difficulty, I must own, in ad-
mitting 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 ouo-ht to know if it is ancient. I doubt it, for if the
cabbaoe had existed in ancient Persia, the Hebrews
would have known it.^
For all tliese reasons, the species appears to me of
' De Charencer, Recherches aur les Nonis Basques, in Actes de lo
Socie'te Phihilogique, 1st March, 18H9.
* Ad. Pictet, Les Origines Indo-Europe'ennes, edit. 2, voL i. p. 380,
* Fick, Vorterb. d. Indo-Germ. Sprachen, p. 3-4.
* Piddington, Index; Ainslie, Mat. Med. Ind.
* Rosen uiiiller, Bihl. Alterth., mentiuns no name.
6 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS
European origin. The date of its cultivation is probably
ver^^ ancient, earlier than the Aryan invasions, but no
doubt the wild plant was gathered before it was cultivated.
Garden-Cress Lejndium sativum^ Linnaeus.
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 cardomon of
Dioscorides ; while others apply that name to Erucarut
aleppica} In the absence of sufficient description, as the
modern common name is cardamon^ the first of these
two suppositions is probably correct.
The cultivation of the species must date from ancient
times and be widely diffused, for veiy different names
exist: reschad in Arab, turehtezuk^ in P er sia,n, dieges ^ in
Albanian, a language derived from the Pelasgic; without
mentioning names drawn from the similarity of taste
"with that of the water-cress (N^asturtium officinale):
There are very distinct names in Hindustani and
Benoali, but none aie known in Sanskrit.^
At the present day the plant is cultivated in Europe,
in the north of Africa, in Eastern Asia, India, and else-
where, but its origin is somewhat obscure. I possess
several specimens gathered in India, where Sir Joseph
Hooker^ 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 ' mentions it without com-
ment, 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.^ It has been asserted
that Sibthorp found it in Cyprus, but reference to his
work shows it was in the fields.^ Poech does not mention
' Sec Fraas, ;^y. FI. Class., pp. 120, 12 i ; Lenz, Bot. der AUev, p. 617.
2 Sibthorp, Frudr. Fl. Grcic, ii. p. ; Heldreicli, Nutzpfl. GriechenL,
]i. 4".
5 Ainslie, Mat. Med. Tnd., i. p. 95. * Heldreicli, Nicfz. Gr.
* Piu(liii<?ton, Index; Ainslie, Mat. Med. Ind., i. p. 95.
* Hook >r, Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. ICO. ' Boissier, Fl. Orient., vol. i.
* De Candolle, Sysf., ii. p. 533.
* Sibthorp and Smith, I'rodr. Fl. Grae^r, ii. p. G.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 87
it in Cj'prus.^ linger and Kotschy ^ do not consider it
to be wild in that island. According to Ledebour,^ Koch
found it round the convent on Mount Ararat; Pallas
near Sarepta; FaJk on the banks of the Oka, a tributary
of the Volga ; lastly, H. Martins mentions it in his flora of
Moscow ; but there is no proof that it was wild in these
various localities. Lindemann,^ in 1860, did not reckon
the species among those of Russia, and he only indicates it
as cultivated in the Crimea.^ According to Nyman,^ 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,
vVhence it may have spread, after the Sanskrit epoch,
jito the gardens of India, Syria, Greece, and Egypt, and
even as far as Abyssinia.^
Purslane Portulaca oleracea, Linnaeus.
Purslane is one of the kitchen garden plants most
widely difl'used throughout the old world from the earliest
times. It has been transported into America,^ where it
spreads itself, as in Europe, in gardens, among rubbish,
by the wayside, etc. It is more or less used as a vege-
table, a medicinal plant, and is excellent food for pigs.
A Sanskrit name for it is known, lonica or loania,
which recurs in the modern languages of India.^ The
' Poecb, Emim. PI. Cypri, 1842.
* Unorer and Kotschy, Inseln Cypern., p. 331.
3 Ledebour, Fl. P.ofs., i. p. 203.
Lindemann, Index Plant, in Ross., Bull. Soc. Nat. ITosc. 18G0, rol. xxxiii.
* Lindemann, Prodr. Fl. Cher son, p. 21.
Nvman, Conspectus Fl. Evrop., 1878, p. 65.
Schweinfurth, Beitr. Fl. Mh., p. 270.
* In the United States purslane was believed to be of foreign origin
(Asa Gray, Fl. of Northern States, ed. 5 ; Bot. of California, \. p. 79), bat
in a recent publication, Asa Gray and Trumbull give reasons for believing
that it is indigenous in America as in the old world. Columbus had
noticed it at San Salvador and at Cuba ; Oviedo mentions it in St.
Domingo and De Lery in Brazil. This is not the testimony of botanists,
but Nuttall and others found it wild in the upper valley of the Missouri,
in Colorado, and Texas, where, however, from the date, it might have
been inti'oduced. Author's Note, 1884.
Piddington, Index to Indian Plants.
88 ORIGIN or CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Greek name andrachne and the Latin portulaca are
very different, as also the group of names, cholza in Per-
sian, Jchursa or koursa in Hindustani, kourfa kara-or in
Arab and Tartar, which seem to be the origin of hurza
noka in Polish, kurj-molia in Bohemian, Kreusel in Ger-
man, without speaking of the Russian name schrucha,.
and some others of Eastern Asia.^ One need not be a
])hilologist to see certain derivations in these names show-
ing that the Asiatic peoples in their migrations trans-
ported with them their names for the plant, but this does
not prove that they transported the jilant 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.^ In India the case is very
different. Sir Joseph Hooker says^ 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,* that it
is difficult not to admit that the plant is indigenous in
that central region whence the Asiatic peoples overran
' Nemnich, Polyglot. Lex. Naturgesch., ii. p. 1047.
* Loureiio, Fl. Cochin., i. p. 359 ; Francliet and Savatier, Faum. PI.
Japon., i. p. 53 ; Bcnlliaiii, Fl. Hongkong, p. 127.
* Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 240.
* Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 145 ; Lindemaiin, in Prodr. Fl. Chers., p. 74,
says, " In desertis et arcno^s.s inter Clierson et Btrislaw, circa t'dessara."
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 89
Europe. In Greece the plant is wild as well as culti-
vated.^ Further to the west, in Italy, etc., we begin to
tiud it indicated in floras, but only growing in fields,
gardens, rubbish-heaps, and other suspicious localities.^
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 Spinacli Tetragonia expansa, Murray.
This plant was brought from New Zealand at the time
of Cook's famous voj'age, 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 Ficoidece, of which no other species is used. Hor-
ticulturists ^ 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 Tas-
mania, in the south and west of Australia, in Japan, and
in South America.* 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.^
Garden Celery Apium graveolens, Linnseus.
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.^
> Lenz, Bot. der Alten, p. 632 ; Helclre'cli, FJ. Aliisch. Ehene., p. 483.
* Bertoloni, Fl. It., vol. v. ; Gussone, Fl. Sic, vol. i. ; Moris, Fl. Sard.,
vtl. ii. ; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., vol. iii.
^ Botanical Magazine, t. 2362; Bon Jardinier, ISSO, p. 567-
Sir J. Hooker, Handbook of 'New Zealand Flora, p. Si; Penthari',
Flora Austr alien sis, iii p. 327; Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Plant
JaponicB, i. p. 177.
* CI. Gay, Flora Ohilena, ii. p. 468.
' Fries, Summa Veget. Scavd. ; Mnnhj, Caf^al. Alger.,-p. 11; Boissier,
Fl. Orient., vol. ii. p. 856; Schweinfurth and Ascher^on, Av/zdhlung,
p. 272; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 679.
DO ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
It is spoken of in the Odyssey under the name ot
selinon, and in Theophrastus ; but later, Dioscorides and
Pliny ^ 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 diti'ers more widely from the wild plant is that
of which the flesh}- root is eaten cooked.
Chervil Scandix cerefolium, Linna3us; Anthi'iseus
cerefolium, Hoffmann.
Not lonG: ao-o the origin of this little TJmbellif jr, so com-
mon 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 con-
sidered 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^ tells us that
it is found " here and there in the woods of the Crimea."
Boissier ^ 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,^ that is, at the beginning of the Christian era.
It was then cultivated. Piiny calls it ccrefoliurn. The
species was probably introduced into the Greco-Roman
Avorld after the time of Theophrastus, that is in the
course of the three centuries which preceded our era.
Parsley PetroseUninn sativum., Moench.
This biennial Qmbellifer is wild in the south of Europe,
from Spain to Turkey. It has also leen found at
Tlemcen in Algeria, and in Lebanon.^
' Dioscorides, Mat. Med., \. 3, c. 67, 68; Pliny, Bist., \. 19, c. 7, 8 ;
Lenz, Bot. der Alten Griechen und Romer, p. 5.57.
'^ Steven, Vcrzeichniss Taurisihen Ualbinseln, p. 183.
Boissier, Fl. Orient, ii. p. 913.
* Lciiz, Bot. d. Alt. Gr. und E., p. 572.
Muuby, Catal. Alger., edit. 2, p. 22; Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 857.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOK THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 91
Dioscorides and Plinj speak of it under the names
of Petroselinon and Petroselinum} but only as a wild
medicinal plant. Nothing proves that it was cultivated in
their time. In the Middle Ages Charlemagne counted it
fimong the plants which he ordered to be cultivated in
his gardens.^ Olivier de Serres in the sixteenth century-
cultivated parsley. English gardeners received it in
1 o48.^ 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 Smyrnimn olus-atrum,
Linnpeus.
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 besrinnino-
and end. Theophrastus spoke of it as a medicinal plant
under the name oi Lpposelinon, but three centuries later
Dioscorides*^ says that either the root or the leaves
might be eaten, which implies cultivation. The Latins
called it olus-atrum, Charlemagne olisahim, and com-
manded it to be sown in his farnis.^ The Italians made
fjreat use of it under the name onacerone.^ At the end
of the eighteenth century the tradition existed in Eng-
land that this plant had been formerly cultivated ; later
English and French horticulturists do not mention it.''
The Sniyrnium olus-atrum is wild throughout
Southern Europe, in Algeria, Syria, and Asia Minor.^
Corn Salad, or Lamb's Lettuce Valerianella olitoria,
Linnseus.
Dioscorides, Mat. Med., 1. 3, c. 70 ; Pliny, Hixt., \. 20, ch. 12.
" The list of these plants may be found iu ^leyer, Gesch. der Bot.,
iii. p. 401.
' Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Garden, ii. p. 35.
'' Theophrastus, Hi^t., 1. 1, 9 ; 1. 2, 2 ; 1. 7, 6 ; Dioscorides, Mat. Med.,
1. 3, c. 71.
* E. Meyer, Gesch. der Bot., iii. p. 401.
^ Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 58.
' English Botany, t. 230 ; Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Garden;
Le Bon Jardinier.
Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 927.
D.2. OliiGlN Oh' CULTIVATED 1 LANTS.
Frequently cultivated as a salad, this annual, of the
Valerian family, is found "vvild 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.^ 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, iu the meadows and
mountain pastures.^ 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 Frangais
of 1651, or byLaurenberg's worh, Ho rticultura (Frankfurt,
1632). The cultivation and even the use of this salad
aj)pear to be modern, a fact which has not been noticed.
Cardoon Cynara cardunculus, Linnaeus.
Artichoke Cynara sjolynius, Linnaeus; C. cardun-
culus, 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.^ Careful observations have lately
proved this hypothesis. Moris,* for instance, having cul-
tivated, in the garden at Turin, the w'ild Sardinian plant
side by side with the artichoke, affirmed that true
characteristic distinctions no longer existed.
Willkomm and Lange,^ wdio have carefully observed
the plant in Spain, both wild and cultivated, share the
* Krok, Monor/raphie des Valerianella, Stockholm, 186 i, p. 88;
Boissier, Fl. Orient., iii. p. 101.
* Bertoloni, Fl. ItaL, i. p. 185; Moris, Fl. Sard., ii. p. 314; Gassone,
Synopsis Fl. SicuJce, edit. 2, vol. i. p. 30.
* Dodoens, Hist. Plant, p. 721; Linnaeus, Species, p. 1159; De Can-
doUe, Prodr., vi. p. 620.
* Moris, Flora Sardoa, ii. p. 61.
Willkomm and Lnnge, Prod,-. FL Hisp., ii. p. 180.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 03
same opinion. Moreover, the aitichoke has not been
found out of gardens ; and since the Mediterranean
region, the home of all the Cynaroi, has been thoroughly-
explored, it may safely be asserted that it exists nowhere
w'ild.
The cardoon, in which we must also include G.
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.^ Munby ^ does
not allow C. carduneulus to be wild in Alo-eria, but
he does admit Cynara humilis of Linnaeus, which is
considered by a few authors as a variety.
The cultivated cardoon varies a grood deal with reo^ard
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 yirello.
Modern nations cultivate the cardoon for the fleshy part
of the leaves, a custom which is not yet introduced into
Greece.^
The artichoke offers fewer varieties, which bears out
the opinion that it is a form derived from the cardoon.
Targioni/ in an excellent article upon this plant,
relates that the artichoke w^as brought from Naples to
Florence in 14G6, and he proves that ancient writers,
even Athenreus, were not acquainted with the artichoke,
but only wdth the wild and cultiv^ated 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 : addacl for the cardoon, taga
for the artichoke.^
' Webb, Fhyt. Canar., lii. sect. 2, p. 384 ; Ball, Spicilegium Fl. Maroc,
p. 524; Willkomm and Lange, Pr. Fl. Hisp. ; Bertoloni, Fl. Ital., ix. p,
86 ; Boissier, Fl. Orient > iii. p. 357 ; Unger and Kotschy, Inseln Cypern.
p. 246.
Munby, Catal., edit. 2.
' Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Grieclienlands, p. 27.
* Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 52.
' Dictionnaire Fran<;ais.Beihe)e, published by the Government, 1 vol.
in 8vo.
04) OIUUIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
It is bolieveJ that the hados, Tclnara, and scoUmos of
tlie Greeks, and the canliuis of Roman horticulturists,
were Cyaara cai-danculas,^ although the most detailed
description, that of Theophrastus, is suffici(mtly 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 Athenseus,^ the Egyptian king Ptolemy
Enerffetes, of the second centurv befji'e Christ, had found
in Libya a great quantity of wild klnara, 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 linger^ 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 vege-
table had they seen it in Egypt. The diffusion of the
species in Asia must have taken place somewhat late.
There is an Arab name, hirsclmff or Jcerschouf, and a
Persian name, kitnghir,'^ but no Sanskrit name, and the
Hindus have taken the Persian word kunjir,^ which
shows that it was introduced at a late epoch. Chinese
authors do not mention any Cynara.^ Tlie cultivation
of the artichoke was only introduced into England in
1548.' 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
Ayrcs, where its abundance is a hindrance to travellers.^
' Theophrastus, Hist., 1. 6, c. 4 ; Pliny, Hist., 1. 19, c. 8; Leuz,
Bot. der Alten Grieclien and Rotuer, p. 4S0.
* Athenseus, Deipn., ii. 84.
' Pickering, Chron. Arrangement, p. 71 ; Unger, Pfiinzen der Alten
Mijvptens, p. 46, figs. 27 and 28.
* Ainslie, Mat. Med. Ind., i. p. 22. * PiiUlington, Index.
^ Bretschueider, Study, etc , and Letters of 1881.
' Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Garden,p. 22.
* Aug. de Saint Uilary, Plantes Remarkables du Breil, Introd., p. 58;
Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, ii. p. 34.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 95
It is becoming equally troublesome in Chili.^ It is not
asserted that the artichoke has anywhere been naturalized
in this manner, and this is another sign of its artificial
orioin.
Lettuce Latuca Scarivla, var. sativa.
Botanists are agreed in considering the cultivated
lettuce as a modification of the wild species called Lativca
Scariola.^ The latter grows in temperate and southern
Europe, in the Canary Isles, Madeira,'^ Algeria,* Abys-
sinia,^ and in the temperate regions of Eastern Asia
Boissier speaks of specimens from Arabia Petrea to
Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.^ 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.'' 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 genera-
tions, 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 culti-
vated varieties in the course of the last two thousand
' Cl. Gay, Flora CMJena, iv. p. 317.
* The author who has gone into this question mo?t carefully is Bischoff,
in his Beitrdge zur Flora Deutsclilands und der Schweitz, p. 184. See
also Moris, Flora Sardoa, ii. p. 530.
^ Webb, Phytogr. Canariensis, iii. p. 422 ; Lowe, Flora of Madeira,
p. 514.
* Munby, CataL, edit. 2, p. 22, under the name of L. sylvestris,
* Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Aufzdhlung, p. 285.
Boissier, Fl. Orient., iii. p. 809.
^ Clarke, Compos. Indicce, p. 263.
96 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
years. Thcophrastus indicated three ; ^ le Bon Jardinier
of 1880 gives forty varieties existing in France.
The ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated tlie 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, latiica ; Persian and
WiW(\.u,hahn; and the analogous Arabic form chuss or chass.
The Latin form exists also, slightly modified, in the Slav
and Germanic languages,^ which may indicate either that
the Western Aryans diffused the plant, or that its culti-
vation spread with its name at a later date from the
south to the north of Europe.
Dr. Bretschneider has confirmed my supposition ^
that the lettuce is not very ancient in China, and that it
was introduced there from the AVest, He says that the
first work in which it is mentioned dates from A.D. 600
to A.D. 900.4
Wild Chicory Clchorium Intyhus, Linnreus.
The wild perennial chicory, which is cviltivated as a
salad, as a vegetable, as fodder, and for its roots, which
are used to mix w' ith coffee, grows throughout Europe,
except in Lapland, in Marocco, and Algeria,'' from Eastern
Europe to Afghanistan and Beluchistan,'' in the Punjab
and Kashmir,'^ and from Russia to Lake Baikal in Siberia.^
'J'he plant is certainly wild in most of these countries;
but as it often grows by the side of roads and fields, it is
I)robable 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
* Theophrastus, \. 7, c. 4. ^ Nemnich, Pohjjl. Lexicon.
* A. de CandoUe, Geogr. B^t. Uaisonitie, p. 843.
* Bietsclineider, Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Worka. p. 17.
' Ball, Spicilcgium Fl. Marocc, p. 534; Muuby, Catal., edit. 2, p. 21.
* Boissier, Fl. Ch-ient., iii. p. 715.
' Clarke, Compos. Ind., p. 250.
Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 774.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 97
and cultivated,^ but their notices of it are too brief to be
clear. According to Heldreich, the modern Greeks apply
the general name of lachaiia, a vegetable or salad, to
seventeen different chicories, of which he gives a list.^
He says that the species commonly cultivated is Cicho-
rium divaricatitm, Schousboe ((7. pumilum, Jacquin);
but it is an annual, and the chicory of which Theophrastus
speaks was perennial.
Endive Cichorium Endivia, Linnreus.
The white chicories or endives of our gardens are
distinguished from Cichoriu7)% 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. Intyhus, it was difficult
not to admit two species. The origin of C. Endivia
is uncertain. When we received, forty years ago, speci-
mens of an Indian CicJioi^iurti, 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;^ but Anglo-Indian botanists said,
and continue to assert, that in India the plant only grows
under cultivation.* The uncertainty persisted as to the
geographical origin. After this, several botanists^ con-
ceived the idea of comparing the endive with an annual
species, wild in the region of the Mediterranean, Gicho-
riurri pumilum, Jacquin (G. 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., pis. 1357, 1358), I
am disposed to take the cultivated endives for varieties
' Dioscoridep, ii. c. 160; Pliny, xix. c. 8; Palladin?, xi. c. 11. See
other authors quoted by Lenz, Bot. d. AUen, p. 483.
^ Heldreich, Die Nutspflanzen Griechenlands, pp. 28, 76.
' Auor. Pyr. de Candolle, Prodr., vii. p. 84; Alph. de Candolle, Gdcgr.
B 't., p. 845.
* Clarke, Compos. iTid., p. 250.
* De Yiv'mni, Flora Dalmat.,n. -p. 97; Schultz in Webb, P/ii/t Canar.,
sect. ii. p. 391; Boissier, Fl. Orient., iii. p. 716.
08 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTa.
of the same species as G. 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,^ Marocco,^
and Algeria,^ as far as Palestine,'* the Caucasus, and
Turkestan.^ 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;^ 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 difierent species. These
names vary little,' and suggest a cultivation of Grseco-
Koman origin. A Hindu name, Jiasni, and a Tamul one,
koschi,^ 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, Linnreus.
This vegetable was unknown to the Greeks and
Romans.^ It was new to Europe in the sixteenth century,^''
and it has been a matter of dispute whether it should bo
called spanaclia, as coming from Spain, or spiiuicia, from
its prickly fruit. ^^ It was afterwards shown that the
name comes from the Arabic isfdndclsch, e^hanach, or
sepanach, according to difierent authors.-^^ The Persian
' Lowe, Flora of Madeira, p. 521. * Ball, Svicilegtum, p, 534.
' Munby, Catal., edit. 2, p. 21. * Boissier, Ft. Orient., iii. p. 716.
^ Bange, Beitrdge zur Flora R^^sxIavds und Central Asiens, p. 197.
* Lenz. Bot. der Alten, p. 483 ; Heldreich, Die JS'utzpfianzen Griechen
lav,ds, p. 74.
' rsemuich, PolygT. Lex., at the word Ct'chorium Endivia.
* Royle, III. Himal., p. 247 ; Piddington, Index.
* J. Banhiu, Hist., ii. p. 964 ; Fi-aas, Syn. Fl. Class. ; Lenz, Bot. der
Alten.
' Brassavola, p. 176. " Mathioli, ed Valgr., p. 343.
** Ebn Baithar, neberitz von Sondtlieimer, i. p. 34j Forska.\, Egypt,
p. 7"; Delile, III. ./Egypt., p. 29.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOE THEIR STEilS OR LEAVES. 99
name is ispany, or isj^anaj} and the Hindu isfavy, or
folak, according to Piddington, and also pinnis, accord-
ing 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 ; ^ but
Bret^jchneider tells us that the Chinese name signifies
herb of Persia, and that "Western vegetables were com-
monly introduced into China a century before the Chris-
tian era.^ It is therefore probable that the cultivation
of this plant began in Persia from the time of the Grseco-
Eoraan civilization, or that it did not quickly spread
either to the east or to the west of its Persian oriijin.
No Hebrew name is known, so that the Arabs must have
received both plant and name from the Persians. No-
thing leads us to suppose that they carried this vegetable
into Spain. Ebn Baithar, who was living in 1235, was of
Malaga ; but the Aiabic 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 cultiva-
tion 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,"* the
ti'aveller, Olivier brought back some seeds of it, found in
the East in the open country. This Mould 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
' Roxburgh, 17. !??(?., ed. 1832; v. iii. p. 771, applied to Spinacta
tetandra, which seems to be the same species.
* Maximowicz, Primitice Fl. Amur., p. 222.
* Bretschneider, Study and Value of Chin. Bot. JVorls, pp. 17, 15.
* Diet. d'Agric, v. p. 906.
100 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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 Afghanis-
tan, and which is used as a vegetable under the name of
schariiumfh}
Without entering here into a pnrely botanical dis-
cussion, I may say that, after reading the descriptions
quoted by Boissier, and looking at Wight's^ plate of
Spinacia tetandra, Roxb., cultivated in India, and the
specimens of several herbaria, I see no decided differ-
ence 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.^
If, as seems probable, the two plants are two varieties,
the one cultivated, the other sometimes wild and some-
times 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 sjnnach, of which the fruit has no
spines, is evidently a gai-den product. Tragus, or Bock
was the fii'st to meution it in the sixteenth century.^
Amaranth Amarantus gangcticiis, Linnaeus.
Several annual amaranths are cultivated as a green
vegetable in Mauritius, Bourbon, and the Seychelles Isles,
under the name of hrede de Malabar.^ This appears
to be the principal species. It is much cultivated in
India. Anfrlo-Indian botanists mistook it for a time
for Amarantus oleraceus of Linnseus, and Wight gives
an illustration of it under this name,^ but it is now
acknowledged to be a different species, and belongs to
A. gangcticus. 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.
> Boissier, Fl. Orient, vi. p. 23k * ^VigLt, Icones, t. 818.
* Noes, Gen. Plant. Fl. Germ., 1. 7, pi. 15.
* BauLiii, Bist., ii. p. 965.
* .4. gangelicus, A. trii^tis, and A. hyhridis of Liniia3us, aocordiDg to
Baker, Flora of Mauritius, p. 26U.
* Yfight, Icones, p. 715.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. lOf
There are other names in Bengali and Hindustani. The
3^oung shoots sometimes take the place of asparagus
at the table of the English.^ 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 dis-
cover 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 distinguish-
ing 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;^ but this is perhaps
only the result of such naturalization as I spoke of
iust now. The existence of numerous varieties and
of different names in India, render its Indian origin most
probable.
The Japanese cultivate as vegetables A. cauclatus,
A. mangostanus, and A. melanchol.icus (or gangeticus) of
Linnseus,^ but there is no proof that any of them are
indigenous. In Java A. 'polystacliyus, Blume, is cul-
tivated; it is very common among rubbish, by the
wayside, etc.^
I shall speak presently of the species grown for the
eed.
Leek Allium anij>eloprasuni, var. Porrum.
According to the careful monograph by J. Gay,^ the
'eek, as early writers^ suspected, is only a cultivated
variety of Allium ampeloprasum of Linnseus, so com-
mon in the East, and in the Mediterranean region,
' Roxbnro;li, Flora hidica, edit. 2, vol. iii. p. 606.
* Boissier, Flora Orientalis, iv. p. 990 ; Schweinfurth and Ascherson,
Aufzaldurig, etc., p. 289.
' Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Plant. Japonice, i. p. 390.
* Hasskarl, Plant. Javan. Rariores, p. 431.
* Gay, ^nn. des Sc. Naf., 3rd series, vol. viii.
* Linna3U3, Species PI. ; De Candolle, Fl. Fran/;., iii. p. 219.
102 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
ospeclally in Algeria, which in Central Europe sometimes
becomes naturalized in vineyards and round ancient
cultivations.-^ Clay seems to have mistrusted the indica-
tions 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
ca.se the Algerian localities; admitting, however, the
identity of name in the authors for other countries.
The cultivated variety of Porruvi has not been found
wild. It is only mentioned in doubtful localities, such
as vineyards, gardens, etc. Ledebour^ 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,^ 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, Linnaeus.
The lucern was known to the Greeks and Romans.
They called it in Greek inedicai, in Latin mfidica, or herba
medica,heca,use it had been brought from Media at the time
of the Persian war, about 470 years before the Christian
era.* The Romans often cultivated it, at any rate from the
beginning of the first or second century. Cato does not
speak of it,^ but it is mentioned by Varro, Columella, and
Virgil. De Gasparin ^ notices that Crescenz, in 1 478, 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,
* Koch, Synnpsis Fl. Germ. ; Bab'ngfcon, 2Ian. of Brit. Bot. ; English
[Sot., etc.
' Ledebour, Flora Rni^a., iv. p. 1G3.
Baker, Journal of Bot., 187-i, p. 29^.
* Strabo, xii. p. 5(50 ; Pliuy, bk. xviii. o. 16.
* llehn, Culiurpjia-nzen, etc., p. 3.35.
* Gasparin, Cours d'Agric, iv. p. 42-i.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 103
from ancient times.^ It is rare in modern Greece.^
French cultivators have often given to the lucern the
name of sainfoin, which belongs properly to Ono-
hrychis 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,^ and the Catalans call it userdas *
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 sometimea
called it herha spagna} 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 EbnBaithar,
who wrote at Malaga, uses the Arab word^s/isa^, which
he derives from the Persian isjist.^ 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 til e 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,'' and in Kashmir.^ 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,
' Targioni-Tozzetti, Cenni Storici, p. 34.
* Fraas,. Synopsis Fl. Class., p. 63 ; Hel Ireich, Die Nuizpfianzen
Griechenlands, p. 70.
2 Bauhin, Hist. Plant., ii. p. 381. * Colmeiro, Catal.
* Tozzetti, Dizion. Bof.
* Ebn Baithar, Heil und Kahrungsmittel, translated from Arabic by
Sontheimer, vol. ii. p. 257.
' Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 91. Rovle, III. Himal, p. 197.
lOi ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
makes me note as a singular fact that no Sanskrit name
is known.^ Clover and sainfoin have none either, which
leads us to suppose that the Aryans had no artificial
meadows.
Sainfoin Hedysarum Onohrychis, Linnaeus ; Onobry-
chis 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.^ The plant called
Onohrychis by Dioscorides and Pliny, is Onobrychis
Caput-Galli of modern botanists,^ a species wild in Greece
and elsewhere, which is not cultivated. The sainfoin, or
lupitiella of the Italians, was highly esteemed as fodder
in the south of France in the time of Olivier de Serres,'^
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.^
Sainfoin is a herbaceous plant, which grows wild in
the temperate parts of Europe, to the south of the
Caucasus, round the Caspian Sea,^ and even beyond Lake
Baikal,' 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
a'? the fifteenth century.
Frencli Honeysuckle, or Spanish Sainfoin Hedysarum
coronarium, Linnaeus.
The cultivation of this leguminous plant, akin to the
* Piddinjjton, Index.
* Heldreich, Nutzpfanzen Giiechenlands, p. 72.
' Fraas, Synopsis Fl. Class., p. 58 ; Lenz, Bot. der A'ten Or. una
Rom., p. 731.
* O. de Serres, ThdCitre de I'Agric, p. 242.
* Targioni-Tozzetti, Cenni Storici, p. 34.
' Ledebour, FL Ross., i. p. 708; Boissier, FL Or., p. 532.
' Turczaninow, Flora Baical. Dahur., i. p. 340.
I
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 105
sainfoin, and of wliich a good illustration may be found
in the Flora des Sevres et des Jardins, vol. xiii. pi.
1882, has been diffused in modern times through Italy,
Sicily, Malta, and the Balearic Isles.^ Marquis Grimaldi,
who first pointed it out to cultivators in 1766, had seen
it at Seminara, in Lower Calabria ; De Gasparin ^ recom-
mends it for Algeria, and it is probable that cultiva-
tors under similar conditions in Australia, at the Cape,
in South America or Mexico, w^ould do well to try it.
In the neighbourhood of Orange, in Algeria, the plant
did not survive the cold of 6 centigrade.
Hedysarum coronarhim grows in Italy from Genoa
to Sicily and Sardinia,^ in tlie south of Spain ^ and
in Algeria,^ where it is rare. It is, therefore, a species
of limited geographical area.
Purple Clover Trifolium pratense, Linnaeus.
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,
]ierhaps even earlier, and, according to Schwerz, the
Protestants expelled by the Spaniards carried it into
Germany, wdiere they established themselves under the
pi'otection of the Elector Palatine. It was also from
Flanders that the Enolish received it in 1633, through
the influence of Weston, Earl of Portland, then Lord
Chancellor.''
Trifolium pratense is wild throughout Europe, in
Algeria,'^ on the mountains of Anatolia, in Armenia,
and in Turkestan,^ in Siberia towards the Altai Moun-
tains,^ and in Kashmir and Garwhall.^*^
* Targioui-Tozzetti, Cenni Storici, p. 35; Mares and Virginuix, Catal
des Baleares, p. 100.
* De Gasparin, Cours d'Agric, iv. p. 472.
^ Bertoloni, Flora Ital., viii. p. 6.
* Willkomm and Lange, Prod': Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 262.
* Munby, Cafal, edit. 2, p. 12.
* De Gasparin, Cours d Agric, iv. p. 445, according to Sctwerz and
A. Young.
' Mnnby, Catal., edit. 2, p. 11. * Foissier, Fl. Orient, i. p. 115.
* Lcdebour, FL Ross., i. p. 548.
> Baker, in Hooker's Fl. of Brit. Iiid., ii. p. 86.
106 OaiGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
The species existed, therefore, in Asia, in the land
of the Aryan nations ; but no Sanskrit name is known,
whence it may bt- inferred that it was not cultivated.
Crimson or Italian Clover TrifullLim incarnatum,
Linna3us.
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.^
De Candolle, at the beginning of the present centuiy,
had only seen it in the department of Ariege.^ It has
existed for about sixty years in the neighbourhood ot
Geneva. Targioni does not think that it is of ancient
date in Italy,^ and the trivial name trafoglio strengthens
his opinion.
The Catalan fe, fencli,^ and, in the patois of the south
of Fi'ance,^ farradje (Roussillon),/rtrra/rt(/e (Languedoc),
feroutge (Gascony), whence the French name f avouch,
have, on the other hand, an oi'iginal character, which
indicates an ancient ciiltivation round the Pyrenees.
The term which is sometimes used, " clover of Roussillon,"
also shows this.
The wild plant exists in Galicia, in Biscaj^a, and
Catalonia,^ but not in the Balearic Isles ; ' it is found
in Sardinia ^ and in the province of Algiers.^ 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 yelLav
variety, which is truly wild on the Continent, while the
> Bon Jardininr, 1880, pt. i. p. 818.
^ De Candolle, Fl. Franc., iv. p. 528.
' Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 35.
* Costa, Intro. Fl. di Gatal., p. GO.
* Morit^'i, Diet. MS., compiled from floras published before the
middle cf the present century.
* Wiilkomiii and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 366.
' M;ires ;iud Virgincix, Catal., 1880.
* xMori^, Ft. Sard., i. p. 467. * Manby, Catal, edit. 2.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 107
crimson variety is only naturalized in England from
cultivation.^ 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,^ in the localities which appear
natural (in pascuis collinis, in montanis, in herbidis).
The authors of the Bon Jardinier^ affirm with Bentham
that Trifolimn Afolinerii 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 Trifoliwm Alexan-
drinum, Linnaeus.
This species is extensively cultivated in Egypt as
fodder. Its Arab name is hersym or herzun.^ 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.^
Ervilia Erviini Ervilia, Linnfeus; Vicia Ervilia,
Willdenow.
Bertoloni^ gives no less than ten common Italian
names ervo, lero, zirlo, etc. This is an indication of an
ancient and general culture. Heldreich "^ 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 ervuvi. The cultivation of the
species is mentioned by ancient Greek and Latin authors.^
The Greeks made use of the seed ; for some has been
' Benthavn, Handbooh Brit. Fl., edit. 4, p. 117.
* Moris, Fl. Sard., i. p. 467 ; Viviani, Fl. Dalmat, iii, p. 290-
Bon Jardinier, 1880, p. 619.
* Forskal, Fl. Egypt., p. 71; Delile, Plant. Cult, en Egypt., p. 10;
Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians, ii. p. 398.
* Boissier, Fl. Orient, ii. p. 127. ' Bertoloni, Fl. It., vii. p. 500,
' Nutzpjianzen Griechenlands, p. 71.
* See Leuz, Bot. d. Alien, p. 727 ; Fraas, Fl, Class., p. 54.
G
108 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
discovered in the excavations on the site of Troy. ^ There
are a number of common names in Spain, some of them
Arabic,^ but the species has not been so widely cultivated
there for several centuries.^ In France it is so little
grown that n)any modern works on agriculture do not
mention it. It is unknown in British India.*
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 ^ speaks of specimens from
Syria, Persia, and Afghanistan. Sometimes, in abridged
catalogues,^ the locality is not given, but nowhere do I
tind 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 Vic'ia sativa, Linnpeus.
Vicia sativa is an annual leguminous plant wild
throughout Europe, except in Lapland. It is also common
in Algeria,' and to the south of the Caucasus as far as the
])rovince of Talysch.^ 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^ is concerned. No Sanskrit name is known,
and in the modern languages of India only Hindu names.^"
Targioni believes it to be the ketsach of the Hebrews.^^
' Wittniack, Sifzungsher Bot. Vereins Brandenburg, Dec. 19, 1879.
" Willkomm and Lanpc, Prorfr. Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 308.
' Baker, in Hooker's FZ. Brit. Ivd.
* Herrera, AgriruUvra, edit. 1819, iv. p. 72.
* Baker, in Hooker's Fl. Brit. Ivd.
*" For instance, Munby, Catal. Flant Algiriw, edit. 2, p. 12.
' Munby, Catal, edit. 2.
* Ledebonr, Fl. Ro><s., i. p. 666; Hohenackcr, Enum. Plant. Tahjsch,
p. 113 ; C. A. Meyer, Verzeichni.<s, p. 147.
Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., edit. 1832, iii. p. 323 ; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind.,
ii p. 178.
'" Piddington'a Index gives fonr. " Targioni, Cenni StoHci, p. 30.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 109
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 cul-
tivation.
The Romans sowed this plant both for the sake of the
seed and as fodder as early as the time of Cato.^ I have
discovered no proof of a more ancient cultivation. The
name v'lk, whence vicia, dates from a very remote epoch'
in Europe, for it exists in Albanian,^ which is believed to
be the lancjuage of the Pelasajians, 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, Linnfeus.
An annual leguminous plant, esteemed as fodder, buh
whose seed, if used as food in any quantity, becomes
dangerous.^
It is grown in Italy under the name of onocJii} Some
authors suspect that it is the cicera of Columella and the
ervilia of Varro,^ but the common Italian name is very
different to these. The species is not cultivated in Greece.^
It is more or less grown in France and Spain, without
anything to show that its use dates from ancient times.
However, Wittmack'' attributes to it, but doubtfully,
some seeds brought by Yirchow from the Trojan exca-
vations.
According to the floras, it is evidently wild in dry
]ilaces, beyond the limits of cultivation in Spain and
Italy.^ It is also wild in Lower Egypt, according to
* Cato, De re Rusfica, edit. 1535, p. 34; Pliny, bk. xviii. c. 15.
* Heldreicli, Nvtzpflanzen Griechenlands, p. 71. In the earlier lan-
irnage than the Indo-Europeans, vik bears another nieauizig, that oi
"hamlet" (Fick, Vorterb. Indo-Germ., p. 189).
* Vilmorin, Bon Jardinier, 1880, p. 603.
* Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 31 ; Eertoloni, Fl. Ital., vii. pp. 444, 447.
* Lenz, Botanik. d. Alien, p. 730.
* Fraas, Fl. Class. ; Heldreich, Nutzjlanzen Griechenlands.
' Wittmack, Sitz. Ber. Bot. Vereins Bmrtdenhunj, Dec. 19, 1879.
* Willkoinm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Misp , iii. p. 313; Eertoloni, Fl.
Hal.
110 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Schweinfurth and Ascherson ; ^ 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 gi-ound from
Turkey in Europe, and Egypt as far as the south of the
Caucasus and Babylon."^ It is not mentioned in India
either as wild or cultivated, and has no Sanskrit name.'^
The species is probably a native of the region com-
prised between Spain and Greece, perhaps also of Algeria,'*
and diffused by a cultivation, not of very ancient date,
over Western Asia.
Chickling Vetch Laihyrus sativus, Linnreus.
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 ^ and the Latins
cicercula.^ It is also cultivated in the temperate regions
of Western Asia, and even in the north of India ;' but it
has no Hebrew^ nor Sanskrit name,^ 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.^" 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.
' Schweinfurth .ind A=^cherson, Anfzdhluivj, etc., p. 2j7.
* Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 605.
J. Baker, in Hooker's Fl. of Brit. Ind.
* Munby, Catal.
Theophrastus, Hi<t. Plant., viii., c. 2, 10.
* Columella, De rei ru.'ifi<-a, ii. c. 10; Pliny, xviii. c. 13, 32.
Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. ; Hooker, Fl. Bri'. Ind., ii. p. 178.
Rosenmiiller, Handb. Bibl. Alterth., vol. i.
Piddington, Index.
' Heldreich, Pjlanz. d. Attisch. Ebene, p. 476 ; Nutzpf. Or., p. 72.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. Ill
Ledebour/ for instance, mentions specimens gathered in
the desert, near the Caspian Sea, and in the province of
Lenkoran. Meyer ^ 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.^
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, Linn?eus ; Lathyrus ochrus, de
Candolle.
Cultivated as an annual fodder in Catalonia, under
the name of tapisots,^ and in Greece, particularly in
the island of Crete, under that of ochros,^ mentioned
by Theophrastus,^ 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 w^ild in Tuscany,'^ It appears
to be wild also in Greece and Sardinia, where it is found
in hedges,*^ and in Spain, w^here it grows in uncultivated
ground;^ 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/'^ where probably it
is not wild.
Ledebour, Fl. Boss., i. p. 681.
' C. A. Meyer, Verzeichrdss, p. 148.
Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 606.
Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 312.
* Lenz, Bot. d. Alien, p. 730; Heldreich, Nutzpfl. Gr., p. 72.
* Leiiz.
Caruel, Fl. Tosc, p. 193 ; Gr.ssone, Syn. Fl. Sic, edit. 2.
Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 602; Mods, Fl. Sard., 1. p. 582.
Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. F!. Hisp. ' Bjissier, Fl. Orient
112 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
The fine plate published by Sibthorp, Flora Graica,
589, suggests that the species is worthy of more general
cultivation.
Trigonel, or Fenugreek Tr'irjonella fcenum-gr cecum,
Linnseus.
The cultivation of this annual leguminous plant was
common in ancient Greece and Italy,^ either for spring
forage, or for the medicinal properties of its seeds.
Abandoned almost everywhere in Europe, and notaV)ly
in Greece,^ it is maintained in the East and in India,^
where it is probably of very ancient date, and throughout
the Nile Valley.* The species is wild in the Punjab
and in Kashmir,^ in the deserts of Mesopotamia and of
Persia,^ and in Asia Minor ,'^ where, however, the localities
cited do not appear sufficiently distinct from the culti-
vated ground. It is also indicated ^ 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 probabl}^ escaped from
cultivation.^ 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.-^"
The antiquity of the species and of its use in India is
confirmed by tlie existence of several different names in
' Tlieophratns, Hi>if. Plavt., viii. c. 8; Columella, De rei rudica, ii.
c. 10 ; Pliny, Hist., xviii. c. 16.
* Fraas, Syn. Fl. Class., p. 63 ; Lenz, Bot. der Allen, p. 719.
* Baker, in Hooker's Fl. Brit. Inrl., ii. p. 57.
* Schweinfurth, Beitr. z. Fl. ^thiop., p. 258.
* Baker, in Hooker's Fl. Brit. Ind.
* Boissier, Fl. Orient, ii. p. 70. ' Boissier, Hid.
* Sibthorp, Fl. Grceca, t. 766 ; Lenz, Bot. der Alten, Bertoloni, Fl.
Ital., viii. p. 250 ; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., in. p. 390.
9 Caruel, Fl. Tosc, p. 256 ; Willkomm and Lange.
'" The plants which spread from one country to another introduce
themselves into islands with more difficulty, as will be seen from the re.
marks I formerly published Geoijr. Bot. Ka%sonn4e, p. 706).
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 113
different dialects, and above all of a Sanskrit and modern
Hindu name, metki} There is a Persian name, schemlit,
and an Arab name, helbeh;^ but none is known in
Hebrew.^ One of the names of the plant in ancient
Greek, tailis (rjjXtc), niay, perhaps, be considered by
philologists as akin to the Sanskrit name,* but of this
I am no judge. The species may have been introduced
by the Aiyans, 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 ; 0. isth-
TYiocarpus, Cosson.
The true bird's foot, wild and cultivated in Portuixal,
was described for the first time in 1804 by Brotero,^ and
Cosson has distinguished it more clearly from allied
species.^ Some authors had confounded it with Orni-
thopus roseiis of Dufour, and agriculturists have some-
times given it the name of a very ditierent speci.s,
0. 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 0. roseus, or,
if the pod is curved but not contracted, with 0. cor>i-
pressus. 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 in-
troduced into Campine.''
^ PiddingtoTi, Ind^x. - Ainslie, Mat. Med. Ind., i. p. 130.
^ Eosenniiiller, Bihl. AHerfh.
* As usual, Fick's flictio aiy of Indo-Europenn langnages does n&t
mention the name of this plant, which the English say is Sanskrit.
* Brotero, Flora Lusitanica, ii. p. 160.
Oosson, Notei sur Quelques Plantes Nouvelles ou Critiques du Midi
de I'Espagne, p. 36.
' Bon Jardinier, 1880, p. 512.
114 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
0. sativus appears to be wild in several districts of
Portugal and the south of Spain. I have a spscimen
from Tangier ; and Cosson found it in Al^^jeria. It is
often found in abandoned fields, and even elsewhere. It
is difiicult 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 (VVillkomra).
Spergula, or Corn Spurry Spergida arvensis, Lin-
naeus.
This annual, belonging to the family of the Caryo-
phylacese, grows in sandy fields and similar places in
Europe, in North Africa and Abyssinia,^ in Western Asia
as far as Hindustan,^ and even in Java.^ 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,* 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 culti-
vation.
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, erha renaiola, indicates
only its gi'owth in the sand {vena). The French {spar-
govble), 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
Boissier, Fl. Orient., i. p. 731.
* Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 243, and several specimens from the
Nilgherries and Ceylon in my herbarium.
Zollinger, No. 2556 in my herbariuca. * Piddincrton, Index.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 115
division of the Latin languages. In the north the case
is very different. There is a Russian name, toritsa ; ^
several Danish names, huinh or huvi, girr or kirr ;^ and
Swedish, knuttJryU, ndgcle, shorff.^ This great diversity
shows that attention had long been di-awn 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,* 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 per-
haps earlier in the north. In any case, its original home
must have been Europe.
Agriculturists distinguish a taller variety of spergula,^
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 Tnaximum, Jacquin.^
This perennial grass has a great reputation in countries
l^ang between the tropics as a nutritious fodder, easy of
cultivation. With a little care a meadow of guinea
grass will last for twenty years.'
Its cultivation appears to have begun in the West
Indies. R 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
Sobolewski, Fl. Petrop., p. 109.
^ Rafn, Danmarks Flora, ii. p. 7^9.
Wahlenberg, quoted by Morltzi, Diet. MS. ; Svensh Botanik, t. 308.
* Bauhin, Hist. Plant., in. p. 722.
* Spergula Maxima, Boninghausen, an illustration published in Rei-
clienbach's Plantw Crit., vi. p. 513.
Panicum maximum, Jacq., Call. 1, p. 71 (1786) ; Jacq., Icones 1,
t. 13 ; Swartz, Fl. Indice Occ, vii. p. 170 ; P. polygamv.ra, Swartz, Prodr.,
p. 24 (1788) ; P. jumentorum, Persoon Ench., i. p. 83 (1805) ; P.
altissimum of some gardens and modern authors. According to the
rule, the oldest name should be adopted.
' In Dominica according to Imray, in the Kew Report for 1879, p. 16.
116 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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 diy 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 Marti us and studied by Nees,^
data afterwards increased and more carefully studied by
Doell,'-^ Panicum miaximum 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. Dcell has also seen specimens from
French Guiana and New Gi-anada.
With respect to Africa, Sir William Hooker^ men-
tioned specimens brought from Sierra Leone, from
Agua]nm, from the banks of the Quorra, and from the
Island of St. Thomas, in Western Africa. Nees * indicates
the species in several districts of Cape Colony, even in
the bush and in mountainous country. Richard men-
tions 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, posi-
tively asserts that Panicum maxhnuvi was brought
from the banks of the Mozambique and of the Zambesi
rivers by the traveller Peters.*^
The species is kno^vn to have been introduced into
Mauritius by the Governour Labourdonnais,'' and to have
become naturalized from cultivation as in Rodriguez
and the Seychelles Isles. Its introduction into Asia
' Nees, in Martins, Fl. Brasil., in 8vo, vol. ii. p. 166.
2 DcbII, in Fl. Braxih, in fol., vol. ii. part 2.
8 Sir W. Hooker, Niger Fl, p. 560.
* Nees, Florce Afncae Austr. GramineCB, p. 86.
6 A. Richard, Abyssinie, ii. p. 373.
* Peters, Reise Botnnik, p. 546.
* Bojer, Hortus Maurit., p. 565.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 117
must be recent, for Roxburgh and Miquel do not men-
tion the species. In Ceylon it is only cultivated.^
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.^ 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 diflusion is evidently very easy.
Article III. Various Uses of the Stem and Leaves.
Tea Thea sinensis, Linnaeus.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, when the
shrub which produces tea was still very little known,
Linnoeus gave it the name of Thea sinensis. Soon after-
wards, in the second edition of the Species Plantatum,
he judged it better to distinguish two species, Thea hohea
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, com-
prehending several varieties, from all of which either
black or green tea may be obtained according to the pro-
cess 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,^ 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 Ktempfer,^ is often
* Baker, Fl. of Mauritius and Seychelles, p. 436.
* Thwaites, Enum. PL Zeylanice.
' Seeoiann, Tr. of the Linncean Society, xxii, p. 337, pi. Gl.
* KaempfLr, Ammn. Japan.
118 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
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 brouoht from India. This is what Bretschneider
tells us in his little work, rich in botanical and philologi-
cal facts.^ The Pentsao, 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 ^ absolutely
deny this. Fortune,^ who has so carefully examined
the cultivation of tea in China, does not speak of the
wild plant. Fontanier* 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.
' Bretschneider, On the Study and Value of Chin. Bot, Works, pp. 13
ai\c\ 45.
* Franchet and Savatier, Enum. PI. Jap., i. p. 61.
" Fortune, Three Years' Wandering in China, 1 vol. in 8vo.
* Fontanier, Bulletin Soc. d'Acclim., 1870, p. 88.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 119
Loureiro says that it is found both " cultivated and un-
cultivated" in Cochin- China.i What is more certain
is, that English travellers gathered specimens in Upper
Assam -^ and in the province of Cachar.^ 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 pro-
duced in British India ; in 1878, thirty-seven million
pounds ; and in 1880, a harvest of seventy million pounds
was looked for.^ Tea will not bear frost, and suffers from
drought. As I have elsewhere stated,^ 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, Avhere good wine is made ; 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 culti-
vated, or not at all ; while the wines of dry regions, such
as Australia and the Cape, are already known in the
market.
Flax Linum usitatissimurti, Linnseus.
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.
1 Lonreiro, FI. Oochin., p. 414.
* Griffith, Reports; Wallich, quoted by Hooker, Fl. Brit. India, i
p. 293.
* Anderson, quoted by Hooker.
* The Colonies and India, Gardener's Chronicle, 18S0, i. p, 659.
* Speech at the Bot. Cong, of London in 1866.
Flora, 1868, p. 64.
120 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
In Older to understand tlie difficuUies which it
presents, we must first ascertain what nearly allied forms
authors designate sometimes as distinct species of the
genus Linuni, and sometimes as varieties of a single
species.
The first important work on this subject was by
Planchon, in 18-i8.^ He clearly showed the difi'erences
between Linum usitatissimum, L. hurtiile, and L. angiu*-
tifolium, which were little known. Afterwards Heer,^
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 com-
parison 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 chai'acters, only adding a name
for each distinct form, in accordance with the custom of
botanical works.
Linum usitatisshn u m.
1. Annuurn (annual). Root annual; stem single,
upright ; capsules 7 to 8 mm. long ; seeds 4 to 6 mm.,
terminating in a point, a. Vulgare (common). Capsules
7 mm., not opening when ripe, and displaying glabrous
partitions. German names, Schliesslein, Dreschlein.
/3. Humile (low). Capsules 8 mm., opening suddenly when
ripe; the partitions hairy. Linum humile. Miller; L.
crepitans, Boninghausen. German names, Klanglein,
Springlein.
2. Ryemale (winter). Root annual or biennial ; stems
numerous, spreading at the base, and bent; capsules
7 mm., terminating in a point. Linum hyemale ronia-
num. In German, Winterlein.
3. Amhiguum (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 amhiguum, Jordan.
4. AngustifoliuTn (narrow-leaved). Root annual or
' Planclion, in Hooker, Journal of Botanxj, vol. vii. p. 165.
* Heer, Die Pflanzen der Pfahlhanfen, in 4to, Ziii ich, lSG?,p. 35; Ucber
den Flachs und die Flachskultui; in 4to, Ziiricb, 1872.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 121
perennial ; stems numerous, spreading at the base, and
bent ; capsules 6 mm., with hairy partitions ; seeds 3 mm.,
slightly hooked at the top. Linum angiistifolium.
It may be seen how easily one form passes into
another. The quality of annual, biennial, or perennial,
which Heer suspected to be uncertain, is vague, especially
for the angustifolium ; for Loret, who has observed this
flax in the neighbourhood of Montpellier, says,^ " In
very hot countries it is nearly always an annual, and this
is the case in Sicilv accordincr to Gussone ; with us it is
annual, biennial, or perennial, according to the nature of
the soil in which it grows ; and this may be ascertained
by observing it on the shore, notably at Maguelone.
There it may be seen that along the borders of trodden
paths it lasts longer than on the sand, where the sun
soon dries up the roots and the acidity of the soil
prevents the plant from enduring more than a year,"
When forms and physiological conditions pass from
one into another, and are distinguished by characters
which vary according to circumstances, we are led to
consider the individuals as constituting a single species,
although these forms and conditions possess a certain
degree of heredity, and date perhaps from very early
times. We are, however, forced to consider them
separately in our researches into their origin. I shall
first indicate in what country each variety has been dis-
covered in a wild or half-wild state. I shall then speak of
cultivation, and we shall see how far geographical and
historical facts confirm the opinion of the unity of species.
The covimon annual flax has not yet been discovered,
with absolute certainty, in a wild state. I possess
several specimens of it from India, and Planchon saw
others in the herbarium at Kew; but Anglo-Indian
botanists do not admit that the plant is indigenous in
British India. The recent flora of Sir Joseph Hooker
speaks of it as a species cultivated principally for the oil
extracted from the seeds; and Mr. C. B. Clarke, formerly
director of the botanical gardens in Calcutta, writes to
* Loret, Ohservations Critiques sur Pluxieurs Plantes Montpellidraines,
in the Revue des Sc, Nat., 1875.
122 OIUGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
me that the specimens must have been cultivated, its
cultivation being very common in winter in the north of
India. Boissier"^ mentions L. humile, with narrow leaves,
which Kotschy gathered " near Schiraz in Persia, at the
foot of the mountain called Sabst Buchom." This is,
perhaps, a spot far removed from cultivation ; but I
cannot give satisfactory information on this head. Ho-
henacker found L. usitatissimum "half wild" in the pro-
vince of Talysch, to the south of the Caucasus, towards the
Caspian Sea.'^ Steven is more positive with regard to
Southern Russia.^ According to him, it " is found pretty
often on the barren hills to the south of the Crimea,
between Jalta and Nikita; and Nordmann found it on
the eastern coast of the Black Sea." Advancing westward
in Southern Russia, or in the region of the Mediterranean,
the species is but rarely mentioned, and only as escaped
from cultivation, or half wild. In spite of doubts and of
the scanty data which we possess, I think it very pos-
sible that the annual flax, in one or other of these two
forms, may be wild in the district between the south of
Persia and the Crimea, at least in a few localities.
The winter flax is only known under cultivation in a
few provinces of Italy.*
The Linum amhlguum of Jordan grows on the coast
of Provence and of Languedoc in dry places.^
Lastly, Linum angustifolium, which hardly differs
from the preceding, has a well-defined and rather large
area. It grows wild, especially on hills throughout the
reo-ion of which the Mediterranean forms the centre ; th^t
is, in the Canaries and Madeira, in Marocco,^ AlgeiiaJ
and as far as the Cyrenaic f from tho south of Europe,
' Boissier, Flora Orient, i. p. 851. It is L. usifaiiisimum of Kotschy,
No. 164.
* Boissier, ihid. ; Holienh., Enum. Talyxch. , p. IfiS.
* Steven, Verzpichnii'S der auf der taurisclien Halhinseln wildwach
senden Pflanzen, Moscow, 1857, p. 91.
* Heer, Ueb. d. Flochx, pp.17 and 22.
Jordan, quoted by Walpers, AnnaL, vol. ii., and by Heer, p. 23.
* Ball, Spkilegium Fl. Marocc, p. 380.
7 Manby, CataL, edit. 2, p. 7-
8 Eohlf, according to Cosson, Bidle. Soc. Bot. de Fr., 1875, p. 46.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 120
as far as England,^ the Alps, and the Balkan Mountains ;
and lastly, in Asia from the south of the Caucasus^ to
Lebanon and Palestine.^ I do not find it mentioned in
the Crimea, nor beyond the Caspian Sea.
Let us now turn to the cultivation of flax, destined in
most instances to furnish a textile substance, often also
to yield oil, and cultivated among certain peoples for the
nutritious properties of the seed. I first studied the
question of its origin in 1855,* and with the following
result :
It was abundantly shown that the ancient Egyptians
and the Hebrews made use of linen stuffs. Herodotus
affirms this. Moreover, the plant may be seen figured in
the ancient Egyptian drawings, and the microscope
indubitably shows that the bandages which bind the
mummies are of linen.^ The culture of flax is of ancient
date in Europe ; it was known to the Kelts, and in India
according to history. Lastly, the widely difterent com-
mon names indicate likewise an ancient cultivation or
long use in different countries. The Keltic name lin,
and Greco-Latin linon or linum,hiis no analogy with the
Hebrew pisihta,^ nor with the Sanskrit names oonia,
atasi, utasi. "^ A few botanists mention the flax as
' nearly wdld " in the south-east of Russia, to the south
of the Caucasus and to the east of Siberia, but it was
not known to be truly wild. I then summed up the
probabilities, saying, " The varying etymology of the
names, the antiquity of cultivation in Egypt, in Europe,
and in the north of India, the circumstance that in the
latter district flax is cultivated for the yield of oil alone,
' Planchon, in Hooker's Journal of Botany, vol. 7; Bentham, Uandbk.
of Brit. Flora, edit. 4, p. 89.
2 Planchon, ibid. Boissier, Fl. Or., i. p. 861.
* A. de Candolle, G^ogr. Bot. Eais., p. 833.
* Thomson, A7inals of Philosophy, June, 1834; Dutrochet, Larrey,
and Costaz, Comptes rendus de I'Acad. des. Sc, Paris, 1837, sem. i. p. 739;
Unger, Bot. Streifzilge, iv. p. 62.
> Other Hebrew words are interpreted " flax," but this is the most
certain. See Hamilton, La Botanique de la Bible, Nice, 1871, p. 58.
' Piddington, Index Ind. Plants; Roxbnri,'h, Fl. hid., edit. 1832, ii.
p. 110. The name matusi indicated by Piddington belongs to othev
plants, according to Ad. Pictet, Orijines Indo-Euro., edit. 2, vol. i. p. o96.
124 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
lead me to believe that two o; thre' species of different
origin, conf )unded by most autb )rs under tlie name of
Xm2i,mitsi^<fiSsi7)iM,77i, were formerly cultivated in different
countries, without imitation or communication the one
with the other. ... I am very doubtful whether the
species cultivated by the ancient Egyptians was the
species indigenous in Russia and in Siberia."
My conjectures were confirmed ten years later by a
very curious discovery made by Oswald Hter. The lake-
dwellers of Eastern Switzerland, at a time when they only
used stone implements, and did not know the use of hemp,
cultivated and wove a flax which is not our common
annual flax, but the perennial flax called Liiniin anrjusti-
folium, which is wild south of the Alps. This is shown
by the examination of the capsules, seeds, and especially
of the lower part of a plant carefully extracted from the
sediment at Robenhausen.^ The illustration published
by Heer shows distinctly a root surmounted by from two
to four stems after the manner of perennial plants. The
stems had been cut, whereas our common flax is plucked
up by the roots, another proof of the persistent nature
of the plant. With the remains of the Robenhausen flax
some grains of Slleiie eretica were found, a species
which is also foreign to Switzerland, and abundant in
Italy in the fields of flax.^ Hence Heer concluded that
the Swiss lake-dwellers imported the seeds of the Italian
flax. This was apparently the case, unless we suppose
that the climate of Switzerland at that time differed
from that of our own epoch, for the perennial flax would
not at the present day survive the winters of Eastein
Switzerland.^ Heer's opinion is supported by the
surprising fact that flax lias not been found among the
remains of the lake-dwellings of Laybach and Mondsee
* Heer, Die Pflanzen der Pfahlbaufen, 8vo pamphlet, Zuricli, 1865,
p. 35 ; Uvher den Flachs und die Flachskultur in Alterthum, pamphlet in
8vo, Zurich, 1872.
Bertoloni, FI. Ital., \y. p. 612.
* We have seen that flax is found towards the north-west of Europe,
but nob immediately north of the Alps. Porliaps the climate of Switzer-
land was forme ly more equable than it is now, with more snow to
shtjlter perenn al plants.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 125
of the Austrian States, where bronze has been discovered.^
The late epoch of the introduction of flax into this region
exchides the hypothesis that the inhabitants of Switzer-
land received it from Eastern Europe, from which, more-
over, they were separated by immense forests.
Since the ingenious observations of the Zurich savant,
a flax has been discovered which was employed by the
prehistoric inhabitants of the peat-mosses of Lagozza,
in Lombardy ; and Sordelli has shown that it was the
same as that of Robenhausen, L. angustifuliu'in? This
ancient people was ignorant of the use of hemp and of
metals, but they possessed the same cereals as the Swiss
lake-dwellers of the stone age, and ate like them the
acorns of Querciis rohur, var. sessilijiora. There was,
therefore, a civilization which had reached a certain
development on both sides of the Alps, before metals,
even bronze, were in common use, and before hemp and
the domestic fowl were known.^ It was probably before
the arrival of the Aryans in Europe, or soon after that
event.*
The common names of the flax in ancient European
languages may throw some light on this question.
The name tin, llin, linu, linon, linuin, lein, Ian,
exists in all the European languages of Aryan origin of
the centre and south of Europe, Keltic, Slavonic, Greek,
or Latin. This name is, however, not common to the
Arj-an languages of India; consequently, as Pictet^
justly says, the cultivation must have been begun by the
* Mittheil. Anthrnpol. Gesellschaft, Wien, vol. ti. pp. 122, 161; Ahhandl,
Wicn Akad., M, p. 488.
* Sordelli, Sidle piante della tm-biera e delta stazione preistorica
della Lagozza, pp. 37, ^1, printed at the conclnsion of Castelfranco's
Noiizie alia stazione lacustre della Lagozza, in Svo, Atti della Soc. Itul.
Sc. Nat, 1880.
* The fowl was introduced into Greece from Asia in the sixth
century before Christ, according to Heer, Ueh. d. Flachs, p. 25.
* These discoveries in the peat. mosses of Lagozza and elsewhere in
Italj show how far Hehn was mistaken in supposing that {KuUv.rpfl., edit.
3, ]877, p. 524) the Swiss lake-dwellers were near the time of Caesar.
The men of the snme civilization as they to the south of the Alps were
evidently more ancient than the Roman republic, perhaps than the
Ligurians.
* Ad. Pictet, Origines Indo-Europ., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 396.
126 OEIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS,
western Aryans, and before their arrival in Eurojie.
Another idea occurred to me which led me into further
researches, but they were unproductive. I thought that,
since this flax was cultivated by the lake-dwellers of
Switzerland and Italy before the arrival of the Aryan
peoples, it was probably also grown by the Iberians, who
then occupied Spain a,nd Gaul ; and perhaps some special
name for it has remained among the Basques, the sup-
posed descendants of the Iberians. Now, according to
several dictionaries of their language,^ liho, lino, or U,
accordins: to the dialects, signifies flax, which agrees with
the name diffused throughout Southern Europe. The
Basques seem, therefore, to have received flax from
peoples of Aryan origin, or perhaps they have lost the
ancient name and substituted that of the Kelts and
Romans. The name fiachs or flax of the Teutonic lan-
guages comes from the Old German flahs. There are also
special names in the north-west of Europe }jellaiva,
aiivina, in Finnish ; ^ hor, hdrr, hor, in Danish ; ^ hor
and tone in ancient Gothic* Haar exists in the German
of Salzburg.^ This word may be in the ordinary sense
of the German for thread or hair, as the name li may
be connected with the same root as ligai'e, to bind, and as
hor, in the plural horvar, is connected by philologists ^
with harva, the German root for Fiachs ; but it is, never-
theless, a fact that in Scandinavian countries and in
Finland terms have been used which differ from those
employed throughout the south of Europe. This variety
shows the antiquity of the cultivation, and agrees with
the fact that tlie lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy
cultivated a species of flax before the first invasion of the
Aryans. It is possible, I might even say probable, that
' Van Eys, Diet Basque-Franrais, 1876; Geze, Elements de Gram-
maire Basque suivis d'uii vocahulaire, Bayonne, 1873; Salaberry, Mots
Basques Navarrais, Bayonne, 1856; I'Ecluse, Vocah. Franf.-Basqiie, 1826.
* Nemnich, Puhj. Lex. d. Natunjesch., ii. p. 420 ; Rafn, Daiunark
Flora, ii. p. 390.
Nemnich, ibid. * Hid. * Ibid.
6 Fick, Vergl. Worferluch. Tnd. Germ., 2nd edit, i. p. 722. He also
derives the name Liria from the Latin linmn ; but thi.s name is of earlier
date, being comuioii to several European Aryau languages.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 127
the latter imported the name li rather than the plant or
its cultivation; but as there is no wild flix in the north
of Europe, an ancient people, the Finns, of Turanian
origin, introduced the flax into the north before the
Aryans. In this case they must have cultivated the
annual flax, for the perennial variet}^ will not bear the
severity of the northern winters; while we know how
favourable the climate of Riga is in summer to the culti-
vation of the annual flax. Its first introduction into
Gaul, Switzerland, and Italy may have been from the
south, by the Iberians, and in Finland by the Finns; and
the Aryans may have afterwards diffused those names
which were commonest among themselves that of linum
in the south, and of flalis in the north. Perhaps the
Ar^^ans and Finns had brought the annual flax from
Asia, which would soon have been substituted for the
perennial variety, which is less productive and less
adapted to cold countries. It is not known precisely at
what epoch the cultivation of the annual flax in Italy
took the place of that of the perennial linum angusti-
folium, but it must have been before the Christian era ;
for Latin authors speak of a well-established cultivation,
and Pliny says that the flax was sown in spring and
rooted up in the summer.^ Metal implements were not
then wanting, and therefore the flax would have been
cut if it had been perennial. Moreover, the latter, if
sown in spring, would not have ripened till autumn.
For the same reasons the flax cultivated by the
ancient Egyptians must have been an annual. Hitherto
neither entire plants nor a great number of capsules have
been found in the catacombs of a nature to furnish direct
and incontestable proof Unger ^ alone was able to ex-
amine a capsule taken from the bricks of a monument,
which Leipsius attributes to the thirteenth or fourteenth
century before Christ, and he found it more like those
of L. usitatissimwni than of L. angustifoliuni. Out of
three seeds which Braun^ saw in the Berlin Museum,
' Pliny, bk. xix. c. 1 : Vere satum cestaie vellitur.
* Unger, Botanische Streifzilje, 1866, No. 7, p. 15.
A. Braun, Die Pjianzenreste den JEgyptischen Museums in Berlin, in
8v'o, 1877, p. 4.
128 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
mixed with those of other cultiv^ated plants, one appeared
to him to belong to L. anguLstifolium, and the other to
L. humile ; but it must be owned that a sincjle seed
without plant or capsule is not sufficient proof. Ancient
Egyptian paintings show that flax was not reaped with
a sickle like cereals, but uprooted.^ In Egy])t flax is
cultivated in the winter, for the summer drought would
no more allow of a perennial variety, than the cold of
northern countries, where it is sown in spring, to be
gathered in in summer. It may be added that the
annual flax of the variety called humile is the only one*
now grown in Abyssinia, and also the only one that
modern collectors have seen in Egypt.^
Heer suggests that the ancient Egyptians may have
cultivated L. angiistifolium of the Mediterranean region,
sowing it as an annual plant.^ I am more inclined
to believe that they had previously imported or re-
ceived their flax from Egypt, already in the form of the
species L. humile. Their modes of cultivation, and the
figures on the monuments, show that their knowledge
of the plant dated from a remote antiquity. Now it is
known that the Egyptians of the first dynasties before
Cheops belonged to a proto-semitic race, which came
into Eg3^pt by the isthmus of Suez.* Flax has been
found in a tomb of ancient Chaldea prior to the existence
of Babylon,^ and its use in this region is lost in the
remotest antiquity. Thus the first Egyptians of white
race may have imported the cultivated flax, or their im-
mediate successors may have received it from Asia before
the epoch of the Phoenician colonies in Greece, and before
direct communication was established between Gieece
and Egypt under the fourteenth dynasty.^
' Rosellini, pis. 35' and 36, quoted by Unger, But. Sfreifzdje, No. 4,
p. 62.
* W. Schimper, Ascherson, Boiss'er. Schweinfarth, quoted by Braun.
Keer, Ueb. d. Flachs, p. 26.
* Maspero, llistoire Ancienne des Peuples de I Orient., edit. 3, Paris,
1878, p. 13.
* Journal of the Royal Asiat. Soc, vol. xv. p. 271, quoted by Ileer, Ueb.
den Fl.
* Maspero, p. 213.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEilS OR LEAVES. I2d
A very early introduction of the j)lant into Egypt
from Asia does not prevent us from admitting that it was
at different times taken from the East to the West at
a later epoch than that of the lirst Egyptian dynasties.
Thus the western Arj^ans and the Phoenicians may have
introduced into Europe a flax more advaiitnQ;eous than
L. angustifollum during the period from 2'){)0 to 12U0
years before our era.
The cultivation of the plant by the Aryans must have
extended further north than that by the Phoenicians. In
Greece, at the time of the Trojan war, fine linen stuffs
were still imported from Colchis ; that is to say, from
that region at the foot of the Caucasus where the com-
mon annual flax has been found wild in modern times.
It does not appear that the Greeks cultivated the plant
at that epoch.^ The Aryans had perhaps already intro-
duced its cultivation into the valley of the Danube. How-
ever, I noticed just now that the lacustrine remains of
Mondsee and Laybach show no trace of any flax. In the
last centuries before the Christian era the Romans pro-
cured very fine linen from Spain, although the names
of the plant in that country do not tend to show that the
Phcenicians introduced it. There is not any Oriental
name existing in Europe belonging either to antiquity
or to the Middle Ages. The Arabic name Jaittan, kettane,
or kittane, of Persian origin,^ has spread w^estward only
among the Kabyles of Algeria.*
The sum of facts and probabilities appear to me to
lead to the following statements, which may be accepted
until they are modified by further discoveries.
1. Linum ang list if oil inn, usually perennial, rarely
biennial or annual, which is found wild from the Canary
Isles to Palestine and the Caucasus, was cultivated in
Switzerland and the north of Italy by peoples more
ancient than the conquerors of Aryan race. Its cultiva-
tion was replaced by that of the annual flax.
' The Greek texts are qnoted in Lenz. Bot. der Alt. Gr. und Bom.,
p. 672 ; and in Helm, Cidtuypfl. und Hausthiere, edit. 3, p. 1J4.
* Ad. Pictet, Origines Indo-Europ.
* Bictionnaire Franf.-Berbere, 1 voL in 8vo, 1814.
130 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
2. The annual flax {L. usitatisswium), cultivjited for
at least four thousand or five thousand years in Mesopo-
tamia, Assyria, and Egypt, was and still is wild in the
districts included between the Persian Gulf, the Caspian
Sea, and the Black Sea.
3. This annual flax appears to have been introduced
into the north of Europe by the Finns (of Turanian race),
afterwards into the rest of Europe by the western Aryans,
and pfrhaps here and there by the Phoenicians; lastly
into Hindustan by the eastern Aryans, after their sepa-
ration from the European Aryans.
4. These two principal forms or conditions of flax
exist in cultivation, and have probably been wild in their
modern areas for the last five thousand years at least.
Tt is not possible to guess at their previous condition.
Their transitions and varieties are so numerous that they
may be considered as one species comprising two or three
hereditary varieties, which are each again divided into
subvarieties.
Jute Corchorus ccq'^sularis and Corchorus olitoriuSf
Linnseus.
The fibres of the jute, imported in great quantities in
the last few years, especially into England, are taken
from the stem of these two species of Corchorus, annuals
of the family of the Tiliacese. The leaves are also used
as a vegetable.
C. capsularls has a nearly spherical fruit, flattened
at the top, and surrounded by longitudinal ridges.
There is a good coloured illustration of it in the work of
the younger Jacquin, Edogce, p]. 119. G. olitorius, on
the contrary, has a long fruit, like the pod of a Crucifer.
It is figured in the Botanical Magazine, fig. 2810, and in
Lamarck, fig. 478.
The species of the genus are distributed nearly equally
in the warm regions of Asia, Africa, and America ; con-
sequently the origin of each cannot be guessed. It must
l)e sought in floras and herbaria, with the help of his-
toiical and other data.
Corchorus capsuliris is comnonly cultivated in
the Sunda Islands, in Ceylon, iu the peninsula of Ilin-
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 131
dustan, in Bengal, in Southern China, in the Philippine
Islands,^ generally in Southern Asia. Forster does not
mention it in his work on the plants in use among the
inhabitants of the Pacific, whence it may be inferred
that at the time of Cook's voyages, a century ago, its cul-
tivation had not spread in that direction. It may even
be suspected from this fact that it does not date from a
very remote epoch in the isles of the Indian Archipelago.
Blume says that Corchorus capsularis grows in the
marshes of Java near Parang,^ and I have two speci-
mens from Java which are not given as cultivated.^
Thwaites mentions it as "very common " in Ceylon.*
On the continent of Asia, authors speak more of it
as a plant cultivated in Bengal and China. Wight, who
gives a good illustration of the plant, does not mention
its native place. Edgeworth,^ who has studied on the
spot the flora of the district of Banda, says that it is
found in " the fields." In the Flora of Briiish India,
Masters, who drew up the article on the Tiliaceae from
the herbarium at Kew, says " in the hottest regions of
India, cultivated in most tropical countries." ^ I have
a specimen from Bengal which is not given as cul-
tivated. Loureiro says "wild, and cultivated in the
province of Canton in China,'' which probably means
wild in Cochin-China, and cultivated in Canton. In Japan
the plant grows in cultivated soil.^ In conclusion, I am
not convinced that the species exists in a truly wild state
north of Calcutta, although it may perhaps have spread
from cultivation and have sown itself here and there.
C. capsularis has been introduced into various parts
of tropical Africa and even of America, but it is only
cultivated on a large scale for the production of jute
thread in Southern Asia, and especially in Bengal.
' Eumpliius, Amhoin, vol. v. p. 212 ; Boxbnrgh, Fl. Ind., ii. p. 5S1;
Loureiro, Fl. Cocliinchine, vi. p. 408.
* Blume, Bijdmgen, i. p. 110. ^ Zollinger, Nos. 1G98 and 27C1.
* Thwaites, Enum. PI. Zeylan.,'p. 31.
* Edgevvorth, Linnman Soc. Jown., ix.
* Masters, in Hooker's Fl. Hrit. Ind., i. p. 397.
' Ijoureiro, Fl. Coc/im., i. p. 408.
8 Fianciiet aud Savatier, Enum., i. p. 66.
7
132 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
C. olitorius is more used as a vegetable tlian for
its fibres. Out of Asia it is employed exclusively for
the leaves. It is one of the commonest of culinary
plants among the modern Egyptians and Syrians, who
call it in Arabic melokych, but it is not likely that they
had any knowledge of it in ancient times, as we know
of no Hebrew name.-'^ The present inhabitants of Crete
cultivate it under the name of riiouchlia,^ evidently
derived from the Arabic, and the ancient Greeks were
not acquainted with it.
According to several authors '"^ this species of Corchorus
is wild in several provinces of British India. Thwaites
says it is common in the hot districts of Ceylon ; but in
Java, Blume only mentions it as growing among rubbish
(in ruderatis). I cannot find it mentioned in Cochin-China
or Japan. Boissier saw specimens from Mesopotamia,
Afghanistan, Syria, and Anatolia, but gives as a general
indication, "culta, et in ruderatis subspontanea." No
Sanskrit name for the two cultivated species of Corchorus
is known. ^
Touching the indigenous character of the plant in
Africa, Masters, in Oliver's Flora of Tropical Africa (i.
p. 262j, says, " wild, or cultivated as a vegetable through
out tropical Africa." He attributes to the same species
two plants from Guinea which G. Don had described as
different, and as to whose wild nature he probably knew
nothing. I have a specimen from Kordofan gathered by
Kotschy, No. 45, "on the borders of the fields of sorghum."
Peters, as far as I know, is the only author who asserts
that the plant is Avild. He found C. olitorius " in
dry places, and also in the meadows in the neighbour-
hood of Sena and Tette." Schweinfurth only gives it as
a cultivated plant in the whole Nile Valley.^ This is
also the case in the flora of Senegambia by Guillemin,
Perrottet, and Bichard.
* Rosenmiiller, Bihl. Naturgesch.
' Von Heldreicli, Die Nufzpfi. Griechenl., p. 53.
Masters, in Hooker's Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 3D7 ; Aitcliison, Catal.
Punjab, p. 23 ; Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., ii. p. 58L
* Piddington, Index.
Snhweiufurth, Beitr. z. Fl. AJIhiop., p. 264.
i
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 133
To sum un, C. olitorius seems to be wild in the mode-
rately waim regions of Western India, of Kordofan, and
probably of some intermediate countries. It must have
spread from the coast of Timor, and as far as Northern
Australia, into Africa and towards Anatolia, in the wake
of a cultivation not perhaps ot earlier date than the
Christian era, even at its origin.
In spite of the assertions made in various works, the
cnltivation of this plant is rarely indicated in America.
I note, however, on Grisebaeh's authority,^ that it has
become naturalized in Jamaica from gardens, as often
happens in the case of cultivated annuals.
Sumach. Mhus coriaria.
This tree is cultivated in Spain and Italy ^ for the
young shoots and leaves, which are dried and made into
a powder for tanning. I recently saw a plantation in
Sicily, of which the product was exported to America.
As oak -bark becomes more rare and substances for tan-
ning are more in demand, it is probable that this cultiva-
tion will spread ; all the more that it is suitable to sandy,
sterile regions. In Algeria, Australia, at the Gape, and.
in the Argentine Republic, it might be introduced with
advantage.^ Ancient peoples used the slightly acid fruits
as a seasoning, and the custom has lingered here and
there ; but I find no proof that they cultivated the
species.
It grows wild in the Canaries and in Madeira, in
the Mediterranean reoion and in the neiohbourhood of
the Black Sea, prefeiring dry and stony ground. In
Asia its area extends as far as the south of the Cau-
casus, the Caspim Sea, and Persia.** The species is
so common that it may have been in use before it was
cultivated.
Grisebach, M. of Brit. TTesi Ind., p. 97.
* Bosc, Bict. d'Agric, at the word " Sumac."
* The conditions and methods of the culture of the sumach are the
subject of an important paper by Inzenga, translated in the Bull.
Soc. d'Acclim., Feb. 1877. In the Trans. Bot. Soc. of Edinburgh, ix.p. 341,
may be seen an extract from an earlier paper by the author on the same
Bubject.
* Ledebour, Fl. Eoss., i. p. 509 ; Boissior, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 4.
134 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS,
Sumacli is the Persian and Tartar name; ^ o^ous, rfius,
the ancient name among the Greeks and Romans.^
A proof of the persistence of certain common names is
found in the French " Currier's ronx or roitre."
Khat, or Arab Tea Catha edulis, Forskal; Celastrus
edulis, Vahl.
This shrub, belonging to the family of the Celastracece ,
is largely cultivated in Abyssinia, under the name of
tchut or tchaf, and in Arabia under that of cat or gat. Its
leaves are chewed, when green, like those of the coca in
America, and they have the same exciting and strength-
ening properties. Those of uncultivated plants have a
stronger taste, and are even intoxicating. Botta saw
that in Yemen as nnich importance is attributed to the
cultivation of the Catha as to that of coffee, and he
mentions that a sheik, who is obliged to receive many
visits of ceremony, bought as much as a hundred francs' i
worth of leaves a day.^ In Abyssinia an infusion is
also made from the leaves.^ In spite of the eagerness
with which stimulants are sought, this species has nut
spread into the adjoining countries, such as Beluchistan,
Southern India, etc., where it might succeed.
The Catlia is wild in Abys.sinia,^ but has not yet been
found wild in Arabia. It is true that the interior of
tlie countiy is nearly unknown to botanists. It cannot
be ascertained from Botta's account whether the wild
plants he mentions are wild and indigenous, or escaped
from cultivation and more or less naturalized. Perhaps
the Catha was introduced from Abyssinia with the coffee
plant, which likewise has not been discovered wild in
Arabia. i
Mate Ilex para r/ui(rie')}sis, Saint-Hilaire. |
The inhabitants of Brazil and of Paraguay have em-
* Nemnich, Pohjijl. Lexicon, ii. p. 1156 ; Aiuslie, Mat. Med. Ind., i.
p. 414.
* Fraap, Srn. Fl. Claxs., p. 85.
* Forskal, Flora JEijy pto-Arabica,\). 65 ; Ricliard, Tenfamen Fl. jlby.v.,
i. p. 134, pi. 30; Botta, A>rhives du Musium, ii. p. 73.
* Hociistetter, Flora, 1811, p. 663.
* Schweinfnrth and Asclierson, Aafzdhlung, p. 263; Oliver, Fl.
Trap. A/r., i. p. 364.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 135
ployed from time immemorial the leaves of this shrub, as
the Chinese have those of the tea plant. They gather them
especially in the dainp forests of the intei'ior, between the
degrees of 20 and 30 south latitude, and commerce trans-
ports them dried to great distances throughout the greater
part of South America. These leaves contain, with aroma
and tannin, a principle analogous to that of tea and coffee :
tliey are not, however, much liked in the countries where
Chinese tea is known. The plantations of mate are not
yet as important as the product of the wild shrub, but
they may increase as the population increases More-
over, the preparation is simpler than that of tea, as the
leaves are not rolled.
Illustrations and descriptions of the species, with a
number of details about its use and properties, may be
found in the works of Saint-Hilaire, of Sir William
Hooker, and of Martins.^
Coca. Erythroxijlon Coca, Lamarck.
The natives of Peru and of the neighbouring pro-
vinces, at least in the hot moist regions, cultivate this
shrub, of which they chew the leaves, as the natives of
India chew the leaves of the betel. It is a very ancient
custom, which has spread even into elevated regions,
where the species cannot live. Now that it is known how
to extract the essential part of the coca, and its virtues
are recognized as a tonic, which gives strength to endure
fatigue without having the drawbacks of alcoholic liquors,
it is probable that an attempt will be made to extend
its cultivation in America and elsewhere. In Guiana, for
instance, the Malay Archipelago, or the valleys of Sikkim
and Assam, or in Hindustan, since both moisture and heat
are requisite. Frost is very injurious to the species. The
best sites are the slopes of hills where water cannot lie.
An attempt made in the neighbourhood of Lima failed,
because of the infrequency of rain and perhaps because
of insufficient heat,^
* Aug. fie Saint Hilaire, Mem-, du Museum, ix. p. 351 ; Ann. 8c.
Nat., 3rd series, xiv. p. 52 ; Hooker, London Journal of Botany, i. p. 34 ;
Martins, Flora Brasiliensis, vol. ii. part 1, p. 119.
Martinet, Bull. Soc. d'Acclim., 1874, p. 449.
136 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
I shall not repeat here what may be found in several
excellent treatises on the coca ; ^ I need only say that the
original home of the species in America is not yet clearly
ascertained. Gosse has shown that early authors, such as
Jose])h de Jussieu, Lamarck, and Cavanilles, had only seen
cultivated specimens. Mathews gathered it in Peru, in
the ravine (qiiehrada) of Chinchao,^ which appears to be a
place beyond the limits of cultivation. Some specimens
I'rom Cuchero, collected by Poeppig,^ are said to be wild ;
but the traveller himself was not convinced of their wild
nature.^ D'Orbigny thinks he saw the wild coca on
a hill in the eastern part of Bolivia.^ Lastly, M. Andi'd
has had the courtesy to send me the specimens of Ery~
throxylon in his herbarium, and I recognized the coca in
several specimens from the valley of the river Cauca ia
New Granada, with the note " in abundance, wild or half-
wild." Triana, however, does not admit that the species
is wild in his country, New Granada.^ Its extreme im-
portance in Peru at the time of the Incas, compared to
the rarity of its use in New Granada, seems to show
that it has escaped from cultivation in places where it
occurs in the latter country, and that the species is in-
digenous only in the east of Peru and Bolivia, according
to the indications of the travellers mentioned above.
Dyer's Indigo. Tndigofera tinctoria, Linnaeus.
The Sanskrit name is nili. ' The Latin name,
indicum, shows that the Romans knew tliat the indiiro
was a substance brought from India. As to the wild
nature of the plant, Roxburgh says, " Native place un-
known, for, though it is now common in a wild state in
most of the provinces of India, it is seldom found far from
the districts where it is now cultivated, or has been culti-
vated formerly." Wight and Royle, who have published
illustrations of the species, tell us nothing on this hea<l,
* Particularly in Gosse's Monographie de V Ei~y throxylon Coca, in
8vo, 186L
* Hooker, Comp. to the Bot. Mag., ii. p. 25.
* Peyritsch, in the Fiora Brasil., fasc. 81, p. 156.
* Hooker, Comp. to the Bot. Mag. * Gtsse, ^fonogr., p. 12.
* Triana and Planchon, Ann. Sciences Nat., 4th series, vul. 18, p. 338
' lloxburgh, Fl. Ind., iii. p. 379.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 137
and more recent Indian floras mention the plant as
cultivated.^ Several other indigoes are wild in India.
This species has been found in the sands of Senegal,^
but it is not mentioned in other African localities, and
as it is often cultivated in Senegal, it seems probable
that it is naturalized. The existence of a Sanskrit name
renders its Asiatic origin most probable.
Silver Indigo Indigofera argentea.
This species is certainly wild in Abyssinia, Nubia,
Kordofan, and Senaar.^ It is cultivated in Egypt and
Arabia. Hence we might suppose that it was from this
species that the ancient Egyptians extracted a blue dye ; ^
but perhaps they imported their indigo from India, for
its cultivation in Egypt is probably not of earlier date
than the Middle Ages.
A slightly different form, which Roxburgh gives as
a separate species (Indigofera cccrulea), and which
appears rather to be a variety, is wild in the plains of
the peninsula of flindustan and of Beluchistan.
American Indigoes.
There are probably one or two indigoes indigenous in
America, but ill defined, and often intermixed in cultiva-
tion with the species of the old world, and naturalized
beyond the limits of cultivation. This interchange makes
the matter too uncertain for me to venture upon any
researches into their original habitat. Some authors
have thought that /. Anil, Linnseus, was one of these
species. Linnaeus, however, says that his plant came
from India (3Iantissa, p. 273). The blue dye of the
ancient Mexicans was extracted from a plant which,
according to Hernandez' account,^ dilfers widely from the
indigoes.
' Wight, Icones, t. 3G5 ; Rojle, El. Himal., t. 195 ; Baker, in Flora
of Brit. Ind., ii. p. 98 ; Brandis, Forest Flora, p. 136.
* Guillemin, Perrottet, and Richard, Flora Seneg. Tentamen, p. 178.
* Richard, Tentamen Fl. Abyss., i. 184. ; Oliver, Fl. of Trap. Afr.,
ii. p. 97 ; Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Aufzalilung, p. 256.
* Unger, Pflanzen d. Alt. .gyptens, p. 66; Pickering, Chronol,
Arrang., p. 443.
* Reyner, Economie des Juifs, p. 439 ; des Egyptiens, p. 354.
* Hernandez, Thes., p. 108.
138 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Henna Laiusonia alha, Lamarck (Lawsonia inermis
and L. spinosa of different authors).
The custom amono- Eastern women of stdninor their
nails red with the juice of henna-leaves dates from a
remote anti(juity, as ancient E^^yptian paintings and
mummies show.
It is difficult to know when and in what country this
species was first cultivated to fulfil the requirements of a
fashion as absurd as it is persistent, but it may be from
a very early epoch, since the inhabitants of Babylon,
Nineveh, and the towns of Egj^pt had gardens. It may
be left to scholars to show whether the practice of stain-
ing the nails began in Egypt under this or that dynasty,
before or after certain relations were established with
Eastern nations. It is enough for our purpose to know
that Laiusonia, a shrub belonging to the order of the
Lythraceoe, is more or less wild in the warm regions of
Western Asia and of Africa to the north of the e(|uator.
I have in my possession specimens from India, Java,
Timor, even from China ^ and Nuljia, which are not said
to be taken from cultivated plants, and others fiom
Guiana and the West Indies, which are doubtless fur-
nished by the imported species. Stocks found it indige-
nous in Beluchistan.^ Roxburgh also considered it to be
wild on the Coromandel ^ coast, and Thwaites * mentions
it in Ceylon in a manner which seems to show that it is
wild there. Clarke^ says, "very common, and cultivated
in India, perhaps wild in the eastern part." It is pos-
sible that it spread into India from its original home, as
into Ambojma '^ in the seventeenth centur}', and perhaps
more recently into the West Indies/ in the wake of culti-
vation ; for the plant is valued for the scent of its flowers,
as well as for the dye, and is easily propagated by seed.
Fortune, No. 32.
* Aitchiscn, Catal. of PI. of Purtjah and Sindh, p. CO; Boissier, Fl,
Orient., ii. p. 744.
' Roxbra-gh, Fl. Ind., ii. p. 258.
Thwaitts, Emtm. PI. ZeuL, p. 122.
* Clarke, in Hooker's Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 273.
Rumphius, Aiyib., iv. p. 42.
' Grisebach, Fl. Brit. 11'. Ind., i. p. 271.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 139
There is the same doubt as to whether it is indigenous
in Persia, Arabia, and Egj^pt (an essentially cultivated
country), in Nubia, and even in Guinea, where specimens
have been gathered.-^ It is even possible that the area of
this shrub extends from India to Nubia. Sach a wide
geographical distribution is, however, always somewhat
rare. The common names may furnish some indication.
A Sanskrit name, sakachera,^ is attributed to the
species, but as it has left no trace in the different modern
languages of India, I am inclined to doubt its reality.
The Persian name hanna is more widely diffused and
retained than any other {Inna of the Hindus, henneh and
alhenna of the Arabs, kinna of the modern Greeks).
That of cypros, used by the Syrians of the time of
Dioscorides,^ has not found so much favour. This fact
supports the opinion that the species grew originally
on the borders of Persia, and that its use as well as
its cultivation spread from the East to the West, from
Asia into Africa.
Tobacco Kicotiana Tabacum, Linnaeus ; and other
species of Nicotiana.
At the time of the discovery of America, the custom
of smoking, of snuff-taking, or of chewing tobacco was
diffused over the greater part of this vast continent.
The accounts of the earliest travellers, of which the
famous anatomist Tiedemann ^ has made a very complete
collection, show that the inhabitants of South America
did not smoke, but chewed tobacco or took snufF, except
in the district of La Plata, Uruguay, and Paraguay,
where no form of tobacco was used. In North America,
from the Isthmus of Panama and the West Indies as far
as Canada and California, the custom of smoking was
universal, and circumstances show that it was also very
ancient. Pipes, in great numbers and of wonderful work-
manship, have been discovered in the tombs of the Aztecs
' Oliver, Fl. of Trap. Afr., ii. p. 483.
* Piddington, Index.
' Dioscorides, 1, c. 124 ; Lenz, Bof. d. Alfen, p. 177.
* Tiedemann, Geschichte des Tahaks, in 8vo, 1854. For Brazil, see
Martina, Beitrage zur Ethnographie und Sprachkunde Amerikas, i. p. 719.
140 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
in Mexico ^ and in the mounds of the United States ;
some of them represent animals foreign to North America.^
As the tobacco plant is an annual which gives a great
quantity of seeds, it was easy to sow and to cultivate or
naturalize them more or less in the neighbourhood of
dwellings, but it must be noted that different species of
the genus Nicotiana were employed in 'different parts
of America, which shows that they had not all the
same origin. Nicotiana Tahacuvi, commonly cultivated,
was the most widely diffused, and sometimes the only
one in use in South America and the West Indies. The
use of tobacco was introduced into La Plata, Paraguay,^
and Uruguay by the Spaniards, consequently we must
look further to the north for the origin of the plant.
De Martins does not think it w^as indigenous in Brazil,^
and he adds that the ancient Brazilians smoked the
leaves of a species belonging to their country known
to botanists as Nicotiana Langsdorjii. When I went
into the question in 1855,^ I had not been able to dis-
cover any wild specimens of Nicotiana Tabacum except
those sent by 131anchet from the province of Bahia,
numbered 32:^3, a. JSfo author, either before or since that
time, has been more fortunate, and I see that Messrs.
Fliickiger and Hanbury, in their excellent vrork on
vegetable drugs,^ say positively, " The common tobacco
is a native of the new w^orld, though not now known
in a wild state." I venture to gainsay this assertion,
although the wild nature of a plant may alv/ays be
disputed in the case of a plant which spreads so ea.sily
from cultivation.
We find in herbaria a number of .specimens gathered in
Peru without indication that they were cultivated or that
they grew near plantations. Boissier's herbarium contains
' Tiedemann, p. 17, pi. 1.
* The drawings on these pipes are reprodnced in Naidail'.ac's recent
work, Les Premiers Hommes et les Temps Frih'storiques, vol. ii. pp.
45, 4.
* Tiedemann, pp. 38, 39.
* Martius, Si/.sf. Mat. Med. Bra.^., p. 120; FI. Bras., \c\. x. p. 191.
* A. de Candolle, Geogr. Bot. Eai.''07in^e, p. 843.
* Fliickiger and Hanburv, Pharmacographia, p. 418.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 141
two specimens collected by Pavon, from different locali-
ties.^ Pavon says in his fiora that the species grows in
the moist warm forests of the Peruvian Andes, and that it
is cultivated. But and this is more significant Edouard
Andr^ gathered specimens in the republic of Ecquador
at Saint Nicholas, on the western slope of the volcano of
Corazon in a virgin forest. These he was kind enough
to send me. They are evidently the tall variety (four to
six feet) of JS'. Tabacum, with the upper leaves narrow
and acuminate, as they are represented in the plates of
Hayne and Miller.^ The lower leaves are wanting. The
flower, which gives the true characters of the species, is
certainly that of N. Tahacum, and it is well known that
the height of this plant and the breadth of the leaves
vary in cultivation.^ It is very possible that its original
country extended north as far as Mexico, as far south as
Bolivia, and eastward to Venezuela.
Nicotiana rustica, Linnaeus, a species with yellow
flowers, very diHerent from Tahacum,'^ and which yields
a coarse kind of tobacco, was more often cultivated by
the Mexicans and the native tribes north of Mexico. I
have a specimen brought from California by Douglas in
1837, a time when colonists were still few; but American
authorities do not admit that the plant is wild, and Dr.
Asa Gray says that it sows itself in waste places.^ This
was perhaps the case with the specimens in Boissier's
herbarium, gathered in Peru by Pavon, and which he
does not mention in the Peruvian flora. The species
grows in abundance about Cordova in the Argentine
Republic,^ but from what epoch is unknown. From the
* One of these is classed under the name Nicot. fruticosa, which in
my opinion is the same species, tall, but not woody, as the name would
lead one to believe. N. auriculata, Bertero, is also Tabacum, according
to my authentic specimens.
* Hayne, Arzneikunde Gewachse, vol. xii. t. 41 ; Miller, Figures of
Plants, pi. 185, f. 1.
' The capsule is sometimes shorter and sometimes longer than the
calix, on the same plant, in Andre's specimens.
* See the figures of N. rastica in Plee, Types de Families Naturellea
de France, Solanees ; BuUiard, Herbier de France, t. 289.
* Asa Gray, Syn. Flora of North Amer. (1878), p. 2il.
* Martin de Moussy, Baser, de la R'pib. Argsnt., i, p. 193,
142 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
ancient use of the plant and the home of the most analo-
gous species, the probahilities are in favour of a Mexican,
Texan, or Californian origin.
Sevei'al botanists, even Americans, have believed that
the species came from the old world. This is certainly
a mistake, although the plant has spread here and there
even into our forests, and sometimes in abundance,^
having escaped from cultivation. Authoi's of the six-
teenth century spoke of it as a foreign plant introduced
into gardens and sometimes spreading from them.^ It
occurs in some herbaria under the names of N. tar-
tarica, turcica, or sibirica ; but these are garden-grown
specimens, and no botanist has found the species in Asia,
or on the borders of Asia, with any appearance of wildness.
This leads me to refute a widespread and more per-
sistent error, in spite of what I proved in 1855, namely,
that of regarding some species ill described from culti-
vated specimens as natives of the old world, of Asia in
pai'ticular. The proofs of an American origin are so
numerous and consistent that, without entering much
into detail, I may sum them up as follows :
A. Out of fifty species of the genus Nicotiana found
in a wild state, two only are foreign to America ; namely,
N suavolens of New Holland, with which is joined
iV. rotundifolia of the same country, and that which
Ventinat had wrongly styled N. undidata; and N. fra-
gans, Hooker, of the Isle of Pines, near New Caledonia,
which differs very little from the preceding.
B. Though the Asiatic people are great lovers of
tobacco, and have from a very early epoch sought the
smoke of certain narcotic plants, none of them made use
of tobacco before the discovery of America. Tiedemann
has distinctly proved this fact by thorough researches
into the writiiio-s of travellers in the Middle As^es.^ He
even quotes for a later epoch, not long after the dis-
covery of America, between 1540 and 1003, the fact that
' Bulliard, Herhier de France.
Caesalpinus, lib. viii. cap. 44; Banhin, Hist,, iii. p. 630.
Tiedemann, Geschichte des Tabaks (1854), p. 208. Two years
enrlier, Yolz, Beitrage zur Culturgeschichte, had collected a number
of facts relative to the introduction of tobacco into different countries.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 1 i3
F.everal travellers, some of whom were botanists, such as
Belon and Rauwolf, who travelled through the Turkish
and Persian empires, observing their customs with much
attention, have not once mentioned tobacco. It was
evidently introduced into Turkey at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, and the Persians soon received it
from the Turks. The first European who mentions the
smoking of tobacco in Persia is Thomas Herbert, in 1626.
No later travellers have omitted to notice the use of the
hookah as well established. Olearius describes this ap-
paratus, which he saw in 1633. The first mention of
tobacco in India is in 1605,^ and it is probable that it
was of European introduction. It was first introduced
at Arracan and Pegu, in 1619, according to the traveller
Methold.^ There are doubts about Java, because Rum-
phius, a very accurate observer, who wrote in the second
half of the seventeenth century, says^ that, according
to the tradition of some old people, tobacco had been
employed as a medicine before the arrival of the Portu-
guese in 1496, and that only the practice of smoking it
had been communicated by the Europeans. Rumphius
adds, it is true, that the name tahaco or tambuco, which
is in use in all these places, is of foreign origin. Sir
Stamford Raffles,* in his numerous historical researches
on Java, gives, on the other hand, the year 1601 as the
date of the introduction of tobacco into Java. The
Portuguese had certainly discovered the coasts of Brazil
between 1500 and 1504, but Vasco di Gama and his
successors went to Asia round the Cape, or through the
Red Sea, so that they could hardly have established
frequent or direct communications between America and
Java. Nicot had seen the plant in Portugal in 1560, so
that the Portuguese probably introduced it into Asia
in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Thunberg
alKrms^ that the use of tobacco was introduced into
' According to an anonymous Indian author quoted by Tiedemann,
p. 229.
* Tiedemann, p. 23i. * Ramphius, Herh. Amhoin v. p. 223,
* Raffles, Descr. of Java, p. 85.
* Thunberg, Flora Japonica, p. 91.
144 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Japan by the Portuguese, and according to early travellers
quoted by Tiedemann, this was at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. Lastly, the Chinese have no original
and ancient sign for tobacco ; their paintings on china
in the Dresden collection often present, from the year 1700
and never before that date, details relating to tobacco,^
and Chinese students are agreed that Chinese works do
not mention the plant before the end of the sixteenth
century.^ If it be remembered with what rapidity the
use of tobacco has spread wherever it has been intro-
duced, these data about Asia have an incontestable force.
C. The common names of tobacco confirm its
American origin. If there had been any indigenous
species in the old world there would be a great number
of different names; but, on the contrar^^, the Chinese,
Japanese, Javanese, Indian, Persian, etc., names are
derived from the American names, petitm, or tabak,
tahok, tamboc, slightly modified. It is true that Pid-
dington gives Sanskrit names, dhumrapatra and tom-
rakouta,^ but Adolphe Pictet informs me that the first of
these names, which is not in Wilson's dictionaiy-, means
only leaf for smoking, and appears to be of modern com-
position; while the second is probably no older, and
seems to be a "modern modification of the Amei'ican
names. The Arabic word docchan simply means smoke.'^
Lastly, we must inquire into the two so-called Asiatic
Nicotiance. The one, called by Lehmann Nicotiana
chinensis, came Irom the Russian botanist Fischer, who
said it was Chinese. Lehmann said he had seen it in a
garden. Now, it is well known how often an eiToneous
origin is attributed to plants grown by horticulturists
and besides, from the description, it seems that it was
simply N. Tubacum, of which the seeds had perhaps
couie from China.^ The second species is N. persica,
Klemm, quoted by Tiedemann, p. 256.
* Staaislas Julien, in de CandoUe, G4nqr. Bot. Rais., p. 851 ;
Bretschneider, Studij and Value, etc., p. 17.
Piddington, Index. * Forskal, p. G3.
* Lehmann, Historia I\icofinarum, p. IS. The epithet suffruiicosa
is an exaggeration applied to the tobacc( s, hic'i are always annual. I
have said already that N. snffruticoF-a of ditfcrent r.nlh irs is N. Tabacum,
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 145
Lindley, figured in the Botanical R'^gister (pi. 1592),
of which the seeds had been sent from Ispahan to the
Horticultural Society of London, as those of the best
tobacco cultivated in Persia, that of Schiraz. Lindley
did not observe that it corresponded exactly to N. alata,
drawn three years before by Link and Otto^ from a
plant in the gardens at Berlin. The latter was grown
from seed sent by Sello from Southern Brazil. It is
certainly a Brazilian species, with a white elongated
corolla, allied to N. suaveolens of New Holland. Thus
the tobacco cultivated sometimes in Persia along with
the common species, is of American origin, as I declared
in my Geographical Botany of 1855. I do not under-
stand how this species was introduced into Persia. It
must have been from seed taken from a garden, or
brought by chance from America, and it is not likely
that its cultivation is common in Persia, for Olivier and
Bruizuiere, and other naturalists who have observed the
tobacco plantations in that country, make no mention
of it.
From all these reasons I conclude that no species of
tobacco is a native of Asia. They are all American,
except N. suaveolens of New Holland, and K. fragrans
of the Isle of Pines to the south of New Caledonia.
Several NicotiancB, besides N. Tahacum and A\ rus-
tica, have been cultivated here and there by savages,
or as a curiosity by Europeans. It is strange that so
little notice is taken of these attempts, by means of
which very choice tobacco might be obtained. The
species with white flowers would yield probably a light
and perfumed tobacco, and as some smokers seek the
stroncjest tobaccos and the most disaj^reeable to non-
smokers, I would recommend to their notice A. angustr-
folia of Chili, which the natives call tabaco del diahlo.^
' Link and Otto, Icones Plant. Bar. Horf. Ber., in 4to, p. 63, t. 32.
Sendtner, in Flora Brasil, vol. x. p. 167, describes the same plant aa
Sello, as it seems from the specimens collected by this traveller; and
Grisebach, SymholcB Fl. Argent., p. 243, mentions N. alata in the pro-
vince of Entrerios^ of the Argentine repnblic.
Bertero, in De Cand., Prodr., xii., sect. 1, p. o68.
14G ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Cinnamon Cinnamonum zetjlanicum, Breyn.
This little tree, belonging to the laurel triVje, of which
the bark of the young branches forms the cinnamon of
commerce, grows in great quantities in the forests of
Ceylon. Certain varieties which grow wild on the con-
tinent of India were formerly considered to be so many
distinct species, but Anglo-Indian botanists are agreed
in connecting them with that of Cevlon.^
The bark of C. zeylaniciim, and that of several uncul-
tivated species of Cinnamonum, which produce the
cassia, or Chinese cassia, have been an important article
of commerce from a very early period. Fliickiger and
Hanbury ^ have treated of this historical question with
so much learning and thoroughness, that we need only
refer to their work, entitled Fharmacogixqjhia, or His-
tory of the Principal Drugs of Vegetable Origin. It is
important from our point of view to note how modern
the culture is of the cinnamon tree in comparison with
the trade in its product. It was only between 1765 and
1770 that a Ceylon colonist, named de Koke, aided by
Falck, the governor of the island, made some planta-
tions which were wonderfully successful. They have
diminished in Ceylon in the last few years, but others
have been established in the tropical regions of the old
and new worlds. The species becomes easily naturalized
bej^ond the limits of cultivation,^ as birds are fond of the
fruit, and drop the seeds in the forests.
China Grass Boehmeria nivea, Hooker and Arnott.
The cultivation of this valuable Urticacea has been
introduced into the south of France and of the United
States for about thirty years, but commerce had pre-
viously acquainted us with the great value of its fibres,
more tenacious than hemp and in some cases flexible as
silk. Interesting details on the manner of cultivating
' Thwaites, Enum. PL Zelanim, p. 252 ; Brandis, Forest Flora of India,
p. 375.
* Fliickiger and Hanbury, Pharmacographia, p. 467 ; Porter, The
Tropical Agriculturist, p. 268.
' Brandis, Forest Flora; Grisebach, Flora of Bnt. W. India Is.,
p. 179.
FLAXTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 117
the plant and of extracting its fibres ^ may be found in
several books ; I shall confine myself here to defining as
clearly as I can its geographical origin.
To attain this end we must not trust to the vague
expressions of most authors, nor to the labels attached
to the specimens in herbaria, since frequently no dis-
tinction has been made between cultivated, naturalized,
or truly wild plants, and the two varieties of Boehmeria
nivea (Urtica nivea, Linnaeus), and Boehmeria tenacis-
sima, Gaudichaud, or B. cancUcans, Hasskarl, have been
confounded together; forms which appear to be varieties
of the same species, because transitions between them
have been observed by botani.sts. There is also a sub-
variety, with leaves green on both sides, cultivated by
Americans and by M. de Maiartic in the south of France.
The variety earliest known {Urtica nivea, L.), with
leaves white on the under side, is said to grow in China
and some neighbouring countries. Linnieus says it is
found on walls in China, which would imply a plant
naturalized on rubbish-heaps from cultivation. But
Loureiro ^ says, " habitat et ahundanter colitur in Cochin-
China et China," and according to Bentham,^ the collector
Champion found it in abundance in the ravines of the
island of Hongkong. According to Franchet and Sava-
tier,* it exists in Japan in clearings and hedges {infruti-
cetis umhrosis et sepibiis). Blanco ^ says it is common in
the Philippine Isles. I find no proof that it is wild in
Java, Sumatra, and other islands of the Malay Archi-
pelago. Rumphius ^ knew it only as a cultivated plant
Roxburgh' believed it to be a native of Sumatra, but
Miquel ^ does not confirm this belief. The other varieties
> De Maiartic, Journ. d'Agric. Pratique, 1871, 1872, vol. ii. Ko. .31;
de la Eoqne, ibid., No. 29, Bull. Soc. d'AccJim., 1872, p. 463; Yilmoriii,
Bon Jardinier, 1880, pt. 1, p. 700; Vetillart, Etudes sur lea Fihrej
Vegetales Textiles, p. 99, pi. 2.
^ Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., ii. p. 683.
3 Bentliam, Fl. Hongkong, p. 331.
* Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Plant. Jap., i. p. 439.
Blanco, Flora de Filip., edit. 2, p. 484.
' Riimphias, Amboin, v. p. 214.
' Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., iii. p. 590.
iliquel, Sumatra, Germ, edit., p. 179.
14-8 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
have nowhere been found wild, which supports the
theory that they are only the result of cultivation.
Hemp Cannabis saliva, Linnasus.
Hump is mentioned, in its two forms, male and female,
in the most ancient Chinese works, particularly in the
IShii-King, written 500 B.c.^
It has Sanskrit names, bhanga and gangika.^ The
root of these words, ang or an, recurs in all the Indo-
Kuropean and modern Semitic languages : hang in Hindu
and Persian, ganga in Bengali,^ harif in German, hemp
in English, chanvre in French, kanas in Keltic and
modern Breton,* cannabis in Greek and Latin, cannab
in Ara,bic.^
According to Herodotus (born 484 B.C.), the Scythians
used hemp, but in his time the Greeks were scarcely
acquainted with it. Hiero II., King of Syracu.se, bought
the hemp used for the cordage of his vessels in Gaul, and
Lucilius is the earliest Roman writer who speaks of the
plant (100 B.C.). Hebrew books do not mention hemp.'
It was not used in the fabrics which enveloped the
mummies of ancient Egypt. Even at the end of the
eighteenth century it was only cultivated in Egypt for the
sake of an intoxicating liquid extracted from the plant.^
The compilation of Jewish laws known as the Talmud,
made under tlie Roman dominion, speaks of its textile
properties as of a little-known fact.^ It seems probable
that the Scythians transported this plant from Central
Asia and from Russia when they migrated westward
about 1500 B.C., a little before the Trojan war. It may
also have been introduced by the earlier incursions of the
Aryans into Thrace and Western Europe ; yet in that case
it would have been earlier known in Italy. Hemp has
' Bretschncider, On the Sfvdij and Value, etc., pp. 5, 10, 48.
* Piddington, Index ; lloxburgh, Fl. Ind., edit. 2, voL iii. p. 772.
' Roxburgh, ibid.
* Ticynier, conoynie des Celfes, p. 44S; Jjegnmdec, Diet. Bas-Breton.
* J. Humbert, formerly professor of Arabic at Geneva, says the name
is kannah, kon-nab, hon-nah, hen-7iah, kanedir, according' to the locality.
Athenaeus, quoted by Hehn, Culturpf.anzen, p. 1G8.
' Rosenmiiller, Hand. Bihl. Alterth.
* Forskal, F^om ; DeVi]e, Flore d'Egypte.
" Rrynier, J^conomie rfes Ardbes, p. 434.
PliANTS CULTIVATED FOE, THEIH STEMS OR LEAVES. 149
not been found in the lake-dwellinojs of Switzerland^ and
Northern Italy .^
The observations on the habitat of Cannabis sativa
agree perfectly with the data furnished by history and
philolog}^ I have treated specially of this subject in a
monograph in Prodromus, 1869.^
The species has been found wild, beyond a doubt, to
the south of the Caspian Sea,* in Siberia, near the Irtysch,
in the desei't of the Kirghiz, beyond Lake Baikal, in
Dahuria (government of Irkutsh). Authors iliention it
also throughout Southern and Central Russia, and to the
south of the Caucasus/ but its wnld nature is here less
certain, seeing that these are populous countries, and that
the seeds of the hemp are easily diffused from gardens.
The antiquity of the cultivation of hemp in China leads
me to believe that its area extends further to the east,
although this has not yet been proved by botanists.^
Boissier mentions the species as " almost wild in Persia."
I doubt whether it is indigenous there, since in that case
the Greeks and Hebrews would have known of it at an
earlier period.
"White Mulberry Moms alba, Linnreus.
The mulberry tree, which is most commonly used
in Europe for rearing silkworms, is Morus alba. Its
very numerous varieties have been carefully described by
Seringe,'' and more recently by Bureau." That most
W'idely cultivated in India, Morus indica, Linnaeus
(Morus alba, var. Indica, Bureau), is wild in the Punjab
and in Sikkim, according to Brandis, inspector-general of
forests in British India.^ Two other varieties, serrata
and cuspidata, are also said to be wdld in different pro-
' Heer, Ueher d. Flachs, p. 25.
* Sordelli, Notizie sull. Staz. di Lagozza, 1880.
Vol. xvi. sect. 1, p. 30.
* De Baiige, Bull. Soc. Bot. de J'r., 1860, p. 30.
* Ledebonr, Flora Rossica, iii. p. 634.
* Bunge found heuip in the nortli of China, but among rubbish {Enum .
No. 338).
' Seringe, Description et Culture des M&riers.
* Bureau, in De Caudolle, Prodromus, xvii. p. 238.
* Brandis, Forest -Flora of Noi-th-West and Central India, 1874,
p. 408. This variety has black fruit, like that of Morus nigra.
loO ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
vinces of Northern India.^ The Abh^ David found a
perfectly wild variety in Mongolia, described under the
name of mongolica by Bureau; and Dr. Bretschueider^
quotes a name yen, from ancient Chinese authors, for the
wild mulberry.
It is true he does not say whether this name applies
to the white mulberry, pe-sang, .zf the Chinese planta-
tions.^ The antiquity of its culture in China,* and in
Japan, and the number of different varieties grown there,
lead us to believe that its original area extended east-
ward as far as Japan; but the indigenous flora of Soutliern
China is little known, and the most trustworthy authors
do not affirm that the plant is indigenous in Japan.
Franchet and Savatier^ say that it is "cultivated from
time immemorial, and become wild here and there." It
is worthy of note also that the white mulberry appears
to thrive especially in mountainous and temperate coun-
tries, whence it may be argued that it was formerly
introduced from the north of China into the plains of
the south. It is known that birds are fond of the fruit,
and bear the seeds to great distances and into unculti-
vated ground, and this makes it difficult to discover its
really original habitat.
This facility of naturalization doubtless explains the
presence in successive epochs of the white mulberry in
Western Asia and the south of Europe. This must have
occurred especially after the monks brought the silk-
worm to Constantinople under Justinian in the sixth
century, and as the culture of silkworms was gradually
propagated Avestwards. However, Targioni has proved
that only the black mulberry, M. nigra, was known in
yicily and Italy when the manufacture of silk was intro-
duced into Sicily in 1148, and two centuries later into
* Bureau, ihid., from the specimens of several travellers.
* Bretpcbrcider, Study and Vcdue, etc., p. 12.
* This name occurs in the Pent-sao, according to Ritter, Erdkunde,
xvii. p. 489.
* Piatt says (Zeitschriff d. Gesellsch. ErdJcunde, 1871, p. 162) that
its cultivation dates from 4000 years u.r.
* Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Plant. Jap., i. p. 433.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 151
Tuscany.^ According to the same author, the introduction
of the white mulberry into Tuscany dates at the earliest
from the year ISiO. In like manner the manufacture of
silk may have begun in China, because the silkworm is
natural to that country ; but it is very probable that the
tree grew also in the north of India, where so many
travellers have found it wild. In Persia, Armenia, and
Asia Minor, I am inclined to believe that it was natura-
lized at a very early epoch, rather than to share Grise-
bach's opinion that it is indigenous in the basin of the
Caspian Sea. Boissier does not give it as wild in that
region.^ Buhse^ found it in Persia, near Erivan and
Bashnaru.schin, and he adds, " naturalized in abundance
in Ghilan and Masenderan." Ledebour,* in his Russian
flora, mentions numerous localities round the Caucasus,
but he does not specify whether the species is wild or
naturalized. In the Crimea, Greece, and Italy, it exists
only in a cultivated state.^ A variety, tatarica, often
cultivated in the south of Russia, has become naturalized
near the Volga.^
If the wdiite mulberry did not originally exist in
Persia and in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, it
must have penetrated there a long while ago. I may
quote in proof of this the name tut, tutti, tida, wdiich is
Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Tartar. There is a Sanskrit
name, tida^ which must be connected with the same root
as the Persian name; but no Hebrew name is known,
which is a confirmation of the theory of a successive
extension towards the west of Asia.
I refer those of my readers who may desire more de-
tailed information about the introduction of the mulberry
and of silkworms to the able works of Targioni and
* Ant. Targioni, Cenni Storici suW Introduzione di Varie Piante nelV
Agricoltura Toscana, p. 188.
* Boissier, Fl. Orient., iv. p. 1153.
' Buhse, Avfzahlung der Transcaucasien v.nd Persien Pflanzen, p. 203.
* Ledebour, Fl. Ross., iii. p. 643.
* Steven, Verseichniss d. Taurisch. Halhins, p. 313 ; Heldreich, Pflan-
zen des Attischen Ebene, p. 508; Bertoloni, FL Hal., x. p. 177; Caruel,
F.. Toscana, p. 171.
^ Bureau, de Cand., Prodr., xvii. p. 238.
' Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. ; I'iddington, Index.
152 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Ritter, to which I have already referred. Recent dis-
coveries made by various botanists have permitted me
to add more precise data than those of Kitter on the
question of origin, and if there are some apparent contra-
dictions in our opinions on other points, it is because the
famous geogiapher has considered a number of varieties
as so many ditiVrent species, whereas botanists, after a
careful examination, have classed them together.
Black Mulberry Morui nigra, Linnajus.
This tree is more valued for its fruit than for its
leaves, and on that account I should have included it
in the list of fruit trees ; but its history can hardly be
sepai'ated from that of the white mulberry. Moreover,
its leaves are employed in many countries lor the feeding
of silkworms, although the silk produced is of inferioi'
quality.
The black mulberry is distinguished from the white
by several characters independently of the black colour
of the fruit, which occurs also in a few varieties of the
M. alba} It has not a great number of varieties like
the latter, which argues a less ancient and a less genei-al
cultivation and a narrower primitive area.
Greek and Latin authors, even the poets, have men-
tioned Morns nigra, which they compare to Ficus syco-
onorus, and which they even confounded originally with
this Egyptian tree.
Commentators for the last two centuries have quoted
a number of passages which leave no doubt on this head,
but which are devoid of interest in themselves.^ They
furnish no proof touching the origin of the species, which
is presumably Persian, uidess we are to take seriously
the fable of Pyramus and Thisbe, of which the scene was
in Babylonia, according to Ovid.
Botanists have not yet furnished any certain proof
that this species is indigenous in Persia. Boissier, who
is the most learned in the lioras of the East, contents
' Eeichenbach gives good figures of both species in his Icones Fl.
Germ., 657, 658.
Fraas, Syn. Fl. Chi.ti^., p- 230; Lenz, Bof. der Alfcn Or. vnd Fihn.,
]) 419; Hitter, Erdkunde, xvii. p. 482; Uebu, Culturpflanzen, edit. 3,
p- 336,
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STExMS OR LEAVES. 153
himself with quoting Hohenacker as the discoverer of
M. nigra in the forests of Lenkoran, on the south coast
of the Caspian Sea, and he adds, " probably wild in the
north of Persia near the Caspian Sea." ^ Ledebour, in his
Russian flora, had previously indicated, on the authority
of different travellers, the Crimea and the provinces south
of the Caucasus ; ^ but Steven denies the existence of the
species in the Crimea except in a cultivated state.^ Tchi-
hatcheff and Koch found the black mulberry in high
Vv^ld districts of Armenia. It is very probable that in
the region to the south of the Caucasus and of the
Caspian Sea Morus nigra is wild and indigenous rather
than naturalized. What leads me to this belief is (1)
that it is not known, even in a cultivp.ted state, in India,
China, or Japan ; (2) that it has no Sanskrit name ; (3)
that it was sc early introduced into Greece, a country
which had intercourse Avith Armenia at an early period.'*
Morus nigra spread so little to the south of Persia,
that no certain Hebrew name is known for it, nor even
a Persian name distinct from that of Morus alba. It
was widely cultivated in Italy until the superiority
of the white mulberry for the rearing of silkworms was
recognized. In Greece the black mulberry is still the
most cultivated.^ It has become naturalized here and
there in these countries and in Spain.^
American Aloe Agave Americana, Linnaeus.
This ligneous plant, of the order of Amaryllidacece,
has been cultivated fi'om time immemorial in Mexico under
the names maguey or metl, in order to extract from it, at
the moment when the flower stem is developed, the wine
known as pulque. Humboldt has given a full descrip-
tion of this culture,'^ and he tells us elsewhere ^ that ihe
' Boissier, Fl. Orient., iv. p. 1153 (published 1879).
* Ledebour, Fl. Ross., iii. p. 641.
* Steven, Verseichniss d. Taur. Halb. Fflan., p. 31.S.
* Tchihatcheff, trans, of Grisebacli's Vegetation, da Glole, i. 424).
* Heldreich, Nutzpjlanzen Griechenlands, p. 19.
* Bertoloui, Flora Hal., x. p, 179; Viviani, Fl. Dalmat., i, p. 220;
Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., i. p. 250.
' Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, ed. 2, p. 487.
* Humboldt, in Kunth, Nova Genera, i. p. 297.
154 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
species grows in the whole of South Ameiiea as far as
five thousand feet of altitude. It is mentioned^ in
Jamaica, Antigua, Dominica, and Cuba, but it must
be obsei-ved that it multiplies easily by suckers, and
that it is often planted far from dwellings to form
fences or to extract from it the fibre known as ^9<7?, and
this makes it dithcult to ascertain its original habitat.
Transported long since into the countries which border
the Mediterranean, it occurs there with every appearance
of an indigenous species, although there is no doubt as
to its origin.^ Probably, to judge from the various uses
made of it in Mexico before the arrival of the Euro-
peans, it came originally from thence.
Sugar-Cane Saccharum offLcinariim., Linnteus.
The origin of the suo-ar-cane, of its cultivation, and
of the manufacture of sugar, are the subject of a very
remarkable work by the geographer, Karl Ritter.^ I need
not follow his purely agricultural and economical details;
but for that which interests us particularly, the primitive
habitat of the species, he is the best guide, and the facts
observed during the last forty years for the most part
support or confirm his opinions.
The sugar-cane is cultivated at the present day in all
the warm regions of the globe, but a number of historical
facts testify that it was first grown in Southern Asia,
whence it spread into Africa, and later into America.
The question is, therefore, to discover in what dL^^tricts
of the continent, or in which of the southern islands of
Asia, the plant exists, or existed at the time it was first
employed.
Ritter has followed the best methods of arrivmg at a
solution. He notes first that all the si)ecies known in a
' Grisebach, Fl. of Br if. W. Ind. I.<t., p. 582.
* Alph. de Caudolle, Geogr. Bot. Raisonnee, p. 739; H. Hoffmann, in
Rejiel's Garfcvflora, 1875, p. 70.
K. Ritter, Ueber die GeographiscTie Verhreitung des Zucl-errohrx,
in 4to, 108 pages (according to Pritzel, Thee Lit. Bot.) ; Die Cidfur
des Zuckerrohrs, Saccharuin, in Asien, Gengr. Verbreitinig, etc., etc., in
8vo, 64 pages, without date. This naonograph is fnll of learning and
judgment, worthy of the best epoch of German science, when English
or French authors were quoted by all authors with as much cai'e as
Girniaus.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 155
wild state, and undoubtedly belonging to the genus Sac-
charum, grow in India, except one in Egypt.^ Five
species have since been desci'ibed, growing in Java, New
Guinea, Timor, and the Philippine Isles.^ The proba-
bilities ai-e all in favour of an Asiatic origin, to judge
from the data furnished by geographical botany.
Unfortunately no botanist had discovered at the time
when Ritter wrote, or has since discovered, Saccharum
officinariiin wild in India, in the adjacent countries or
in the archipelago to the south of Asia. All Anglo-
Indian authors, Roxburgh, Wallich, Royle, etc., and more
recently Aitchison,^ only mention the plant as a culti-
vated one. Roxburgh,' who was so long a collector in
India, says expressly, " where wild I do not know." The
family of the Graininece has not yet appeared, in
Sir Joseph Hooker's flora. For the island of Ceylon,
Thwaites does not even mention the cultivated plant."*
Rumphius, who has carefully described its cultivation
in the Dutch colonies, says nothing about the home
of the species. Micpel, Hasskarl, and Blanco mention no
wild specimen in Sumatra, Java, or the Philippine Isles.
Crawfurd tried to discover it, but failed to do so.^ At the
time of Cook's voyage Forster found the sugar-cane only
as a cultivated, plant in the small islands of the Pacific.^
The natives of New Caledonia cultivate a number of
varieties of the sugar-cane, and use it constantly, sucking
the syrup from the cane ; but Vieillard '^ takes care to say,
" From the fact that isolated plants of Saccharum offici-
narum are often found in the middle of the bush and
even on the mountains, it would be wrong to conclude
that the plant is indigenous ; for the.se specimens, poor
and weak, only mark the site of old plantations, or
* Kunth, Enum. Plant. (1838), voL i. p. 474. There is no more
recent descriptive work on tlie i'auiily of the Graminece, nor the genu?!
Saccharum.
* Miquel, Florw Tndim Batavce, 1855, vol. iii. p. oil.
2 Aitchison, Catalogue of Punjab and Sindh Plants, 1869, p. 173.
* Thwaites, Enum. PL Zeyloniw.
* Crawfurd, Indian Archip., i. p. 475.
Forster, De Plantis Esculentis.
' Vieillard, Annales des Sc. Nat , 4th series, vol. xvi. p. 32.
8
156 OKIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
are sprung from fragments of cane left by the natives,
wlio seldom travel without a piece of cane in the hand."
In 18G1, Bentham, who had access to the rich herbarium
of Kew", says, in his Flora of Hovf/Jcoiig, " We have no
authentic and certain proof of a locality where the
common sugar-cane is wild."
I do not know, however, Avhy Ritter and every one
else has neglected an assertion of Loureiro, in his Flora
of Cochin-China} " Habitat, et colitur abundantissime
in omnibus provinciis regni Cochin-Chinensis : siraul in
aliquibus imperii sinensis, sed minori copia." The word
habitat, separated by a comma from the rest, is a distinct
assertion. Loureiro could not haf e been mistaken aboiit
the Saccharmn officinariim, which he saw cultivated all
about him, and of which he enumerates the principal
varieties. He must have seen plants wild, at least in
appearance. They may have spread from some neigh-
bouring plantation, but I know nothing which makes it
unlikely that the plant should be indigenous in this warm
moist district of the continent of Asia.
Forskal ^ mentions the species as wild in the moun-
tains of Arabia, under a name which he believes to be
Indian. If it came from Arabia, it would have spread
mto Egypt long ago, and the Hebrews would have
known it.
Roxburgh had received in the botanical gardens of
Calcutta in 171)6, and had introduced into the planta-
tions in Bengal, a Saccharum- to which he gave the name
of S. sinense, and of which he published an illustration
in his great work Plantoi Coromandeliance, voL iii.
pi. 232. It is perhaps only a form of S. ofUcinarum.,
and moreover, as it is only known in a cultivated state,
it tells nothing about the primitive country either of
this or of any other variety.
A few botanists have asserted that the sugar-cane
flowers more often in Asia than in America or Africa,
and even that it produces seed ^ on the banks of the
Loureiro, Cochin-Ch., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 66.
* Foi-rikal, Fl. JErjypto-Aruhica, p. 103.
' M:i(;t'a(lyen, On the Botanical Characterf: of the Si'.rtar-Cane, in
Iloiikei's Bot. Miscell., i. p. 101 ; Maycock, Fl. Burhad., p. 50.
I
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 157
Ganges, which they regard as a proof that it is indigenous.
Macfadyen says so without giving any proof. It was an
assei tion made to him in Jamaica by some traveller ; but
Sir W. Hooker adds in a note, " Dr. Eoxburgh, in spite
of his long residence on the banks of the Ganges, has
never seen the seeds of the sugar-cane." It rarely liowers,
and still more rarely bears fruit, as is commonly the case
with plants propagated by buds or suckers, and if any
variety of sugar-cane were disposed to seed, it would
probably be less productive of sugar and would soon be
abandoned. Rumphius, a better observer than many
modern botanists, has given a good description of the
cultivated cane in the Dutch colonies, and makes an
interesting remark.^ " It never produces Howers or fruit
unless it has remained several years in a stony place."
Neither he, nor any one else to my knowledge, has de-
scribed or drawn the seed. The flower, on the contrary,
has often been figured, and I have a fine specimen from
Martinique.^ Schacht is the only person who has given
a good analysis of the flower, including the pistil ; he
had not seen the seed ripe.^ De Tussac,* who gives a
poor analysis, speaks of the seed, but he only saw it
young in the ovary.
In default of precise information as to the native
country of the species, accessory means, linguistic and
historical, of proving -an Asiatic origin, are of some
interest. Hitter gives them carefully; I will content
myself with an epitome. The Sanskrit name of the sugar-
cane was ikshu, ikshura, or ikshava, but the sugar was
called sarkara, or sakkara, and all its names in our Euro-
pean languages of Aryan origin, beginning w4th the
ancient ones^Greek, for example are clearly derived
from this. This is an indication of Asiatic origin, and that
the produce of the canewas of ancient use in the southern
regions of Asia with which the ancient Sanskrit-speak-
ing nation may have had commercial dealings. The
two Sanskrit words have remained in Bengali under the
' Enmphius, Amhoin, vol. v. p. 186. * Helm, No. 480.
Schacht, Madeira und Teneriffe, tab. i.
* Tussac, Flore des Antilles, i. p. 153, pi. 23.
158 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
forms ik and ahh} But in other languages beyond the
Indus, we find a singular variety of names, at least when
they are not akin to that of the Aryans; for instance:
panchadara in Telinga, hyam in Burmese, tyiici in the
dialect of Cochin-China, kana,n(\ tche, or tscfie, in Chinese ;
and further south, among the Malays, tubw or tabu for
the plant, and gula for the product. This diversity
proves the great antiquity of its cultivation in those
regions of Asia in which botanical indications point out
the origin of the species.
The epoch of its introduction into different countries
agrees with the idea that its origin was in India, Cocliin-
China, or the Malay Archipelago.
The Chinese were not acquainted with the sugar-cane
at a very remote period, and they receiv^ed it from the
West. Bitter contradicts those authors who speak of a
very ancient cultivation, and I find most positive con-
firmation of his opinion in Dr. Bretschneider's pamphlet,
drawn up at Pekin with the aid of all the resources of
Chinese literature.^ " I have not been able to discover,"
he says, "any allusion to the sugar-cane in the most
ancient Chinese books (the five classics)." It appears to
have been mentioned for the first time by the authors of
the second century before Christ. The first description
of it appears in the Nan-fang -tsao-niii-cliuang, in the
fourth century : " The die chS, kan-che (kan, sweet, che,
bamboo) grows," it says, " in Cochin-China. It is several
inches in circumference, and resembles the bamboo. The
stem, broken into pieces, is eatable and very sweet. The
sap which is drawn from it is dried in the sun. After a
few days it becomes sugar (here a compound Chinese
character), which melts in the mouth. ... In the year
286 (of our era) the kingdom of Funan (in India, beyond
the Ganges) sent sugar as a tribute." According to the
Pent-Sao, an empero]- who reigned from 627 to 650 A.D.,
sent a man into the Indian province of Behar to learn
how to manufjieture sugar.
There is nothing said in these works . of the plant
* Piddington, IinJex.
* BretscliDeider, On the Study and Value, etc., pp. 45-47.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 159
growing wild in China ; on the contrary, the origin in
Cochin-China, indicated by Loureiro, finds an unexpected
confirmation. It seems to me most probable that its
primitive range extended from Bengal to Cochin-China.
It may have included the Sunda Isles and the Moluccas,
whose climate is very similar ; but there are quite as
many reasons for believing that it was early introduced
into these from Cochin-China or the Malay peninsula.
The propagation of the sugar-cane from India west-
ward is well known. The Greco-Roman world had a
vague idea of the reed {calamus) which the Indians
delighted to chew, and from which they obtained sugar.^
On the other hand, the Hebrew writings do not mention
sugar ; ^ whence we may infer that the cultivation of the
su!xar-cane did not exist west of the Indus at the time
of the Jewish captivity at Babylon. The Arabs in the
Middle Ages introduced it into Egypt, Sicily, and the
south of Spain,^ where it flourished until the abundance
of sugar in the colonies caused it to be abandoned. Don
Henriquez transported the sugar-cane from Sicily to
Madeira, whence it was taken to the Canaries in 1503.*
Hence it was introduced into Brazil in the beofinnino; of
the sixteenth century.^ It was taken to St. Domingo
about 1520, and shortly afterwards to Mexico ; ^ to
Guadeloupe in 1G44, to Martinique about 1650, to Bour-
bon when the colony was founded.' The variety known
as Otahiti, which is not, however, wild in that island,
and which is also called Bourbon, was introduced into
the French and English colonies at the end of the last
and the beginning of the present century.^
' See the quotations from Sti-abo, Dioscorides, Plir.y, etc., in Lenz,
Botanik der Alten Griechen U7id Romer, 1859, p. 207 ; Fiugerhat, in Flora,
1839, vol. ii. p. 529 ; and many other authors.
' Rosenmiiller, Handhuch der Bihl. Alterth.
* Calendrier Rural de Uarib, written in the tenth century for S[iain,
translated by Bureau de la Mails in his Climatologie de I'ltalie et de
I'Andalousie, p. 71.
* Von Buch, Canar. Ins. Piso, Brdsil, p. 49.
Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne, ed. 2, vol. iii. p. 34.
Not. Stat, sur les Col. Franc, i. pp. 207, 29, 83.
Macfadyen, in Hooker, Bot. MiscelL, i. p. 101 ; Maycock, Fl. Barhad.,
p. 50.
IGO
ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
The processes of cultivation and preparation of tlie
sugar are described in a number of works, among wliich
the following may be recommended : de Tussac, Flore
cles Antilles, 3 vols., Paris; vol. i.
Macfadyen, in Hooker's Bo'anical
vol. i. pp. 103-llG.
pp. 151-182
Miscellany,
and
1830,
CHAPTEPv III.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLOWERS, OR FOR THE
ORGANS WHICH ENVELOP THEM.
Clove Caryojjhylhis aromaticus, Liniifieus.
The clove used for domestic purposes is the calix and
flower-bud of a plant belonging to the order of Myr-
tacese. 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 Moluc-
cas," as Rumphius asserts,-^ 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 ^ considers that a plant of which
he gives a description, and a drawing under the name
Caryophyllit7}i 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 G.
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 pl.'i.te 2, which appears to be an
* ii. p. 3. iL tub. 3.
1G2 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
abnormal form of the cultivated clove. Rumphius says
that C. sylvesire 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 ^ 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 diflerent plants, wild
and cultivated, togtither, as all auth( rs have done.^ 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 Dictionnair3 cf Agriculture,
and in the dictionaries of natural history.
If it be true, as Roxburgh says,^ 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 trans-
ported, and it does not appear that it was introduced
into Europe before the discovery of the Moluccas by the
Portuguese.
ILo'gHuvinlus Lupulus, Linnreus.
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,* but it is not found in
India, the north of China, or the basin of the river Amur.*^
Sonnerat, Voy. Nouv. Guin., tab. 119, 120.
* Tliunberg, T>iss., u. p. 326 ; De Candolle, Prcdi:, iii. p. 202 ; Hcxtkcr,
But. Mag., tab. 2749; Hasskarl, Cat. Hort. Bogor. AH., p. 2G1.
' Koxburgh, Flora Imlica, edit. 1832, vol. ii. p. 194.
* Alph. do Candolle, in Prodromus, vol. xri., sect. 1, p. 29 ; Boissier,
Fl. Orient., W. p. 1152 ; Hohcnackor, Enum. Plant. TaJi/gch,i>. 30; Bubbe
Aufzdhlung I'ranscaucasien, p. 202.
An erroneous transcription of what Asa Gray (Botany of North.
JJvifed States, edit. 5) says of the bemp, wrongly attributed to the hop
in Prodromus, and ropeatod in the French edition of this wo.'k, should
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLOWERS, ETC. 163
In spite of the entirely wild appearance of the hop in
Europe in districts far from cultivation, it has been some-
times asked if it is not of Asiatic origin.^ 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 PHny speaks of
it with other vegetables under the name Iuidus salidarius.^
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 wdio had the vine,
made beer ^ either of barley or of other fermented grain,
addingf in certain cases different vegetable substances the
1 lark of the oak or of the tamarisk, for instance, or the
fruits of Myrica gale} 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 men-
tion of hop-gardens occurs in an act of donation made by
Pepin, father of Charlemagne, in 708.^ In the fourteenth
century it was an important object of culture in Germany,
but it began in England only under Henry VIII.^
The common names of tlie hop only furnish negative
indications as to its origin. There is no Sanskrit name,''
be corrected. Uumulus Luptihjs is indigenous in the east of the United
States, and also in the island of Yeso, accordiug to a letter from
Maximowicz. Authgu's Note, 1884.
' S.ehn, Nutzpflanzeti und Hausthiere in ihren Uehergang aus Asien,
edit. 3, p. 415.
^ Pliny, Hi^t., bk. 21, c. 15. He mentions asparagns in this con-
nection, and the young shoots of the hop are scmdlinies eaten in this
manner,
3
Tacitns, Germania, cap. 25 ; Pliny, bk. 18, c. 7 ; Hehn, Kidiur-
pflanzen, edit. 3, pp. 125-137.
* Volz, Beitrage zur CulturgeschicJife, p. 149. * Ihid.
Beckmann, Erjindungen, quoted by Volz.
^ Piddington, Index; Fick, ^yorterh. Indc-Germ, Sjprachen, i. ; Ur-
spi'aohe.
104 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
and this agrees with the absence of the species in the regie n
of the Himalayas, and shows that the early Aryan peoples
had not noticed and employed it. I have quoted before ^
some of the European names, showing their diversity,
although some few of them may be derived from a com-
mon 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
ho}), and chuncli of the Scandinavian, Gothic, and Slav
races ; for example, Apini in Lette, Apwynis in Lithua-
nian, tap in Estlionian, hlust in Illyrian,^ 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 suc-
cessively, which confirms its extension in Europe and in
Asia before it w^as used in brewing,
Carthamine Carthamus tinctorius, Linnseus.
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,^ and quite recently
fragments of the plant have been found in the tombs
discovered at Deir el Bahari."^ Its cultivation must also
be ancient in India, since there are two Sanskrit names
for it, cusumhha and kamalottara, of which the first has
several derivatives in the modern languages of the
peninsula.^ The Chinese only received carthamine in
the second century B.C., when Chang-kien brought it
back from Bactriana.^ 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
cnicns? At a later jjeriod the Ai-abs contributed largely
' A. de Candolle, G^ogr. Bof. Bais., p. 857.
* Diet. MS; compiled from floras, Moritzi.
* Un<^er, Die Pjianzen des Alten JEgypiens, p. 47.
* Scliweinfurtli, in a letter ^o M. Boissier, 1882. * Tiddiugton, Inde.r.
* Bre'schtieider, Study and Value, eta, p. 15.
P
ee
Targioiii, Ce)ini Storici, p. 108.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLOWERS, ETC. IGo
to diffase tlie cultivation of cartharaine, which thev
uamed qorton, kurtum, whence carthamine, or usfur,
or ihridh, or inorabu} 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.^
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.^
Mr. Clarke,^ formerly director of the Botanical Gardens
in Calcutta, who has lately studied the Compositce of
India, includes the species only as a cultivated one.
The summary of our modern knowledge of the plants
of th^ Nile region, including Abyssinia, by Schweinfurth
and Ascherson,^ 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.
As the species has not been found wald either in
India or in Africa, and as it has been cultivated foi-
thousands of years in botli countries, the idea occurred
to me of seeking its origin in the intermediate region ; a
method wdiich had been successful in other cases.
Unfortunately, the interior of Arabia is almost un-
known. 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 Bovd But
an Arab, Abu Anifa, quoted by Ebn Baithar, a thirteenth-
century writer, expressed himself as follows : ' " Usfur,
this plant furnishes a substance used as a dye ; there are
two kinds, one cultivated and one wild, which both grow
* Forskal, Fl. ^gijpt., p. 73; Ebn Baitha', Germ, trans., ii. pp. 196.
293 ; i. p. 18.
* See Gasparin, Cours d'Agric, iv. p. 217.
' Boissier, Fl. Orient., iii. p. 710 ; Oliver, Flora of Trop. Afr., iii. p. 439.
* Clarke, Composiioe IndiccB. 1876, p. 2-il-.
* Schweiafurth and Ascberson, Aufzdhhmg p. 28"^.
* Roblfs, Kufra, in Svo, IhSl. ' Ebi_ Baithir, ii. p. 1C6.
lOU OEIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
in Arabia, of which the seeds are called elLarthum."
A.bu Anifa was very likely right.
Saffron Crocus sativus, Linna?us.
The saffron was cultivated in very early times in the
w^cst of Asia. The Romans praised the saffron of Cilicia,
which they preferred to that grown in Italy.^ Asia Minor,
Persia, and Kashmir have been for a long time the
countries wdiich export the most. India gets it from
Kashmir ^ at the present day. Eoxburgh and "Wallich
do not mention it in their works. The two Sanskrit
names mentioned by Piddington ^ probably applied to the
substance saffron brought from the West, for the name
kasmirajamriia appears to indicate its origin in Kashmir.
The other name is kxmkuma. The Hebrew word karl-om
is commonly translated saffron, but it more probably
applies to caith amine, to judge from the name of the
latter in Arabic* Besides, the saffron is not cultivated
in Egypt or in Arabia. The Greek name is Jcrokos.^
Saffron, which recurs in all modern European languages,
comes from the Arabic sakafaran,'^ zafranJ Tlie
Spaniards, nearer to the Arabs, call it azafran. The
Ai-abic name itself comes from assfar, yellow.
Trustworthy authors say that G. sativus is wild
in Greece^ and in the Abruzzi mountains in Italy.^
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,^*^ are identical with
the cultivated variety; but certain forms described
under otlier names (C. Orisnii, C. Cartwrvjldianus, G.
Thomasii), hardly differ from it. These are from Italy
and Greece.
> riiny, bk. xxi. c. 6. Eojlc, III. Himah, p. 372.
' Index, p. 25.
* According to Forskal, Dclile, Eoynier, Schweiufurth, and Ascherscn.
* Tlieophrastus, Hist., 1. G, c. 6.
6 J. Bauhin, Hist., ii. p. 637. ' Royle, III. Himal,
* Sibthorp, Prodr. ; Fraas, Syn. Fl. Class., p. 292.
' J. Gay, quoted by Babington, Man. Brit. Fl.
" Maw, in the Gardener's Chron., ISSl, vol. xvi.
PLA^'TS CULTIVATED FOU THEIR FLOWERS, ETC. 1G7
The cultivation of saffron, of which the conditions
are giv^en in the Coitrs cV Agriculture by Gasparin, and
in the Bulletin de la Societe cVAcclimatation for 1870, is
becoming more and more rare in Europe and Asia.-*- It
has sometimes had the effect of naturalizing the species
for a few years at least in localities where it appears to
be wild.
^ Jaccjuemont, Voyage, vol. iii. p. 2C8.
CHAPTER IV.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS.*
Sweet Sop, Sugar Apple ^ Anona squamosa, Linnaeus,
(In British India, Custard Apple ; but this is the name
of Anona ninricata in America.)
The original home of this and other cultivated
Anonacepe has been the subject of doubts, which make
it an interesting problem. I attempted to resolve them
in 1855. The opinion at which I then arrived has been
confirmed by the subsequent observations of travellers,
and as it is useful to show how far probabiUties based
upon sound methods lead to true assertions, I will trans-
cribe what I then said,^ mentioning afterwards the more
recent discoveries.
" Robert Brown proved in 1818 that all the species
of the genus Anona, excepting Anona Senegal en sis,
belong to America, and none to Asia. Aug. de Saint-
Hilaire says that, according to Vellozo, A. squamosa was
introduced into Brazil, that it is known there under
the name of pinha, from its resemblance to a fir-cone,
and of ata, evidently borrowed from the names atfoa and
atis, which are those of the same plant in Asia, and
which belong to Eastern languages. Therefore, adds de
* The word frait is here eitiplorerl in the vulgar sense, for any fleshy
part which enlarges after the flowering. In the strictly botanical sense,
the Anonaceae, strawberries, cashews, pine-apple?, and breadfruit are not
frnits.
* A. sqv.amosa is figured in Descouriilz, Flore des Antilles, ii. pi. 83 ;
Hooker's Bot. Mag., GOiio ; and Tussac, Five des Ant.lles, iii. pi. 4,
A. de Candolle, G^ogr. Bot. Rais., p. 859.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 169
Salnt-Hilaire,-^ the Portuguese transported A. squamosa
from their Indian to their American possessions, etc."
Having made in 1832 a review of the family of the
Anonacese,"^ I noticed how Mr. Brown's botanical argument
was ever growing stronger; for in spite of the considerable
increase in the number of described Anonacese, no Anona,
nor even any species of Anonacese with united ovaries,
had been found to be a native of Asia. I admitted^
the probability that the species came from the West
Indies or from the neighbouring part of the American
continent ; but I inadvertently attributed this opinion to
Mr. Brown, who had merely indicated an American origin
in general.*
Facts of different kinds have since confirmed this
view.
" Avona squamosa has been found wild in Asia,
apparently as a naturalized plant ; in Africa, and espe-
cially in America, with all the conditions of an indigenous
plant. In fact, according to Dr. Royle,^ the species has
been naturalized in several parts of India ; but he only
saw it apparently growing wild on the side of the moun-
tain near the fort of Adjeegurh in Bundlecund, among
teak trees. When so remarkable a tree, in a country so
thoroughly explored by botanists, has only been discovered
in a single locality beyond the limits of cultivation, it is
most probable that it is not indigenous in the country.
Sir Joseph Hooker found it in the isle of St. lago, of the
Cape Verde group, forming woods on the hills which over-
look the valley of St. Domingo.*^ Since A. squaTnosa
is only known as a cultivated plant on the neighbouring
continent ; '^ as it is not even indicated in Guinea by
Thonning,^ nor in Congo,^ nor in Senegambia/^ nor in
Aug. de Saint-Hilaire, Plantes ^ifuelles des Br^sili'ms, bk, vi. p. 5.
* Alph. de Candolle, Mem. Sf^c. Phys. et d'Hist. Nat. de Geneve.
' Ihid., p. 19 of Mem. printed separately.
* See Botany of Congo, and the Geiman translation of Brown's works,
(\hich has alphabetical tables.
Royle, III. Himal., p. 60.
* Webb, in Fl. Nvir., p, 97. * Ihid., p. 204.
* Thonning, PL Guin. * Browu, Congo, p. 6.
'" Guillemin, Perrottet, and Richard, Tentamen Fl. Seneg.
170 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Abyssinia and Egypt, which proves a recent introduction
into Africa ; lastly, as the Cape Verde Isles have lost a
great part of tlieir primitive forests, I believe that this
is a case of naturalization from seed escaped from gardens.
Authors are agreed in considering the species wild in
Jamaica. Formerly the assertions of Sloane^ and Brown^
might have been disregarded, but they are confirmed by
Macfadyen.^ Martius found the species wild in the
virgin forests of Para.* He even says, ' St/lvescentem in
nemorihus paraensibus inveni,' whence it may be in-
ferred that these trees alone formed a forest. Sj^litgerber^
found it in the forests of Surinam, but he says, 'An
spontanea V The number of localities in this part of
America is significant. I need not remind my readei's
that no tree ffrowincr elsewhere than on the coast has
been found truly indigenous at once in tropical Asia,
Africa, and America.^ The result of my researches renders
such a fact almost impossible, and if a tree were robust
enough to extend over such an area, it would be extremely
common in all tropical countries.
"Moreover, historical and philological facts tend also
to confirm the theory of an American origin. The details
given by Rumphius ' show that Anona squamosa vras
a plant newly cultivated in most of the islands of the
Malay Ai'chipelago. Forster does not mention the culti-
vation of any Anonacea in the small islands of the
Pacific.^ Rheede ^ says that A. squamosa is an exotic
in Malabar, but was brought to India, first by the Chinese
and the Arabs, afterwards by the Portuguese. It is cer-
tainly cultivated in China and in Cochin-China,^'^ and in
the Philippine Isles,^^ but we do not know from what
epoch. It is doubtful whether the Arabs cultivate it.^^
' Sloane, Jam., ii. p. 1G8. * P. Brown, Jam., p. 257.
Macfadyen, Fl. Jam., p. 9. * Martins, Fl. Jj^as., fasc. ii. p. 15.
* Splitgei'ber, Nederl. Kruidk. Arch., ii. p. 230.
' A. de CandoUe, Gcngr. Bvt. Fuiis., chap. x.
' Eumpliius, i. p. 139. * Forster, Planice Esculentce.
Eheede, MalaVar, iii. p. 22. " Louroiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 427.
" Blanco, f7. Filip.
'* Thi.s depends upon tlie opinion formed with respect to A. glabra,
Forsknl {A. Asiatica, B. Dun. Aiioyi., p. 71 ; A. Forsl-alii, D. C. Syst.,
i. p. 472), which was sometimes cultivated in gardens in Egypt when
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 171
II was cultivated in India in 'Roxljurgli's day;^ lie had
not seen the wild plant, and only mentions one common
name in a modern language, the Bengali ata, which is
already in Rheede. Later the name ganda-gatra ^ was
believe 1 to be Sanskrit, but Dr. Royle^ having consulted
Wilscn, the famous author of the Sanskrit dictionary,
touching the antiquity of this name, he replied that it
was taken from the Sahda Chanrika, a comparatively
modern compilation. The names of ata, ati, are found
in Rheede and Rumphius.* This is doubtless the founda-
tion of Saint-Hilaire's argument; but a nearly similar
rame is given to Anona squamosa in Mexico. This
name is ate, ahate di Panucho, found in Hernandez^
with two similar and rather poor figures which may be
attributed either to A. squamosa, as Dunal*^ thinks, or
to A. cherimolia, according to Martins.'' Oviedo uses*
the name anon.^ It is very possible that the name ata
was introduced into Brazil from Mexico and the neigh-
Viouring countries. It may also, I confess, have come
from the Portug-uese colonies in the East Indies. Mar-
tins says, however, that the species was imported from
the West India Islands.^ I do not know whether he had
any proof of this, or whether he speaks on the authority
of Oviedo's work, which he quotes and which I cannot
consult. Oviedo's article, translated by Marcgraf,^*^
describes A. squamosa without speaking of its origin.
Fiirskal visited that country ; it was called Iceschta, that is, coagulated
milk. The rarity of its cultivation and the silence of ancient anthers
thjvvs that it was of modern introduction into Egypt. Ebn Baitliar
(S jndtheimer's German translation, in 2 vols., 1840), an Arabian physician
of the thirteenth century, mentions no Anonacea, nor the name Iceschta.
I do not see that Forskal's description and illustration (Descr., p. 102. ic.
tab. 15) differ from A. squamosa. Coquebert's specimen, mentioned in
the Systema, agi-ees with Forskal's plate ; but as it is in flower while
the plate shows the fruit, its identity cannot be proved.
' Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., edit. 1832, v. ii. p. G57.
2 Piddington, Index, p. 6. ' R( yle, III. Hvni., p. 60.
* Rheede and Runiphiu?, i. p. 139.
s Hernandez, pp. 318, 454'. * Dunal, J/em. Anon., p. 70.
^ Martins, Fl. Bras., fasc. ii. p. 15.
* Hence the generic name -4no/Kt, which Linnajus changed to Annova
(provision), because he did not wish to have any savage name, and did
ui)t mind a pun.
' Martius, Fl. Bras., fasc. ii. p. 15. '" Marcgraf, Brazil, p. 94.
172 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
"The sum total of the facts is altosrether in favour of
an American origin. The locality where the species
usually appears wild is in the forests of Para. Its culti-
vation is ancient in America, since Oviedo is one of the
first authors (1.535) who has written about this country.
No doubt its cultivation is of ancient date in Asia like-
wise, and this renders the problem curious. It is not
proved, however, that it was anterior to the discovery
of America, and it seems to me that a tree of which the
fruit is so agreeable would have been more widely diffused
in the old world if it had always existed there. More-
over, it would be difficult to explain its cultivation in
America in the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the
hypothesis of an origin in the old world."
Since I wrote the above, I find the following facts
published by ditierent authors :
1. The argument drawn from the fact that there is no
Asiatic species of the genus Anona is stronger than ever.
A. Asiatica, Linnaeus, was based upon errors (see my
note in the Geogr. Bot., p. 862). A. obtusifolia (Tussac,
Fl. des Antilles, i. p. 191, pi. 28), cultivated formerly
in St. Domingo as of Asiatic origin, is also perhaps
founded upon a mistake. I suspect that the drawing
represents the flower of one species (^4. Tiiuricata) and
the fruit of another {A. squamosa). No Anona has been
discovered in Asia, but four or five are now known in
Africa instead of only one or two/ and a larger number
than formerly in America.
2. The authors of recent Asiatic floras do not hesi-
tate to consider the Anonae, particularly A squamosa,
which is here and there found apparently wild, as
naturalized in the neighbourhood of cultivated ground
and of Eui'opean settlements.^
' See Baker, Flora of Mawilius, p. 3. The identity admitted by
Oliver, Fl. Trap. Afr., i. p. 16, of the Anona palusfris of America witli
that of Senegambia, appears to me very extraordinary, although it is a
species which grows in marshes ; that is, having perhaps a very wide
area.
* Hooker, Fl. of Brit. Ind., i. p. 78; Miqnel, Fl. Indo-Batava, i.part 2,
p. 33; Kurz, Forest Flora of Brit. Burm., L p. 46; Stewart and Brandis,
Forests of India, p. 6.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 173
3. In the new African floras already quoted, A.
squamosa and the others of which I shall speak presentl}'
are always mentioned as cultivated species.
4. McNab, the horticulturist, found A. squamosa in
the dry plains of Jamaica,^ which confirms the asser-
tions of previous authors. Eggers says^ that the species
is common in the thickets of Santa Cruz and Virgin
Islands. I do not find that it has been discovered wild
in Cuba.
.5. On the American continent it is given as culti-
vated.^ However, M. Andr^ sent me a specimen from a
stony district in the Magdalena valley, which appears to
belong to this species and to be wild. The fruit is want-
ino-, which renders the matter doubtful. From the note on
the ticket, it is a delicious fruit like that of A. squa-
mosa. Warming * mentions the species as cultivated at
Lagoa Santa in Brazil. It appears, therefore, to be
cultivated or natuialized from cultivation in Para,
Guiana, and New Granada.
In fine, it can hardly be doubted, in my opinion,
that its original country is America, and in especial the
West India Islands.
Sour Sop A nona muricata, Linnseus.
This fruit-tree,^ introduced into all the colonies in
tropical countries is wild in the West Indies ; at least,
its existence has been proved in the islands of Cuba,
St. Domingo, Jamaica, and several of the smaller
islands.^ It is sometimes naturalized on the continent
of South America near dwellings.'' Andre brought
specimens from the district of Cauca in New Granada,
> Grisebach, Fl. of Brit. W. I. Isles, p. 5.
* Eggers, Flora of St. Croix and Virgin Ides, p. 23.
' Triana and Planchon, Prodr. Fl. Novo-Granatensis, p. 29; Sagot,
Journ. Soc. d'Hortic, 1872.
* Warming, SymbolcB ad. Fl. Bras., xvi. p. 43 1.
* Figured in Descourtilz, Fl. Med. des. Antilles, ii. pi. 87, and in
Tnssac, Fl. des Antilles, ii. p. 21-.
* KichsiTd, Plantes Vasculaires de Culit,p. 29; Swartz, Ohs.,y. 221;
P. Brown, Jamaica, p. 255 ; Macfadyen, Fl. of Jam., p. 7 ; Eggers, Fl.
of St. Croix, p. 23 ; Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. T.. p. 4.
7 Martius, Fl. Brasil, fa.sc. ii. p. 4; Split^erbcr, PI. de Surinam, in
Nederl. Kruidk. Arch., i. p, 226.
174- ORIGIN OF CULTIVATt;D PLANTS.
but he does not say tliey were wild, and I see that
Triana {Prodr. Fl. Granat.) only mentions it as culti-
vated.
Custard Apple ii^ the West Indies, Bullock's Heart
in th^ East Indies Anona reticulata, Linnajus.
This Anona, figured in Descourtilz, Flore Medicate
des Antilles, ii. pi. 82, and in the Botanical Magazine,
pi. 2912, is wild in Cuba, Jamaica, St. Vincent, Guade-
loupe, Santa Cruz, and Barbados,^ and also in the island
of Tobago in the Bay of Panama, ^ and in the province
of Anlioquia in New Granada.^ If it is wild in the last-
named localities as well as in the West Indies, its area
probably extends into several states of Central America
and of New Granada.
Although the bullock's heart is not much esteemed
as a fruit, the species has been introduced into most
tropical colonies. Rheede and Rumphius found it in
plautations in Southern Asia. According to Welwitsch,
it has natural'zed itself from cultivation in Angola, in
Western Africa,^ and this has also taken place in British
India.^
Chirimoya Anona Cherimolia, Lamarck.
The chirimoya is not so generally cultivated in the
colonies as the preceding species, although the fruit is
excellent. This is probably the reason that there is no
illustration of the fruit better than that of Feuillde
{Obs., iii. pi. 17), while the flower is well represented in
pi. 2011 of the Botanical Magazine, under the name of
A. trlpetcda.
In 1855, I wrote as follows, touching the origin of
the species:'^ " The chirimoya is mentioned by Lamarck
and Dunal as growing in Peru ; but Feuillee, who was
the first to speak of it,' says that it is cultivated. Mac-
Rictard, Macfadyen, Grisebach, Eggers, Swartz, Maycock. Fl
Barhad., p. 233.
' Seemann, Bof. of the Herald, p. 75.
3 Triana and Planclion, Prodr. Fl. Novo-Granat-, p. 29.
* Oliver, Fl. Trop. Afr., i. p. 15.
* Sir J. Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 78.
" Te CandoUe, Geogr. Bot. Rni:^., p. 8o3.
' Feuili:-o, Obs., iii. p. 23, t. 17.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 17o
fadyen* says it abounds in the Port E,05'al Mountains,
Jamaica ; but he adds that it came originally from Peru,
and must have been introduced long ago, whence it
appears that the species is cultivated in the higher
plantations, rather than wild. Sloane does not mention
it. Humboldt and Bonpland saw it cultivated in
Venezuela and New Granada ; Martins in Brazil,^ where
the seeds had been introduced from Peru. The species
is cultivated in the Cape Verde Islands, and on the
coast of Guinea,^ but it does not appear to have been
introduced into Asia. Its American origin is evident.
I might even go further, and assert that it is a native of
Peru, rather than of New Granada or Mexico. It will
probably be found wild in one of these countries. Meyen
has not brought it from Peru."^
My doubts are now lessened, thanks to a kind com-
munication from M. Ed. Andre. I may mention first,
that I have seen specimens from Mexico gathered by
Botteri and Bourgeau, and that authors often speak of
finding the species in this region, in the West Indies, in
Central America, and New Granada. It is true, they do
not say that it is wild. On the contrary, they remark
that it is cultivated, or that it has escaped from gardens
and become natui'alized.^ Grisebach asserts that it is
wild from Peru to Mexico, but he gives no proof. Andre
gathered, in a valley in the south-west of Ecuador,
specimens which certainly belong to the species as far
as it can be asserted without seeing the fruit. He says
nothing as to its wild nature, but the care with which
he points out in other cases plants cultivated or perhaps
escaped from cultivation, leads me to think that he
regards these specimens as wild. Claude Gay says that
the species has been cultivated in Chili from time im-
memorial.^ However, Molina, who mentions several fiu:t-
' Maofaclyen, Fl. Jam., p. 10. * Martius, Fl. Bras., fasc. iii. p. 15.
' Hooker, Fl. Nigr., p. 205. * Nov. Act. Nat. Cur., xix. suppl. 1.
* Richard, Plant. Vase, de Cuha; Grisebach, F?. Brit. W. Ind. Is.;
Hemsley, Biologia Centr. Am., p. 118 ; Kunth, in Hiiniboldt and Bon-
filand, Nova Gen., v. p. 57 ; Triaua and Plancbon, Prodr. Fl. Novo.
ilranat., p. 28.
Giy, Flora ChiL, i. p. 66.
17G ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
trees in the ancient plantations of the country, does not
.speak of it.^
In conclus'on, I consider it most probable that the
species is indigenous in Ecuador, and perhaps in the
neighbouring part of Peru.
Oranges and Lemons Cltrwi, L'nn^us.
Tlie ditierent varieties of citrons, lemons, oranges,
shaddocks, etc., cultivated in gardens have been the
subject of remarkable works by several horticultuiists,
among which Gallesio and Risso^ hold the lirst rank.
The difficulty of observing and classifying so many
varieties was very great. Fair results have been
obtained, but it must be owned that the method was
wrong from the beginning, since the plants from which
the observations were taken were all cultivated, that is
to say, more or less artificial, and perhaps in some cases
hybrids. Botanists are now more fortunate. Thanks to
the discoveries of travellers in British India, they are
able to distinguish the wild and therefore the true and
natural species. According to Sir Joseph Hooker,^ who
was himself a collector in India, the work of Brandis* is
the best on the Citrus of this region, and he follows it
in his flora. I shall do likewise in default of a mono-
graph of the genus, remarking also that the multitude
of garden varieties which have been described and
figured for centuries, ought to be identified as far as
possible with the wild species.^
The same species, and perhaps others also, probably
grow wild in Cochin-China and in China ; but this has
not been proved in the country itself, nor by means of
specimens examined by botanists. Perhaps the im-
portant works of Pierre, now in course of publication, will
' Molina, FrencTi trans.
' Gallesio, Traite da Cifrvs, in 8vo, Paris, ISll ; 771330 and Poiteau,
llistoire Naturelle des Oramjers, 1818, in fulio, 109 plates.
' Hooker, Fl. of Brit. Ind., i. p. 515.
* Brandis, Forest Flora, p. 50.
* For a work of this nature, the first step would be to publish good
figures of wild species, showing particularly the fruir, wtiic-h is not seen
in herbaria. It would then be seen which forms represent 'd in tha
plates of Risso, Duhamel, and others, are nearest to the wikl types.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 177
give information on this head for Cochin-China. "With
regard to China, I will quote the following passage from
Dr. Bretschneider/ which is interesting from the special
knowledge of the writer : " Oranges, of which there are
a great variety in China, are counted b}^ the Chinese
among their wild fruits. It cannot be doubted that most
of them are indigenous, and have been cultivated from
very early times. The proof of this is that each species
or variety bears a distinct name, besides being in most
cases represented by a particular character, and is
mentioned in the Shu-hing, Rh-ya, and other ancient
works."
Men and birds disperse the seeds of Aurantiacere,
whence results the extension of its area, and its naturali-
zation in all the warm regions of the two worlds. It
was observed ^ in America from the first century after
the conquest, and now groves of orange trees have sprung
up even in the south of the United States.
Shaddock Citrus decumana, Willdenow.
I take this species first, because its botanical character
is more marked than that of the others. It is a larger
tree, and this species alone has down on the young-
shoots and the under sides of the leaves. The fiuit is
spherical, or nearly spherical, larger than an orange,
sometimes even as large as a man's head. The juice is
slightly acid, the rind remarkably thick. Good illus-
trations of the fruit may be seen in Dubamel, Traite des
Arhres, edit. 2, vii. pi. 42, and in Tussac, Flore des Antilles,
iii. pis. 17, 18. The number of varieties in the Malay
Archipelago indicates an ancient cultivation. Its original
country is not yet accurately known, because the trees
which appear indigenous may be the result of naturaliza-
tion, following frequent cultivation. Roxburgh says that
the species was brought to Calcutta from Java,^ and
Rumphius * believed it to be a native of Southern China
Bretschneider, On the Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works,
p. 55.
' Acosta, Hist. Kat. des Indes, Fr. trans. 1598, p. 187.
" Roxburgh, Flora Tndica, edit. 1832 iii. p 393.
* Rumphius, Hortus Aiuheinensis, ii. p. 98.
178 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Neither he nor modern botanists saw it wild in the
Malay Archipelago.^ In China the species has a simple
name, ^ti; but its written character =^ appears too com-
plicated for a truly indigenous plant. According to
Loureiro, the tree is' common in China and Cochin-China,
but this does not imply that it is wild.^ It is in the
islands to the east of the Malay Archipelago that the
clearest indications of a wild existence are found.
Forster^ formerly said of this species, "ver^^ common
in the Friendly Isles." Seemann ^ is jet more positive
about the Fiji Isles. " Extremely common," he says,
"and covering the banks of the rivers."
It would be strange if a tree, so much cultivated in
the south of Asia, should have become naturalized to
such a degree in certain islands of the Pacific, while it
has scarcely been seen elsewhere. It is probably indi-
genous to them, and may perhaps yet be discovered
wild in some islands nearer to Java.
The French name, pompelmouse, is from the Dutch
pompelmoes. Shaddock was the name of a captain who
tirst introduced the species into the West Indies.*^
Citron, Lemon Citrus medica, Linnaeus.
This tree, like the common orange, is glabrous in all
its parts. Its fruit, longer than it is wide, is sur^nounted
in most of its varieties by a sort of nipple. The juice
is more or less acid. The young shoots and the petals
are frequently tinted red. The rind of the fruit is often
rough, and very thick in some subvarieties.'
Brandis and Sir Joseph Hooker distinguish four
cultivated varieties :
1. Citrus medica jproper {citron in English, cedra-
tier in French, cedro in Italian\ with large, not
' Miqnel, Flora Tndo-Batava, \. pt. 2, p. 526.
* Bretschneidor, Study and Value, etc.
* Loureiro, FL Cochin., ii. p. 572. For another species of the genu.--,
he says that it is cultivated and non-cultivated, p. 5G9.
* Forster, De Plantia Esculentis Oceani Australia, p. 35.
* Seemann, Flora Vitienais, p. 33.
" Plukenet, Almagestes, p. 239; Sloanc, Jamaica, i. p. 41.
* Cedrat a gros fruit of Duhamel, Traibi des Arhres, edit. 2, vii. p. 6S,
pi. 22.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 179
Spherical fruit, whoso highly aromatic rind is covered
with lumps, and of which the juice is neither abundant
nor very acid. According to Brandis, it was called
vijapura in Sanskrit.
2. Citrus mediea Limonum {citronnier in French,
lemon in English). Fruit of average size, not spherical,
and abundant acid juice.
3. Citrus mediea acida {C. acida,'Rox.hurg\i). Lime in
English. Small flowers, fruit small and variable in shape,
juice very acid. According to Brandis, the Sanskrit namt;
was jamhira.
4. Citrus mediea Limetta {C. Limetta and C. Lumia
of Risso), with flowers like those of the preceding variety,
but with spherical fruit and sweet, non-aromatic juice.
In India it is called the siveet litne.
The botanist Wight aflirms that this last variety is
wild in the Nilgheny Hills. Other forms, which answer
more or less exactly to the three other varieties, have
been found wild by several Anglo-Indian botanists^ in
the warm districts at the foot of the Himalayas, from
Garwal to Sikkim, in the south-east at Chittagong and
in Burmah, and in the south-west in the western Ghauts
and the Satpura Mountains. From this it cannot be
doubted that the species is indigenous in India, and even
under difterent forms of prehistoric antiquity
I doubt whether its area includes China or the Malay
Archipelago. Loureiro mentions Citrus mediea in Cochin-
China only as a cultivated plant, and Bretschneider tells
us that the lemon has Chinese names which do not
exist in the ancient writings, and for which the written
characters are complicated, indications of a foreign
species. It may, he says, have been introduced. In
Japan the species is only a cultivated one.^ Lastly,
several of Rumphius' illustrations show varieties culti-
va.ted in the Sunda Islands, but none of these are con-
sidered by the author as really wild and indigenous to the
country. To indicate the locality, he sometimes used
> B.o\\e, III. Himal., p 129; Brandis, Forest Flora, p. 52; Hookfr,
Ft. of Brit. Ind., i. p. 514.
Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Plant. Jap., p. 129.
180 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
the expression "in hortis sylvestribus," which might be
translated shrubberies. Speaking of his Levion sassu
(vol. ii. pi. 25), which is a Citrus rnedica with ellipsoidal
acid fruit, he says it has been introduced into Amboyna,
but that it is commoner in Java, " usually in forests."
This may be the result of an accidental naturalization
from cultivation. Miquel, in his modern Hora of the
Dutch Indies,^ does not hesitate to say that Citrus medicc
and C. Limonum are only cultivated in the archipelago.
The cultivation of more or less acid varieties spread
into Western Asia at an early date, at least into Mesopo-
tamia and Media. This can hardly be doubted, for two
varieties had Sanskrit names; and, moreover, the Greeks
knew the fruit through the Medes, whence the name
Citrus medica. Theophrastus^ was the first to speak of
it under the name of apple of Media and of Persia, in a
phrase often repeated and commented on in the last two
centuries.^ It evidently applies to Citrus rnedica ; but
while he explains how the seed is first sown in vases,
to be afterwards transplanted, the author does not say
whether this was the Greek custom, or whether he was
describing the practice of the Medes. Probably the citron
was not then cultivated in Greece, for the Romans did
not grow it in their gardens at the beginning of the
Christian era.
Dioscorides,^ born in Cilicia, and who wrote in the
first century, speaks of it in almost the same terms as
Theophrastus. It is supposed that the species was, after
many attempts,^ cultivated in Italy in the third or fourth
century. Palladius, in the fifth century, speaks of it as
well established.
The ignorance of the Romans of the classic period
touching foreign plants has caused them to confound,
under the name of lignum citreum, the wood of Citrus,
with that of Cedrus, of which fine tables were made, and
* Miquel, Flora Indo-Batava, i. pt. 2, p. 528.
* Theophrastus, 1. 4, c. 4.
* Bodseus, in Theophrastus, edit. 1644, pp. 322, 343; Eisso, Traitd du
Citrus, p. 198; Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 1[)R.
* Dif'snorides, i. p 166. Targioni, Cenni Storiei.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 181
which was a cedar, or a Thuya, of the totally different
family of Coniferse.
The Hebrews must have known the citron before the
Romans, because of their frequent relations wdth Persia,
Media and the adjacent countries. The custom of the
modern Jews of presenting themselves at the synagogue
on the day of the Feast of Tabernacles, with a citron
in their hand, gave rise to the belief that the word haclar
in Leviticus signified lemon or citron; but Risso has
shown, by comparing the ancient texts, that it signifies a
fine fruit, or the fruit of a fine tree. He even thinks
that the Hebrews did not know the citron or lemon at
the beginning of our era, because the Septuagint Version
translates haclar by fruit of a fine tree. Nevertheless,
as the Greeks had seen the citron in Media and in Persia
in the time of Theophrastus, three centuries before Christ,
it would be stranoe if the Hebrews had not become
acquainted with it at the time of the Babylonish Captivity.
Besides, the historian Josephus says that in his time the
Jews bore Persian apples, malum loersicum, at their feasts,
one of the Greek names for the citron.
The varieties with very acid fruit, like Limonum
and acicla, did not perhaps attract attention so early
as the citron, however the strongly aromatic odour
mentioned by Dioscorides and Theophrastus appears to
indicate them. The Arabs extended the cultivation of
the lemon in Africa and Europe. According to Gallesio,
they transported it, in the tenth century of our era, froni
the gardens of Oman into Palestine and Egypt. Jacques
de Vitry, in the thirteenth century, well described the
lemon which he had seen in Palestine. An author
named Falcando mentions in 1260 some very acid
" lum^ias " w^hich were cultivated near Palermo, and
Tuscany had them also towards the same period.^
Orange Citrus Aurantiuni, Linnaeus (excl. var. y) ;
Citrus Aurantium, Risso.
Oranges are distinguished from shaddocks (C. decu-
man':/,) by the complete absence of down on the young
shcots and leaves, by their smaller fruit, always sphei'ical,
Targioni, p. 217.
182 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
and by a thinner rind. They differ from lemons and citrons
in their |)ure white flowers ; in the fruit, wdiich is never
elongated, and without a nipple on the summit ; in the rind,
smooth or nearly so, and adhering but lightly to the pulp.
Neither Risso, in his excellent monograph of Citrus,
nor modern authors, as Brandis and Sir Joseph Hooker,
have been able to discover any other character than the
taste to distinguish the sweet oranu^e from more or less
bitter fruits. This difference appeared to me of such
slight importance from the botanical point of view, w^hen
I studied the question of origin in 1855, that I was
inclined, with Risso, to consider these tw^o sorts of orange
as simple varieties. Modern Anglo-Indian authors do
the same. They add a third variety, wdiich they call
Bergamia, for the bergamot orange, of which the flower is
smaller, and the fruit spherical or pyriform, and smaller
than the common orange, aromatic and slightly acid.
This last form has not been found wild, and appears to
me to be rather a product of cultivation.
It is often asked whether the seeds of sweet orano-es
5'ield sweet oranges, and of bitter, bitter oranges. It
matters little from the point of view of the distinction
into species or varieties, for we know that both in the
animal and vegetable kingdoms all characters are more
or less hereditary, that certain varieties are habitually
so, to such a degree that they should be called races, and
that the distinction into species must consequently be
founded upon other considerations, such as the absence of
intermediate forms, or the failure of crossed fertilization
to produce fertile hybrids. However, the question is not
devoid of interest in the present case, and I must answer
that experiments have given results which are at times
contradictory.
Gallesio, an excellent observer, expresses himself as
follows : " I have during a long series of years sown pips
of sweet oranges, taken sometimes from the natural tree,
sometimes from oranfjes ^rafted on bitter orano-e trees
or lemon trees. The result- has always been trees bearing
sweet fruit ; and tlie same has been observed for more
than sixty years by all the gardeners of Finale. There
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 183
is no instance of a bitter orange tree from seed of sweet
oranges, nor of a sweet orano-e tree from the seed of
bitter oranges. ... In 1709, the orange trees of Finale
having been killed by frost, the practice of raising sweet
orange trees from seed was introduced, and every one
of these plants produced the sweet-juiced fruit." ^
Macfadyen,^ on the contrary, in his Flora of Jamaica,
says, " It is a well-established fact, familiar to every one
who has been any length of time in this island, that the
seed of the sweet orange very frequently grows up into
a tree bearing the bitter fruit, numerous well-attested
instances of which have come to my own knowledge. I
am not aware, however, that the seed of the bitter orange
has ever grown up into the sweet-fruited variety. . . .
We may therefore conclude," the author judiciously goes
on to sav, " that the bitter orang-e was the orio-inal stock."
He asserts that in calcareous soil the sweet orange may
1 e raised from seed, but that in other soils it produces
fruits more or less sour or bitter. Duchassaing says that
in Guadeloupe the seeds of sweet oranges often yield
bitter fruit,^ while, according to Dr. Ernst, at Caracas
they sometimes yield sour but not bitter fiuit.* Brandis
relates that at Khasia, in India, as far as he can verify
the fact, the extensive plantations of sweet oranges are
from seed. These differences show the variable des^ree of
heieJity, and confirm the opinion that these two kinds
of orange should be considered as two varieties, not two
species.
I am, however, obliged to take them in succe.ssion,
to explain their origin and the extent of their cultivation
at ditferent epochs.
Bitter Orange A rancio forte in ltaMa:n,higarad{er in
French, poTneranze in German. Citrus valgaris, Eisso ;
C. aurantium (var. higaradia), Brandis and Hooker.
It was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, as well
as the sweet orange. As they had had communication
' Gallesio, Traite da Citms, pp. 32, 67, 355, 357.
Macfadyen, Flora of Jamaica, p. 129.
Quoted in Grisebach's Veget. Karaihen, p. 34.
* Ernst, in Seemaiin, Journ, of Bot., 18D7, p. 272.
184 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
with India and Ceylon, Gallesio supposed that these
trees were not cultivated in their time in the west of
India. He had studied from this point of view, ancient
travellers and geographers, such as Diodorus Siculus,
Nearchus, Arianus, and he finds no mention of the orange
in them. However, there was a Sanskrit name for the
oiange nagarunga, nagrunga} It is from this that the
word orange came, for the Hindus turned it into narun-
gee (pron. naroudji), according to Royle, nerunga accord-
ing to Piddington ; the Arabs into narunj, according to
Gallesio, the Italians into naranzi, arangi, and in the
medieeval Latin it was aranciuin, arangium, afterwards
aurantiuTn.^ But did the Sanskrit name apply to the
bitter or to the sweet orange ? The philologist Adolphe
Pictet formerly gave me some curious information on
this head. He had sought in Sanskrit works the de-
scriptive names given to the orange or to the tree, and
had found seventeen, w^hich all allude to the colour, the
odour, its acid nature (danta catha, harmful to the
teeth), the place of growth, etc., never to a sweet or
agreeable taste. This multitude of names similar to
epithets show that the fruit had long been known, but
that its taste was very ditferent to that of the sweet
orange. Besides, the Arabs, who carried the oi'ange tree
with them towards the West, were first acquainted with
the bitter orange, and gave it the name narunj,^ and
their physicians from the tenth century prescribed the
bitter juice of this fruit.* The exhaustive researches of
Gallesio show that after the fall of the Empire the species
advanced from the coast of the Persian Gulf, and by the
end of the ninth century had reached Arabia, through
Oman, Bassora, Irak, and Syria, according to the Arabian
author Massoudi. The Crusaders saw the bitter orange
tree in Palestine. It was cultivated in Sicily from the
j-^ear 1002, probably a result of the incursions of the
> Eoxbnrgh, Fl. Indica, edit. 1832, vol. ii. p. 392; Piddington, Index.
' GaUesio, p. 122.
" In the modern langnages of India the Sanskrit name has been
applied to the sweet orange, so says Brandis, by one of those transposi-
tions which are so common in popular language.
* Gallesio, pp. 122, 217, 218.
PLAXTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 185
Arabs. It was they vrho introduced it into Spain, and
most likely also into the east of Africa. The Portuguese
found it on that coast when they doubled the Cape in
1498.^ There is no ground for supposing that either the
bitter or the sweet orange existed in Africa before the
Middle Ages, for the myth of the garden of Hesperides
may refer to any species of the order Aurantiacece, and
its site is altogether arbitrary, since the imagination of
the ancients was wonderfully fertile.
The early Anglo-Indian botanists, such as Roxburgh,
Royle, Grithth, Wight, had not come across the bitter
orange wild; but there is every probability that the
eastern recrion of India was its orio;inal country. Wallich
mentions Silhet,^ but without asserting that the species
was wild in this locality. Later, Sir Joseph Hooker ^
saw the bitter orange certainly wild in several districts
to the south of the Himalayas, from Garwal and Sikkim
as far as Khasia. The fruit was spherical or slightly
flattened, two inches in diameter, bright in colour, and
uneatable, of mawkish and bitter taste (" if I remember
right," says the author). Citi'us fusca, Loureiro,* similar,
he says, to pi. 23 of Rumphius, and wild in Cochin-China
and China, may very likely be the bitter orange whose
area extends to the east.
Sweet Orange Italian, Arancio dolce ; German,
Apfelsine. Citrus Aurantiuin sinense, Gallesio.
Royle ^ says that sweet oranges giow wild at Silhet
and in the Nilgherry Hills, but his assertion is not
accompanied with suthcient detail to give it importance.
According to the same author. Turner's expedition
gathered " delicious " wild oranges at Buxedwar, a
locality to the north-east of Rungpoor, in the province
of Bengal. On the other hand, Brandis and Sir Joseph
Hooker do not mention the sweet orange as wild in
' Gallesio, p. 240. Goeze, Beitrag zurKennfniss der Orangengeudchse,
1874, p. 13, quotes early Portuguese travelltrs on this head.
* Wallich, Catalogue, No. 6384.
Hooker, Fl of Brit. Ind., i. p. 515.
* Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 571.
* Eovle, Illustr. of HiynaL, p. 129. He quotes Turner, Journey to
Thibet, pp. 20, 387.
186 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
British India ; tiiey only give it as cultivated. Kurz
does not mention it in his forest flora of British Burmah.
Further east, in Cochin-China, Loureiro ^ describes a C.
Aurantiuin, with bitter-sweet {acido-dulcis) pulp, which
appears to be the sweet orange, and which is found both
wild and cultivated in China and Cochin-China. Chinese
authors consider orange trees in general as natives of
their country, but precise information about each species
and variety is wanting on this head.
From the collected facts, it seems that the sweet
orange is a native of Southern China and of Cochin-
China, with a doubtful and accidental extension of area
by seed into India.
By seeking in what country it was first cultivated,
and how it was propagated, some light may be thrown
upon the origin, and upon the distinction between the
bitter and sweet orange. So large a fruit, and one so
agreeable to the palate as the sweet orange, can hardly
have existed in any district, without some attempts
having been made to cultivate it. It is easily raised
from seed, and nearly always produces the wished-for
quality. Neither can ancient travellers and historians
have neglected to notice the introduction of so remark-
able a fruit tree. On this histoi'ical pomt Gallesio's
study of ancient authors has. produced extremely in-
teresting results.
He first proves that the orange trees brought from
India by the Arabs into Palestine, Egypt, the south of
Europe, and the east coast of Africa,, were not the sweet-
fruited tree. Up to the fifteenth century, Arab books
and chronicles only mention bitter, or sour oranges.
However, when the Portuguese arrived in the islands of
Southern Asia, they found the sweet orange, and ap-
parently it had not previously been unknown to them.
The Florentine who accompanied Vasco de Gama, and
who published an account of the voyage, says, " Sonvi
onelarancie assai, ona tutfe dolci" (there are plenty of
oranges, but all sweet.) Neither this writer nor subsequent
travellers expressed surprise at the pleasant taste of the
' Loureiro, Fl. Corhin., p. 569.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS, 187
fruit. Hence Gallesio infers that tbe Portuguese were
not the first to bring the sweet orano-e from India, which
they reached in 1498, nor from China, which they
reached in 1518. Besides, a number of writers in the
beginning of the sixteenth century speak of the sweet
orange as a fruit ah-eady cultivated in Spain and Italy.
There are several testimonies for the years 1523, and
1525. Gallesio goes no further than the idea that the
sweet orange was introduced into Europe towards the
beginning of the fifteenth century ; ^ but Targioni quotes
from Valeriani a statute of Fermo, of the fourteenth
century, referring to citrons, sweet oranges, etc. ; ^ and
the information recently collected from early authors by
Goeze,^ about the introduction into Spain and Portugal,
agrees with this date. It therefore appears to me prob-
able that the oranges imported later from China by the
Portuguese were only of better quality than those
already known in Europe, and that the common expres-
sions, Portugal and Lisbon oranges, are due to this cir-
cumstance.
If the sweet orange had been cultivated at a very
early date in India, it would have had a special name
in Sanskrit; the Greeks would have known it after
Alexander's expedition, and the Hebrews would have
early received it through Mesopotamia. This fruit would
certainly have been valued, cultivated, and propagated
in the Roman empire, in preference to the lemon, citron,
and bitter orange. Its existence in India must, there-
fore, be less ancient.
In the Malay Archipelago the sweet orange was
believed to come from China.* It was but little diffused
in the Pacific Isles at the time of Cook's voyages.^
We come back thus by all sorts of ways to the idea
that the sweet variety of the orange came from China
1 Gallesio, p. 321.
^ The date of this statuto is given by Targioni, on p. 205 of tlie Cenni
Storici, as 1379, and on p. 213 as 1309. The errata do not notice this
discrepancy,
* Goeze, Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Orangengewdchse. Hamburg,
1874, p. 26
* Enmphius, Amhoin., ii. o. 42. Forster, Plantis Eaculentis, p. 3n,
188 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
and Cochin- China, and that it spread into India perhaps
towards the beginning of the Christian era. It may have
become naturalized from cultivation in many parts of
India and in all tropical countries, but we have seen that
the seed does not always yield trees bearing sweet fruit.
This defect in heredity in certain cases is in support of
the theory that the sweet orange was derived from the
bitter, at some remote epoch, in China or Cochin-China,
and has since been carefully propagated on account of
its horticultural value.
Mandarin Citrus nohilis, Loureiro.
This species, characterized by its smaller fruit, uneven
on the surface, spherical, but flattened at the top, and of
a peculiar flavour, is now prized in Europe as it has been
from the earliest times in China and Cochin-China.
The Chinese call it kan} Rumpliius had seen it culti-
vated in all the Sunda Islands,^ and says that it was
introduced thither from China, but it had not spread into
India, Roxburgh and Sir Joseph Hooker do not mention
it, but Clarke informs me that its culture has been
greatly extended in the district of Khasia. It was new
to European gardens at the beginning of the present
century, when Andrews published a good illustration of
it in the Botanist's Repository (pi. GOS).
According to Loureiro,^ this tree, of average size,
grows in Cochin-China, and also, he adds, in China,
although he had not seen it in Canton. This is not very
precise information as to its wild character, but no other
origin can be supposed. According to Kurz,* the species
is only cultivated in British Burmah. If this is confirmed,
its area would be restricted to Cochin-China and a few
provinces in China.
Mangosteen Garcinia mangostana, Linnoeus.
There is a good illustration in the Botanical Magazine,
pi 4847, of this tree, belonging to the order Guttiferse, of
which the fruit is considered one of the best in existence.
Bretschneider, On the Study and Value, etc., p. 11.
Kumphius, Amboin., ii. pis. 3-i, 35, where, however, the form of the
fruit is not that of our niaadarin.
Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 570. * Kurz, Forest Fl. of Brit. Bur.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 189
It demands a very hot climate, for Roxburgh could not
make it grow north of twenty-three and a half degrees
of latitude in India/ and, transported to Jamaica, it bears
but poor fruit.^ It is cultivated in the Sunda Islands, in
the Malay Peninsula, and in Ceylon.
The species is certainly wild in the forests of the Sunda
Islands ^ and of the Malay Peninsula.* Among cultivated
plants it is one of the most local, both in its origin,
habitation, and in cultivation. It belongs, it is true, to
one of those families in which the mean area of the
species is most restricted.
Mamey, or Mammee Apple Martimea Amei^ana,
Jaequin.
This tree, of the order Guttiferse, requires, like the
mangosteen, great heat. Although much cultivated in
the West Indies and in the hottest parts of Venezuela,^
its culture has seldom been attempted, or has met with
but little success, in Asia and Africa, if we are to judge
by the silence of most authors.
It is certainly indigenous in the forests of most of the
West Indies.^ Jaequin mentions it also for the neigh-
bouring continent, but I do not find this confirmed by
modern authors. The best illustration is that in Tussac's
Flore des Antilles, iii. pi. 7, and this author gives a
number of details respecting the use of the fruit.
Ochro, or Gombo Hibiscus escidentus, Linnseus.
The young fruits of this annual, of the order of
Malvaceae, form one of the most delicate of tropical
vesfetables. Tussac's Flore des Antilles contains a fine
plate of the species, and gives all the details a gourmet
could desire on the manner of preparing the caloulou, so
much esteemed by the Creoles of the French colonies.
Royle, ni. Himol., p. 133, and Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., ii. p. 618.
* Macfaclyen, Flora of Jamaica, p. 13-4.
^ Rumphius, Amhoin., i. p. 133; Miquel, Plantos Junghun., i. p. 290;
Flora Indo-Batava, i. pt. 2, p. 506.
* Hooker, Flora of Brit. Ind., i. p. 260.
* Ernst in Seemann, Journal of Botany, 1SG7, p. 273; Triana and
I'lanchon, Prodr. Fl. Novo-Granat., p. 285.
* Sloane, Jamaica, i. p. 123; Jaequin, Amer., p. 268; Grisebach,
Fl. of Brit. W. Iild. Isles, p. 118.
190 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
When I formerly ^ tried to discover whence this plant,
cultivated in the old and new worlds, came originally, the
absence of a Sanskrit name, and the fact that the first
writers on the Indian flora had not seen it wild, led me
to put aside the hypothesis of an Asiatic origin. How-
ever, as the modem flora of British India ^ mentions it as
" probably ot native origin," I was constrained to make
further researches.
Although Southern Asia has been thoroughly explored
during the last thirty years, no locality is mentioned
where the Gombo is wild or half wild. There is no
indication, even, of an ancient cultivation in Asia. The
doubt, therefore, lies between Africa and America. The
plant has been seen wild in the West Indies by a good
observer,^ but I can discover no similar assertion on the
pait of any other botanist, either with respect to the
islands or to the American continent. The earliest writer
on Jamaica, Sloane, had only seen the species in a state of
cultivation. Marcgraf * had observed it in Brazilian plan-
tations, and as he mentions a name from the Congo and
Angola country, quillobo, which the Portuguese corrujited
into quiTigomho, the African origin is hereby indicated.
Schweinfurth and Ascherson ^ saw the plant wild in
the Nile Valley in Nubia, Kordofan, Senaar, Abyssinia,
and in the Baar-el-Abiad, where, indeed, it is cultivated.
Other travellers are mentioned as having gathered speci-
mens in Africa, but it is not specified whether these
plants were cultivated or wild at a distance from habita-
tions. We should still be in doubt if Fliickiger and
Hanbury'' had not made a bibliographical discovery
which settles the question. The Arabs call the fruit
hamyah, or bdmiat, and Abul-Abas-Elnabati, who visited
Egypt long before the discovery of America, in 121G, has
' A. <3e Candolle, GSogr. Bot. Rais., p. 768.
Flora of Brit. Ind., i. p. 3-13.
* .Jacquin, Ohxervationes, iii. p. 11.
* Marcgraf, Hist. Plant., p. 32, with illnstrations.
* Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Axifzdhlung , p. 2G5, under the name
abelmoiichtos.
* Flii.'kiger and Hanbury, Pharmacograpliia, p. 86. The descrip-
tion is in Ebu Baithar, Sondtheimer's trans., i. p. 118.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 191
distinctly described the gomho then cullivated by the
Egyptians.
In spite of its undoubtedly African origin, it does not
appear that the species was cultivated in Lower Egypt
before the Arab rule. No proof has been found in ancient
monuments, although Rosellini thought he recognized
the plant in a drawing, which differs widely from it
accordmg to Unger.^ The existence of one name in
modern Indian languages, according to Piddington, con-
firms the idea of its propagation towards the East after
the beoinning of the Christian era.
Vine Vitis vimfera, Lmnteus.
The vine grows wild, in the temperate regions of
Western Asia, Southern Europe, Algeria, and Marocco.^ It
is especially in the Pontus, in Armenia, to the south of
the Caucasus and of the Caspian Sea, that it grows with
the luxuriant wildness of a tropical creeper, clinging to
tall trees and producing abundant fruit without pruning
or cultivation. Its vigorous growth is mentioned in
ancient Bactriana, Cabul, Kashmir, and even in Badak-
khan to the north of the Hindu Koosh.^ Of course, it is
a question whether the plants found there, as elsewhere,
are not sprung from seeds carried from vineyards by
birds. I notice, however, that the most trustworthy
botanists, those who have most thoroughly explored the
Transcaucasian provinces of Russia, do not hesitate to
say that the plant is wild and indigenous in this region.
It is as we advance towards India and Arabia, Europe
and the north of Africa, that we frequently find in floras
the expression that the vine is " subspontaneous," per-
haps wild, or become wild (vtvwildert is the expressive
German tei'm).
The dissemination by birds must have begun very
early, as soon as the fruit existed, before cultivation,
before the migration of the most ancient Asiatic peoples,
' Unger, Die Pflanzen des Alien Mgyptens, p. 50.
* Grisebach, Veget. du Globe, French trans, by Tchibatcheff, i. pp.
162, 163, 442; Munbv, Cafal. Alger; Ball, Fi. Maroc. Spicel, p. 392.
' Adolphe Pietet", Origines Indo.Europ. edit. 2, voL 1, p. 295, quotes
several travellers for these regions, among others Wood's Journei/ to the
Sources of !he Oxus,
192 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
perhaps before the existence of man in Europe or even
in Asia. Nevertheless, the frequency of cultivation, and
the multitude of forms of the cultivated grape, may have
extended naturalization and introduced among wild vines
varieties which originated in cultivation. In fact, natural
agents, such as birds, winds, and currents, have always
widened the ai^ea of species, independently of man, as far
as the limits imposed in each age by geographical and
physical conditions, together with the hostile action of
other plants and animals, allow. An absolutely primitive
habitation is more or less mythical, but habitations
successively extended or restricted are in accordance
with the nature of things. They constitute areas more
or less ancient and real, provided that the species has
maintained itself wild without the constant addition ot
fresh seed.
Concerning the vine, we have proofs of its great
antiquity in Europe as in Asia. Seeds of the grape have
been found in the lake-dwellings of Castione, near Parma,
which date from the age of bronze,^ in a prehistoric settle-
ment of Lake Varese,^ and in the lake-dwellings of
Wangen, Switzerland, but in the latter instance at an un-
certain depth.^ And, what is more, vine-leaves have been
found in the tufa round Montpellier, where they were
probably deposited, before the historical epoch, and in the
tufa of Meyrargue in Provence, which is certainly prehis-
toric,^ though later than the tertiary epoch of geologists.^
A Russian botanist, Kolenati,^ has made some very
interestinof observations on the different varieties of the
vine, both wild and cultivated, in the country which may
be called the central, and perhaps the most ancient home
of the species, the south of the Caucasus. I consider his
opinion the more important that the author has based
' These are figured in Heer's PJlanzen der Pfahlhauten, p. 24, fig. 11.
Ragazzoni, Ricista Arch, della Prov. di Como, 18S0, fasc. 17, p. 30.
Heer, ibid.
Planchou, Etude sur les Tvfs de Montpellier, 18CA, p. 63.
De Saporta, La Flore des Tufs Quaternaires de Provence, 1867, pp.
15, 27.
Kolenati, Bulletin de la Soci6t4 Imp^riale des Katuralistes de
Moecou, 1846, p. 279.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 193
his classification of varieties with reference to the downy
character and veining of the leaves, points absolutely
indifferent to cultivators, and which consequently must
far better represent the natural conditions of the plant.
He says that the wild vines, of which he had seen an
immense quantity between the Black and Caspian Seas,
may be grouped into two subspecies which he describes,
and declares are recognizable at a distance, and which
are the point of departure of cultivated vines, at least in
Armenia and the neighboui'hood. He recognized them
near Mount Ararat, at an altitude where the vine is
not cultivated, where, indeed, it could not be cultivated.
Other characters for instance, the shape and colour of
the grapes vary in each of the subspecies. We cannot
enter here into the purely botanical details of Kolenati's
paper, any more than into those of Kegel's more recent
work on the genus Vitis ; ^ but it is well to note that a
species cultivated from a very remote epoch, and which
has perhaps two thousand described varieties, presents
in the district where it is most ancient, and probably
presented before all cultivation, at least two principal
forms, with others of minor importance. If the wild
vines of Persia and Kashmir, of Lebanon and Greece,
were observed with the same care, perhaps other sub-
species of prehistoric antiquity might be found. The
idea of collecting the juice of the grape and of allowing
it to ferment may have occurred to different peoples,
principally in Western Asia, where the vine abounds and
thrives. Adolphe Pictet,^ who has, in common with
numerous authors, but in a more scientific manner, con-
sidered the historical, philological, and even mythological
questions relating to the vine among ancient peoples,
' Regel, Ada Horti Imp. Petrop., 1873. In this short review of the
genns, M. Regel gives it as his opinion that Vitis vinifera is a hybrid
between tvvo wild species, V. v-ulpina and V. lahrusca, modified by culti-
vation ; but he gives no j^roof, and his characters of the two wild
species are altogether unsatisfactory. It is much to be desired that
the wild and cultivated vines of Europe and Asia should be compared
with regard to their seeds, which furnish excellent distinctions, according
to Englemann's observations on the American vines.
Ad. Pictet, Origines Indo-Eur., 2nd edit., vol. i. pp. 298-321.
i94< ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
admits that both Semitic and Aryan nations knew the
use of wine, so that they may have introduced it into all
the countries into which they migrated, into India and
Egypt and Europe. This they were the better able to
do, since the}^ found the vine wild in several of these
regions.
The records of the cultivation of the grape and of the
making of wine in Egypt go back five or six tliousand
years.-^ In the West the propagation of its culture by
the Phenicians, Greeks, and Romans is pretty well
known, but to the east of Asia it took place at a late
period. The Chinese who now cultivate the vine in
their northern provinces did not possess it earlier than
the year 122 B.c.^
It is known that several wild vines exist in the north
of China, but I cannot agree with M. Regel in consider-
ing Vitis Aniurensis, Ruprecht, the one most analogous
to our vine, as identical in species. The seeds drawn in
the GaHenflora, 18G1, pi. 33, differ too widely. If the
fruit of these vines of Eastern Asia had any value, the
Chinese would certainly have turned them to account.
Common Jujube Zizyplais vulgaris, Lamarck.
According to Pliny ,^ the jujube tree was brought from
Syria to Rome by the consul Sextus Papinius, towards
the end of the reign of Augustus. Botanists, however,
have observed that the species is common in rocky
places in Italy ,^ and that, moreover, it has not yet been
found wild in Syria, although it is cultivated there, as
in the whole region extending from the Mediterranean
to China and Japan.^
The result of the search for the origin of the jujube
tree as a wild j)lant bears out Pliny's assertion, in spite
' M. Delchevalerie, in I'Tlhisf ration Horficole, 18S1, p. 28. He
niort'ons ia particular the touib of Plitah-Hotep, who lived at Memphis
4000 B.C.
* Bretschneider, Sfudy and Value, etc., p. 16.
Pliny, Hist., lib. 15, c. 14.
* Bertoloni, Fl. ItaL, ii. p. 665 ; Gnssnne, Syn. FI. Siml., ii. p. 276.
* Wilikomm and Lange, Prod. FL Hisp., iii. p. 480; Desiontaines, Fl.
Atlanf., i. p. 200; Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 12 ; J. Hooker, Fl. Brit.Ind.,
i. p. 633 ; Buuge, Enum. PI. Chiii., p. 14; Franchet and Savatier, Enum,
PL Jap. , i. p. 81.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 195
of the objections I have just mentioned. According to
plant collectors and authors of floras, the species appears
to be more wild and more anciently cultivated in the
east than in the west of its present wide area. Thus, in
the north of China, de Bunge says it is " very common
and very troublesome (on account of its thorns) in moun-
tainous places." He had seen the thornless variety in
gardens. Bretschneider ^ mentions the jujube as one of
the fruits most prized by the Chinese, who give it the
simple name tsao. He also mentions the two varieties,
with and without thorns, the former wild.^ The species
does not grow in the south of China and in India proper,
because of the heat and moisture of the climate. It is
found again wild in the Punjab, in Persia, and Armenia.
Brandis ^ gives seven diti'erent names for the jujube
tree (or for its varieties) in modern Indian languages,
but no Sanskrit name is known. The species was there-
fore probably introduced into India from China, at no
very distant epoch, and it must have escaped from culti-
vation and have become wild in the dry provinces of the
west. The Persian name is anob, the Arabic unab. No
Hebrew name is known, a further sign that the species
is not very ancient in the west of Asia.
The ancient Greeks do not mention the common
jujube, but only another species, Zlzypkus lotus. At least,
such is the opinion of the critic and modern botanist,
Lenz.* It must be confessed that the modern Greek name
pritzuphuia has no connection with the names formerly
attributed in Theophrastus and Dioscorides to some
Zizyphus, but is allied to the Latin name zizyplius (fruit
zizyphumi) of Pliny, which does not occur in earlier
authors, and seems to be rather of an Oriental than of a
Latin character. Heldreich^ does not admit that the
jujube tree is wild in Greece, and others say " natural-
ized, half-wild," which confirms the hypothesis of a
' Bretschneirler, Study and Value, etc., p. 11.
* Zizyphus chinensis of some authors is the same species.
* Brandis, Forest Flora of British India, p. 8i.
* Lenz, BoTanik der Alien, p. 651.
* Heldvelch, Nutzpf.amen Griechenlands, p. 57.
193 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
recent introduction. The same arguments apply to
Italy, The species may have become naturalized there
after the introduction into gardens mentioned by
Pliny.
In Algeria the jujube is only cultivated or half-wild.^
So also in Spain. It is not mentioned in Marocco, nor in
the Canary Isles, which argues no very ancient existence
in the Mediterranean basin.
It appears to me probable, therefore, that the species
is a native of the north of China ; that it was intro-
duced and became naturalized in the west of Asia after
the epoch of the Sanskrit language, perhaps two thousand
five hundred or three thousand years ago ; that the
Greeks and Romans became acquainted with it at the
beofinnino^ of our era, and that the latter carried it in+o
Barbary and Spain, where it became partially naturalized
by the effect of cultivation.
Lotus Jujube Zlzyphiis lotus, Desfontaines.
The fruit of this jujube is not worthy of attention
except from an historical point of view. It is said to have
been the food of the lotus-eater, a people of the Lybian
coast, of whom H^Md and Herodotos ^ have given a more
or less accurate account. The inhabitants of this country
must have been very poor or very temperate, for a berry
the size of a small cherry, tasteless, or slightly sweet,
would not satisfy ordinary men. There is no proof that
the lotus-eaters cultivated this little tree or shrub. They
doubtless gathered the fruit in the open country, for the
species is common in the north of Africa. One edition
of Theophrastus ^ asserts, however, that there were some
species of lotus without stones, which would imply culti-
vation. They were planted in gardens, as is still done
in modern Egypt/ but it does not seem to have been a
common custom even among the ancients.
For the rest, widely dilierent opinions have been held
Munby, Catah, edit. 2, p. 9.
* Odyssey, bk. 1, v. 84; Herodotos, 1. 4, p. 177, trans, in Lenz, Bot.
der Alt., p. 653.
Theophrastus, Hist., 1. 4, c. 4, edit. 1644. The edition of 1613 does
not contain the words which refer to this detail.
* Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Beitr. zur Fl.Mthiop., p. 263.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 197
touching the lotus of the lotus-eaters,^ and it is needless
to insist upon a point so obscure, in which so much must
be allowed for the imagination of a poet and for popular
ignorance.
The jujube tree is now wild in dry places from Egypt
to Marocco, in the south of Spain, Tervacina, and the
neighbourhood of Palermo.^ In isolated Italian localities
it has probably escaped from cultivation.
Indian Jujube^ Zizyphus jujube, Lamarck; her Simong
the Hindus and Anglo-Indians, niasson in the Mauritius.
This jujube is cultivated further south than the com-
mon kind, but its area is equally extensive. The fruit is
sometimes like an unripe cherry, sometimes like an olive,
as is shown in the plate published by Bouton in Hooker's
Journal of Botany, i. pi, 140. The great number of
known varieties indicates an ancient cultivation. It
extends at the present day from Southern China, the Malay
Archipelago, and Queensland, through Arabia and Egj'pt
as far as Marocco, and even to Senegal, Guinea, and Angola.'^
It grows also in Mauritius, but it does not appear to have
been introduced into America as yet, unless perhaps into
Brazil, as it seems from a specimen in my herbarium.^
Tlie fruit is preferable to the common jujube, according
to some writers.
It is not easy to know what was the habitation of
the species before all cultivation, because the stones sow
themselves readily and the plant becomes naturalized out-
side gardens.^ If we are guided by its abundance in a
wild state, it would seem that Burmah and British India
are its original abode. I have in my herbarium several
specimens gathered by Wallich in the kingdom of Burmah,
' See the article on the carob tree.
* Desfoutaines, VI. Atlant., i. p. 200; Mnnby, Catal. Alger., edit. 2, p
9; Ball, Spicilegium, Fl. Jl/fl?-oc., p. 301 ; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. J^i
Hisp., iii. p. 481 ; Bertoloni, Fl. Lial., ii. p. 664.
* This name, which is little used, occurs in Bauhin, as Jvjuha Indira
* Sir J. Hooker, Fl. Brit, hid., i. p. 632 ; Brandis, Forest FL, i. 87 ;
Bentham, JPZ. Austral., i. p. 412; Boissier, Pi. Orient., ii. p. 13; Oliver
Fl. of Trap. Afr., i. p. 379.
* Received from Martins, No. 1070, from the Caho frio.
^ Bouton, in Hookers Journ. of Bot.; Baker, 11. of Mauriiius, p. 61;
Bi-andis.
198 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
and Kurz has often seen it in the dry forests of that
country, near Ava and Prome.^ Beddone admits the
species to be wild in the forests of British India, but
Brandis had only found it in the neighbourhood of
native settlements.^ In the seventeenth century Rheede ^
described this tree as wild on tlie Malabar coast, and
liotanists of the sixteenth century had received it from
Bengal. In support of an Indian origin, I may mention
the existence of three Sanskrit names, and of eleven other
names in modern Indian languages.*
It had been recently introduced into the eastern
islands of the Amboyna group when Rumphius was
living there, and he says himself that it is an Indian
species. It was perhaps originally in Sumatra and in
other islands near to the Malay Peninsula. Ancient
Chinese authors do not mention it ; at least Bretschneider
did not know of it. Its extension and naturalization to
the east of the continent of India appear, therefore, to
have been recent.
Its introduction into Arabia and Eg3'pt appears to
be of yet later date. Not only no ancient name is
known, but Forskal, a hundred years ago, and Delile at
the beginning of the present century, had not seen the
species, of which Schweinfurth has recently spoken as
cultivated. It must have spread to Zanzibar from Asia,
and by degrees across Africa or in European vessels as
far as the west coast. This must have been quite
recently, as Robert Brown {Bot. of Congo) and Thonning
did not see the species in Guinea.^
Cashew Anacardium occidentalc, Linnneus.
The most erroneous assertions about the origin of
this species were formerly made,' and in spite of what
' Karz, Foreat Flora of Burmah, i. p. 2GG.
Beddone, Forest Flora of India, i. ])]. 119 (representing the wild
fruit, which is smaller thau that of the cultivated plant) ; Brandis.
' Rheede, iv. pi. 141.
* Piddingtori, Index.
' Rumphius, Amhoyna, ii. pL 36.
* Zizyphus ahyssiniciis, Hcchst, seems to he a different species.
* Tussac, fZore dcs Antillex, u\.y>. 55 (where there is an excellent
figure, pi. 13). He says that it is an East Indian species, thus aggra-
vating LinntKUs' mistake, who believed it to be Asiatic and American.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 199
I said on the subject in 18-35,1 j gj^^j them occasionally
reproduced.
The French name Pommier cTacajow (mahogany-
apple tree) is as absurd as it is possible to be. It is a
tree belonging to the order of Terebintacecc or Anacar-
diacecB, very different from the Rosacese and the Meliaceas,
to which the apple and the mahogany belong. The
edible part is more like a pear than an apple, and botani-
cally speaking is not a fruit, but the receptacle or sup-
port of the fruit, which resembles a large bean. The two
names, French and English, are both deriv^ed from a name
given to it by the natives of Brazil, acajii, ucajaiba,
quoted by eaidy travellei^s.^ The species is certainly wild
in the forests of tropical America, and indeed occupies a
wide area in that legion ; it is found, for example, in
Brazil, Guiana, the Isthmus of Panama, and the West
Indies.^ Dr. Ernst * believes it is only indigenous in the
basin of the Amazon River, although he had seen it also
in Cuba, Panama, Ecuador, and New Granada. His
opinion is founded upon the absence of all mention of 'the
plant in Spanish authors of the time of the Conquest a
negative proof, which establishes a mere probability.
Rheede and Rumphius had also indicated this plant
in the south of Asia. The former says it is common on
the Malabar coast.^ The existence of the same tropical
arborescent species in Asia and America was so little
probable, that it was at first suspected that there was a
ditierence of species, or at least of variety; but this was
not confirmed. Different historical and philological
proofs have convinced me that its origin is not Asiatic.^
Moreover, Rumphius, who is always accurate, spoke of an
ancient introduction by the Portuguese into the IMalay
Archipelago from America. The Malay name he gives,
' Ge'rigr. B<>t. Rais., p. 873.
* Piso and Marcgraf, Hist. rer. Nafur. Urasil, lfi48, p. 57.
Vide Piso and Marcgraf; Aublet, Guyane, p. 392 ; Seemann Bnt.
of the Herald, p. 106 ; Jacquin, Amer., p. 124 ; Macfadyen, PL Jainaic ,
p. 119; Greisbach, Fl of Brit. W. Ind., p. 17(J.
* Ernst in Seemann, Journ. of Bot., 18G7, p. 273.
Rheede, Malabar, iii. pi. 54.
* Rumphius, Herh. Amhoin., i. pp. 177, 178.
200 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
cadju, is American ; that used at Amboyna means Portugal
fruit, that of Macassar was taken from the resemblance ot
the fruit to that of the jamhosa. Kumphius says that the
species was not widely diffused in the islands. Garcia ah
Orto did not find it at Goa in 1550, but Acosta after-
wards saw it at Couchin, and the Portuguese propagated
it in India and the Malay Archipelago. According to
Blume and Miquel, the species is only cultivated in Java.
Eheede, it is true, says it is abundant (jJwvenit ubique)
on the coast of Malabar, but he only quotes one name
which seems to be Indian, krqxf, mava ; all the others
are derived from the American name, Piddington gives
no Sanskrit name. Lastly, Anglo-Indian colonists, after
some hesitation as to its origin, now admit the importation
of the species from America at an early period. They
add that it has become naturalized in the forests of
British India.^
It is yet more doubtful that the tree is indigenous
in Africa, indeed it is easy to disprove the assertion.
Loureiro ^ had seen the species on the east coast of this
continent, but he supposed it to have been of American
origin. Thonning had not seen it in Guinea, nor Brown
in Congo.^ It is true that specimens from the last-named
country and from the islands in the Gulf of Guinea were
sent to the herbarium at Kew, but Oliver says it is cul-
tivated there.^ A tree which occupies such a large area
in America, and whicli has become naturalized in several
districts of India within the last two centuries, would
exist over a great extent of tropical Africa if it w^ere indi-
genous in that quarter of the globe.
Mango Mangifera indica, Linnseus.
Belonging to the same order as the Cashew, this tree
nevertheless produces a true fruit, something the colour
of the apricot.^
It is impossible to doubt that it is a native of the
south of Asia or of the Malay Archipelago, when we see
> Beddone, Flora Sylvatica, t. 163 ; Honker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 20.
* Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 304. Brown, Cotiyo, pp. 12, 19.
* Oliver, Fl. of Trap. Afr., i. p. 443.
* See plate 4510 of the Botanical Magazine.
I
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 201
the multitude of varieties cultivated in these countries,
the number of ancient common names, in particular a
Sanskrit namc,^ its abundance in the gardens of Bengal,
of the Dekkan Peninsula, and of Ceylon, even in
Rheede's time. Its cultivation was less ditiused in the
direction of China, for Loureiro only mentions its
existence in Cochin-China. According to Rumphius,^
it had been introduced into certain islands of the
Asiatic Archipelago within the memory of living men.
Forster does not mention it in his work on the fruits of
the Pacific Islands at the time of Cook's expedition.
Tlie name common in the Philippine Isles, manga,^
shows a foreign origin, for it is the Malay and Spanish
name. The common name in Ceylon is aiiibe, akin to
the Sanskrit avora, whence the Persian and Arab amfih,^
the modern Indian names, and perhaps the Malay,
onangka, raanga, rnanj^elaan, indicated by Rumphius.
There are, however, other names used in the Sunda
Islands, in the Moluccas, and in Cochin-China. TIkj
variety of these names argues an ancient introduction
int> the East Indian Aichipelago, in spite of the opinion
of Rumphius
The Mangifera which this author had seen wild i)i
Java, and Mangifera sylvatica which Roxburgh had
discovered at Silhet, are other species ; but the true
mango is indicated by modern authors as wild in the
forests of Ceylon, the regions at the base of the Himalayas,
especially towards the east, in Arracan, Pegu, and the
Andaman Isles.^ Miquel does not mention it as wild
in any of the islands of the Malay Archipelago. In
spite of its growing in Ceylon, and the indications, less
positive certainly, of Sir Joseph Hooker in the Flora of
Biitish India, the species is proljably rare or only
naturalized in the Indian Peninsula. The size of the
stone is too great to allow of its bting transported by
* Roxburgh, Flora Tndica, edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 435 ; Piddingtpn, Index.
* Rumphius, Herb. Avihoin., i. p. 95.
^ B\anco, Fl. Filip., p. 181. * Eumphins; Forskal, p. cvii.
' Thwaites, Env.m. Plant. CeyL, p. 75 ; Brandis, Forest Flora, p. 126
Hooker, Fl.Brit. Ind., ii. p. 13 ; Kurz, Forest Flora Brit. Burmah, i. p 304.
/
202
OKIGIX OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
birdsj but the frequency of its cultivation causes a
dispersion by man's agency. If the mango is only
naturalized in the west of British India, this must have
occurred at a remote epoch, as the existence of a San-
skrit name shows. On the other hand, the peoples of
Western Asia must have known it late, since they did
not transport the species into Egypt or elsewhere towards
the west.
It is cultivated at the present day in troi>icd Africa,
and even in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where it has
become to some extent naturalized in the woods.^
In the new Vv^orld it was first introduced into Brazil,
for the seeds were brouii'ht thence to Barbados in the
middle of the last century.^ A French vessel was
carrying some young trees from Bourbon to Saint
Domingo in 1782, when it was taken by the English,
who took them to Jamaica, where they succeeded won-
derfully. When the coffee plantations were abandoned,
at the time of the emancipation of the slaves, the mango,
whose stones the negroes scattered evcT-ywhere, formed
forests in every part of the islands, and these are now
valued both for their shade and as a form of food.^ It
was not cultivated in Cayenne in the time of Aublet,
at the end of the eighteenth centurj^, but now there are
mangoes of the finest kind in this colony. They are
grafted, and it is observed that their stones produce better
fruit than that of the original stock.*
Tahiti Apple Spondias dulcis, Forster.
Tliis tree belongs to the family of the A nacardiacece,
and is indigenous in the Society, Friendly, and Fiji
Islands.^ The natives consumed c[uantities of the fruit
at the time of Cook's voyage. It is like a large plum, of
' Oliver, Flora of Trap. Afr., i. p. 142 ; Baker, Fl. of Maur. and Seych.,
p. G3.
* IIuc^lics, Bai-hadoa, p. 177.
' ^lacfadyeii, FL of Jam., p. 221; Sir J. Hooker, /SpeccTi at the Royal
Institute. ,
* Sagot, Jour, de la Soc. Centr. d'Ajric. de France, 1872.
* For.ster, De Plantis E-icidentii Insulariim Oceani Aasfralin, p. 33 ; I
Sepniann, i'V'/C(t Vttiensis, p. 51; Nad.md, Enum. des Plantes de Ta'iti,^^
\). 75.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 203
the colour of an apple, and contains a stone covered with
long hooked bristles.^ The flavour, according to travel-
lers, is excellent. It is not among the fruits most widely
diffused in tropical colonies. It is, however, cultivated
in Mauritius and Bourbon, under the primitive Polynesian
name evi or hevi,^ and in the West Indies. It was in-
troduced into Jamaica in 1782,' and thence into Saint
Domingo. Its absence in many of the hot countries of
Asia and Africa is probably owing to the fact that the
species was discovered, only a century ago, in small
islands which have no communications with other
countries.
Strawberry Fragaria vesca, Linnfpus.
Our common strawberry is one of the most widely'
diff"used plants, partly owing to the small size of its seeds,
which birds, attracted by the fleshy part on which they
are found, carry to great distances.
It grows wild in Europe, from Lapland and the
Shetland Isles ^ to the mountain ranges in the south ;
in Madeira, Spain, Sicily, and in Greece.* It is also
found in Asia, from Armenia and the north of Syria ^ to
Dahuria. The strawberries of the Himalayas and of
Japan,^ which several authors have attributed to this
species, do not perhaps belong to it,' and this makes me
doubt the assertion of a missionary ^ that it is found in
Cliina. It is wild in Iceland,^ in the north-east of the
United States,^*^ round Fort Cumberland, and on the
north-west coast,^^ perhaps even in the Sierra-Nevada of
' There is a good coloured illustration ia Tussac's Fl. des Antilles,
iii. pi. 28.
^ Boj'er, Hortus Mauritianus, p. 81.
* H. C.Watson, Compendium Cyhele Brit., i. p. 160 ; Pries, Summa
Veg. Scand., p. 44.
* Lowe, Man. Fl. of Madeira, p. 246 ; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr.
Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 224; Moiis, Fl. Sardoa, ii. p. 17.
^ Boissier, Fl. Orient. * Ledehour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 64.
' Gay ; Hooker, Fl. Brit, hid., ii. p. 344 ; Franchet and Saratier,
Enum. PI. Japon., i. p. 129.
* Perny, Propag. de la Foi, quoted in Decaisne's Jardin Fruitier du
Mus., p. 27. Gay does not give Cbina.
* Babington, Journ. of Linncean Society, ii. p. 303 ; J. Gay.
'" Asa Gray, Botany of the Northern States, edit. 1868, p. 156.
*' fcir W. Ilooker, Fl. Bor. Amer., i. p. 184.
10
204. ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
California.^ Thus its area extends round the north pole,
except in Eastern Siberia and the basin of the river
Amur, since the species is not mentioned by Maximowicz
in his Primlike Fierce Amurensis. In America its area
is extended along the highlands of Mexico ; for Fragaria
mexicana, cultivated in the Jardin des Plantes, and
examined by Gay, is F. vesca. It also grows round
Quito, according to the same botanist, who is an authority
on this question.^
The Greeks and Romans did not cultivate the straw-
berry. Its cultivation was probably introduced in the
tifteenth or sixteenth century, Champier, in the six-
teenth century, sj^eaks of it as a novelty in the no)-th
of France,^ but it already existed in the south, and in
England.*
Transported into gardens in the colonies, the straw-
berry has become natui-alized in a few cool localities far
from dwellings. This is the case in Jamaica,^ in Mauritius,*^
and in Bourbon, where some plants had been placed b}'
Commerson on the table-land known as the Kaffirs'
Plain. Bory Saint-Vincent relates that in 1801 he
found districts quite red with strawberries, and that it
was impossible to cross them without staining the feet
led with the juice, mixed with volcanic dust.' It is
])robable that similar cases of naturalization may be seen
in Tasmania and New Zealand.
The genus Fragaria has been studied with more care
than many others, by Duchesne (fils), the Comte dt-
Lambertye, Jacques Gay, and especially by Madame Eliza
Vilmorin, whose faculty of observation was worthy of
the name she bore. A summary of their works, with
excellent coloured plates, is published in the Jardin
A. Gray, Bot. Calif., i. p. 176.
J. Gay, ia Decaisne, Jardin Fruitier du Museum, Fraisier, p. 30.
8 Le Grand d'Aussy, Hist, de la Vie Privde des Fmnfdis, i. pp. 233
and 3.
* Olivier de Serres, Theatre d'Agric., p. 511 ; Gerard, from Phillips,
Pomarium Britannicum, p. 331-.
* Purdie, in Hooker's London Journal of Botany, 1844, p. 515.
" Bojer, Hortus Mauritianns, p. 121.
^ Bory Saint-Viucent, Comptes Rendus de VAcad. des. Sc. Nat., 183G,
sem, ii. p. 109.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 205
Fndtier dii Museum by Decaisne. These authors have
overcome u'reat difficulties in distinouishinfj the varieties
and hybrids which are multiplied in gardens from the
true species, and in defining these by well-marked charac-
ters. Some straAvberries Avhose fruit is poor have been
abandoned, and the finest are the result of the crossing
of the species of Virginia and Chili, of which I am about
to speak.
Virg-inian Strawberry Fragaria virginiana, Ehrarht.
The scarlet strawberry of French gardens. This
species, indigenous in Canada and in the eastern States
of America, and of which one variety extends west as
far as the Rocky Mountains, perhaps even to Oregon,^
was inti-oduced into English gardens in 1629.^ It was
much cultivated in France in the last century, but its
liybrids with other species are now more esteemed.
Chili Strawberry Fragaria Chiluensis, Duchesne.
A species common in Southern Chili, at Conception,
Valdivia, and Cliiloe.^ and often cultivated in that country.
It was brought to France by Frezier in the year 1715.
Cultivated in the Museum of Natural History in France,
it spread to England and elsewhere. The large size of
the berry and its excellent fiavour have produced by
different crossings, especially with F. virginiana, the
highly prized varieties Ananas, Victoria, Trollope,
Ruhls, etc.
Bird-Cherry Prunus avium, Linnceus; Susskirsch-
baum in German.
I use the word cherry because it is customary, and
has no inconvenience when speaking of cultiv^ated species
or varieties, but tlie study of allied wild species confirms
the opinion of Linnasus, that the cherries do not form
a separate genus from the plums.
All the varieties of the cultivated cherry belong to
two species, which are found wild : 1. Prunus avium,
Linnaeus, tall, with no suckers from the roots, leaves
* Apa Gray, Manual of Botany of the Northern Stofe.f, edit. 1868,
p. 155 ; Botany of California, i. p. 177.
Phillips, Romar. Brit., p. 335.
3 CI. Gay, Hist. Chili, Botanica, u. p. .S05.
206 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
downy on the under side, the fruit sweet; 2, Prumis
cerasus, Linnreus, shorter, with suckers from the roots,
leaves glabrous, and fruit more or less sour or bitter.
The first of these species, from which the white
and black cherries are developed, is wild in Asia; in
the forest of Ghilan (north of Persia), in the Russian
provinces to the south of the Caucasus and in Armenia ; ^
in Europe in the south of Russia proper, and generally
from the south of Sweden to the mountainous parts of
Greece, Italy, and Spain.^ It even exists in Algeria.^
As we leave the district to the south of the Caspian
and Black Seas, the bird-cherry becomes less common,
less natural, and determined more perhaps by the birds
which seek its fruit and carry the seeds from place to
I)lace.* It cannot be doubted that it was thus natui'alized,
from cultivation, in the north of India,^ in many of the
plains of the south of Europe, in Madeira,^ and here and
there in the United States ; '' but it is probable that in
the greater part of Europe this took place in prehistoric
times, seeing that the agency of birds was employed
before the first migiations of nations, perhaps before
there were men in Europe. Its area must have extended
in this recrion as the o-laciers diminished.
The common names in ancient languages have been
the subject of a learned article by Adolphe Pictet,^ but
nothing relative to the origin of the species can be
deduced from them ; and besides, the different species and
varieties have often been confused in popular nomencla-
ture. It is far more important to know whether archie-
ology can tell us anything about the presence of the
bird-cherjy in Europe in piehistoric times.
^ Ledebour, FJ. Ross., ii. p. 6; Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 649.
* Ledebour, ibid.; Fries, Suuima Scand., p. 4(5; Nyinan, Consper. Fl
Eur,, p. 213 J Boissier, ibid.; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. FL Hisp.,
iii. p. 215.
' Munby, Catal. Alger., edit. 2, p. 8.
* As the cherries ripen after the sensoii when birds miErrate, they
disperse the stones cliiefly in the ne>ighbourhood of the plaiu.atioiis.
* Sir .T. Hooker, Fl. of Brit. India.
* Lovf<i, Manual of Madeira, p. 235.
* Dartmgton, Fl. Cestrica, edit. 3, p. 73.
* Ad Pictet, Oriijines Indo Europ., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 2S1.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 207
Heer gives an illustration of the stones of Prunus
avium, in his paper on the lake-dwellings of Western
Switzerland.^ From what he was kind enouoh to write
to me, April 1-i, 1881, these stones were found in the
peat formed above the ancient deposits of the age of
stone. De Mortillet ^. found similar cherry-stones in the
lake-dwellings of Bourget belonging to an epoch not
very remote, more recent than the stone age. I)r. Gross
sent me some from the locality, also comparatively recent,
of Corcelette on Lake Neuchatel, and Strobel and Pigorini
discovered some in the " terramare " of Parma.^ All these
are settlements posterior to the stone age, and perhaps
belonofino- to historic time. If no more ancient stones of
this species are found in Europe, it will seem probable
that naturalization took place after the Aryan migrations.
Sour Cherry Primus cerasus, Linnaeus ; Cerasus vul-
garis, J\Iiller ; Bauviiveischel, Sauerkh'scken, in German.
The Montmorency and griotte cherries, and several
other kinds known to horticulturists, are derived from
this species.*
Hohenacker^ saw Prtinus cerasus at Lenkoran, near
the Caspian Sea, and Koch^ in the forests of Asia
Minor, that is to say, in the north-east of that country,
as that was the region in which he travelled. Ancient
authors found it at Elisabethpol and Erivan, according
to Ledebour.' Grisebach^ indicates it on Mount Olympus
of Bithynia, and adds that it is nearly wild on the plains
of Macedonia. The true and really ancient habitation
seems to extend from the Caspian Sea to the environs
of Constantinople ; but in this very region Prunus avium
is more common. Indeed, Boissier and Tchihatcheff
do not appear to have seen P. cerasus even in the
* lleer, Pflanzen der P/ahlhauien, p. 21-, figs. 17, 18, and p. 26.
* In Perrin, Etudes Prehist sitr la Sacoie, p. 22,
8 Atte Soc. Ital. Sc. Nat., vol. vi.
* For the numerous varieties which have common names in France,
varying with the ditferent provinces, see Duhamel, Traite des Arhres, edit.
2, vol. v., in which are good coloured illustrations.
* Hohenacker, PlantcB Talysch., p. 128.
* Koch, Dendrologie, i. p. 110. ' Ledebour, Fl. Puriss., ii. p. 6.
' Grisebuch, Spicil. Fl. Bumel., p. 8G.
208 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
Pontus, though they received or brought back several
specimens of P. avium}
In tlie north of India, P. cerasus exists only as a
cultivated plant.^ Tlie Chinese do not appear to have
been acquainted with our two kinds of cherry. Hence
it may be assumed that it was not very early introduced
into India, and the absence of a Sanskrit name confirms
this. We have seen that, according to Grisebach, P.
cerasus is nearly wild in Macedonia. It was said to
be wild in the Crimea, but Steven ^ only saw it cultivated ;
and Rehmann * gives only the allied species, P. chamos-
cerasus, Jacquin, as wild in the south of Russia. I very
much doubt its wild character in any locality north of
the Caucasus. Even in Greece, where Fraas said he saw
this tree wild, Heldreich onl}^ knows it as a cultivated
species.^ In Dalmatia,^ a particular variety or allied
species, P. Marasca, is found really wild; it is used
in making Maraschino wine. P. cerasus is wild in
mountainous parts of Italy' and in the centre of France,^
but farther to the west and north, and in Spain, the
species is only found cultivated, and naturalized here
and there as a bush. P. cerasus, more than the bird-
cherry, evidently presents itself in Europe, as a foreign
tree not completely naturalized.
None of the often-quoted passa^'es ^ in Theophrastus,
Pliny, and other ancient authors appear to apply to
P. ce7'asus} The most important, that of Theophrastus,
belono-s to Primus avium, because of the height of
the tree, a character which distinguishes it from P.
cerasus. Kerasos being the name for the bird-cherry
' Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. G19; Tchihatcheff, Asie Mineure, Bot., p.
198.
2 Sir J. Hooter, 1. of Brit. India, ii. p. 313.
* Steven, Verzei'^hniss Halbinselm, etc., p. 147.
* Rehmann, Verhandl. Nat. Ver. Bnmn, x. 1871.
Heldreich, i^vtzpfl. Griech., p. 69; Pf.anzen d'Attiscli. Ebene.,Tp. 477.
Viviani, Fl. Dahnat., iii. p. 258. ' Bertoloni, FL Ital., v. p. 131.
^ Lecoc and Lamotte, Catal. du Plat. Centr. de la France, p. 148.
' Theophrastcs, Hist. PI,, lib. 3, c. 13 ; Pliny, lib. 15, c. 25, and others
quoted in Lonz, Bot. der Alten Gr. and Rom., p. 710.
" Part of the desciiption of Theophrastus shows a confusion with
other trees. He says, for inritauce, that the nut is si ft.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 209
in Theophrastus, as now Jcerasaia among the modern
Greeks, I notice a linguistic proof of the antiquity of
P. cerasus. The Albanians, descendants of the Pelas-
gians, call the latter vyssine, an ancient name which
reappears in the German Wechsel, and the Italian visciolo}
As the Albanians have also the name kerasw for P.
avium, it is probable that their ancestors very clearly
distinguished the two species by different names, perhaps
before the arrival of the Hellenes in Greece.
Another indication of antiquity may be seen in Virgil
(Geor. ii. 17)
"Pullulat ab raflice aliis densissima silva
Ut cerasis nlmisque "
which applies to P. cerasus, not to P. avium.
Two paintings of the cherry tree were found at
Pompeii, but it seems that it cannot be discovered to
which of the two species they should be attributed.^
Comes calls them Pimnus cerasus.
Any archaeological discovery would be more con-
vincing. The stones of the two species present a differ-
ence in the furrow or groove, which has not escaped the
observation of Heer and Sordelli. Unfortunately, only
one stone of P. cerasus has been found in the pre-
historic settlements of Italy and Switzerland, and what
is more, it is not quite certain from what stratum it
was taken. It appears that it was a non-archseological
stratum.^
From all these data, somewhat contradictory and
.sufficiently vague, I am inclined to admit that Pmnus
cerasus was known and already becoming naturalized
at the beginning of Greek civilization, and a little later
in Italy before the epoch when Lucullus brought a
cherry tree from Asia Minor. Pages might be tran-
scribed from authors, even modem ones, who attribute,
after Pliny, the introduction of the cherry into Italy to
' Ad. Pictet quotes forms of the same name in Persian, Tarkish, and
Russian, and derives from the same source the French word guigne, now
nsed for certain varieties of the cherry.
* Schoaw, Die Erde, p. 44 ; Comes, III. delle Piante, etc., in 4to, p. 56.
* Sordelli, Piante della torhiera di Lagozza, p. 40.
210 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
this rich Roman, in the year 65 r,.c. Since this error is
perpetuated by its incessant repetition in classical schools,
it must once more be said that cherry trees (at least the
bird-cherry) existed in Italy before Lucullus, and that
the famous gourmet did not need to go far to seek the
species with sour or bitter fruit. I have no doubt that
he pleased the Romans with a good variety cultivated
in the Pontus, and that cultivators hastened to propagate
it by grafting, but Lucullus' share in the matter was
confined to this.
From what is now known of Kerasunt and the
ancient names of the cherry tree, I venture to maintain,
contrary to the received opinion, that it was a variety
of the bird-cherry of which the fleshy fruit is of a sweet
flavour. I am inclined to think so because Kerasos in
Theophrastus is the name of Frunus avium, which is
far the commoner of the two in Asia Minor. The town
of Kerasunt took its name from the tree, and it is
probable that the abundance of Frunus avium in the
neighbouring woods had induced the inhabitants to seek
the trees which yielded the best fruits in order to plant
them in their gardens. Certainly, if Lucullus brought
flne white-heart cherries to Rome, his countrymen who
only knew the little wild cherry may well have said,
" It is a fruit which we have not." Pliny affirms nothing
more.
I must not conclude without suggesting a hypothesis
about the two kinds of cherry. They difler but little in
character, and, what is very rare, their two ancient
habitations, which are most clearly pioved, are similar
(from the Caspian Sea to Western Anatolia). The two
species have spread towards the West, but unequally.
That which is commonest in its original home and the
stronger of the two (P. avium) has extended further and
at an earlier epoch, and has become better naturalized
F. cerasus is, therefore, perhaps derived from the
other in prehistoric times. I come thus, by a diflerent
road, to an idea suggested by Caruel;i only, instead
of saying that it would perliaps be better to unite them
Caruel, Flora Toscana, p. 48.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 211
now in one species, I consider them actually distinct, and
content myself with supposing a descent, which for the
rest it would not be easy to prove.
Cultivated Plums.
Pliny ^ speaks of the immense quantity of plums
known in his time : ingens turba prunorwm. Horti-
culturists now number more than three hundred. Some
botanists have tried to attribute these to distinct wild
species, but they have not alwa3^s agreed, and judging from
the specific names especially they seem to have had very
different ideas. This diversity is on two heads ; first as
to the descent of a given cultivated variety, and secondly
as to the distinction of the wild forms into species or
varieties.
I do not pretend to classify the innumerable culti-
vated forms, and I think that labour useless when dealing
with the question of geographical origin, for the differ-
ences lie principally in the shape, size, colour, and taste
of the fruit, in characters, that is to say, which it has
been the interest of horticulturists to cultivate when
they occur, and even to create as far as it was in their
power to do so. It is better to insist upon the distinction
of the forms observed in a wild state, especially upon
those from which man derives no advantage, and which
have probably remained as they were before the existence
of gardens.
It is probably only for about thirty 5'ears that
botanists have given really comparative characters for
the three species or varieties which exist in nature.^
They may be summed up as follows :
Frunus domestica, Linnaeus. Tree or tall shrub, with-
out thorns ; young branches glabrous ; flowers appearing
with the leaves, their peduncles usually downy; fruit
pendulous, ovoid and of a sweet flavour.
Prunus insititia, Linnseus. Tree or tall shrub, with-
out thoi'ns ; young shoots covered with a velvet down ;
flowers appearing with the leaves, with peduncles covered
Hist, lib. 15, c. 13.
* Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ., edit. 2, p. 228 ; Cossou and Germain, Flore
des Environs de Paris, i. p. 165.
212 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
with a fine down, or glabrous ; fruit pendulous, round or
slightly elliptical, of a sweet flavour.
Prunus spinosa, LinniTJus. A thorny shrub, with
branches spreading out at right angles; young shoots
downy ; flowers appearing before the leaves ; pedicles
glabrous; fruit upright, round, and very sour.
This third form, so common in our hedges (sloe or
blackthorn), is very different from the other two. There-
fore, unless we interpret by hypothesis what may have
happened before all observation, it seems to me im-
possible to consider the three forms as constituting one
and the same species, unless we can show transitions
from one to the other in those organs wdiich have not
been modified by cultivation, and hitherto this has not
been done. At most the fusion of the tw^o first categories
can be admitted. The two forms with naturally sweet
fruit occur in few countries. These must have tempted
cultivators more than Prunus spinosa, whose fruit
is so sour. It is, therefore, in these that we must seek
to find the originals of cultivated plums. For greater
clearness I shall speak of them as two species.^
Commoii Plum Prunus domestica, Linnaeus; Zuet-
chen in German.
Several botanists ^ have found this variety wild
throughout Anatolia, the region to the south of the
Caucasus and Northern Persia, in the neighbourhood of
Mount Elbruz, for example.
I know of no proof for the localities of Kashmir, the
country of the Kirghis and of China, which are men-
tioned in some floras. The species is often doubtful, and
it is probably rather Prunus insititia; in other cases
it is its true and ancient wild character w^hich is un-
certain, for the stones have evidently been dispersed from
cultivation. Its area does not appear to extend as far as
Lebanon, although the plums cultivated at Damascus
(damascenes, or damsons) have a reputation which dates
* Hudson, Fl. Anglic, 1778, p. 212, unites them nnder the name
Prunus communis.
Ledebonr, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 5 ; Boiesior, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 652 ; K Koch
Dendrologie, i. p. 94; Boissier and Biihse, Av.fzahl Tramcaucaaien, p. 80!
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 213
from the days of Pliny. It is supposed that this was the
species referred to by Dioscorides^ under the name of
Syrian cocciiinelea, growing at Damascus. Karl Koch
relates that the merchants trading on the borders of
China told him that the species was common in the
foi'ests of the western part of the empire. It is true that
the Chinese have cultivated different kinds of plums
from time immemorial, but we do not know them well
enough to judge of them, and we cannot be sure that
they are indigenous. As none of our kinds of plum has
been found wild in Japan or in the basin of the river
A.mur, it is very probable that the species seen in China
ire different to ours. This appears also to be the result
of Bretschneider's statements.'-^
It is very doubtful if Primus domestica is in-
digenous in Europe. In the south, where it is given, it
grows chiefly in hedges, near dwellings, with all the
appearance of a tree scarcely naturalized, and maintained
here and there by the constant bringing of stones from
plantations. Authors who have seen the species in the
East do not hesitate to say that it is " subspontaneous."
Fraas ^ affirms that it is not wild in Greece, and this is
confirmed as far as Attica is concerned by Heldreich.^
Steven^ says the same for the Crimea. If this is the
case near Asia Minor, it must be the more readily
admitted for the rest of Europe.
In spite of the abundance of plums cultivated formerly
by the Romans, no kind is found represented in the
frescoes at Pompeii.^ Neither has Prunus domestica
been found among the remains of the lake-dwellings of
Italy, Switzerland, and Savoy, where, however, stones
of Pruniis insititia and spinosa have been discovered.
From these facts, and the small number of words at-
tributable to this species in Greek authors, it may be
* Dioscorides, p. 174.
* Bretschneider, On the Study, etc., p. 10.
Fraas, Syn. Fl. Class., p. 69.
* Heldreii-h, PJlanzen Attischen Ehene.
^ Steven, Verzeichniss Halbinseln, i. p. 172.
* Comes, III. Piante Pompeiane.
214) ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
inferred that its half-wild or half-naturalized state dates
in Europe from two thousand years at most.
Prunes and damsons are ranked with this species.
Bullace Prunus insititia, Linnyeus;^ Pjiauenhaum
and Ila.ferschlehen in German.
This kind of plum grows wild in the south of Europe.^
It has also been found in Cilicia, Armenia, to the south
of the Caucasus, and in the province of Talysch near the
Caspian Sea.^ It is especially in Turkey in Europe and
to the south of the Caucasus that it appears to be truly
w^ild. In Italy and in Spain it is perhaps less so,
although trustworthy authors who have seen the plant
PTO wince have no doubt about it. In the localities
named north of the Alps, even as far as Denmark, it is
probably naturalized from cultivation. The species is
commonly found in hedges not far from dwellings, and
apparently not truly wild.
All this ajjrees with archpeolo2:ical and historical data.
The ancient Greeks distinguished the Coccutnelea oi their
country from those of Syiia,^ whence it is inferred that
the former were Prunus insititia. This seems the more
likely that the modern Greeks call it coivmeleia.^ The
Albanians say coromhile,^ which has led some people to
suppose an ancient Pelasgian origin. For the rest, we
must not insist upon the common names of the plum
Avhich each nation may have given to one or another
species, perliaps also to some cultivated varietj^, without
any rule. The names which have been much commented
upon in learned works generally, a]^pear to me to apph'
to any plum or plum tree without having any very
defined meaning.
No stones of P. insititia have yet been found in
' Insititia = forcif^n. A curious name, siucc every plant is foreign to
all countries but its own,
* Willkomm and Lang-e, rroclr. Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 214 ; Bcrtoloni. Fl. Ifnh,
V. p. 135; Grisebach, S^icei. Fl.Rumel., p. 85; lleldreich, Nutsxifl. Griech.,
p. 68.
Boissier, F^ Orient., ii. p. 651 ; Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 5 ; Hohen-
acker, PL Talysch, p. 128.
Dioscorides, p. 173 ; Fraas, Fl. Class., p. 69.
* Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, p. 68. Ihid.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLUITS. 215
the terra-mare of Italy, but Heer has described and
given illustrations of some which were found in the lake-
dwellings of Robenhausen.^ The species does not seem
to be now indigenous in this part of Switzerland, but we
must not forget that, as we saw in the history of flax, the
lake-dwellers of the canton of Zurich, in the age of stone,
had communications with Italy. These ancient Swiss
were not hard to please in the matter of food, for they
also gathered the berries of the blackthorn, which are, as
we think, uneatable. It is probable that they ate them
cooked.
Apricot Prunus amienia^ca, Linnaeus; Arraenica
vulgaris, Lamarck.
The Greeks and Romans received the apricot about
the beginning of the Christian era. Unknown in the
time of Theophrastus, Dioscorides ^ mentions it under
the name of mailon arineniacon. He says that the
Latins called it praikokion. It is, in fact, one of the
fruits mentioned briefly by Pliny,^ under the name of
praicocium, so called from the precocity of the species.*
Its Armenian origin is indicated by the Greek name,
])ut this name might mean only that the species was
cultivated in Armenia. Modern botanists have long had
good reason to believe that the species is wild in that
country. Pallas, Guldenstadt, and Hohenacker say they
found it in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus Mountains,
on the north, on the banks of the Terek, and to the south
between the Caspian and Black Seas,^ Boissier ^ admits
all these localities, but without saying anything about
the wild character of the species. He saw a specimen
gathered by Hohenacker, near ElisabethpoL On the
* Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlhauten, p. 27, fip:. 16, c.
* Dioscorides, lib. 1, c. 165. ^ Pliny, lib. 2, cap. 12.
* The Latin name has passed into modem Greek (priholckia). The
Spanish and French names, etc. {alharicoque, abricot), seem to be derived
from arhor prcccox, or praecocium, while the old French word armegne,
and the Italian armenilli, etc., come from mailon armeniacon. See further
details about the names of the species in my Geoyraphie Botuui^ue
Raisonne'e, p. 880.
* Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 3.
* Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 652.
21G OJllGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
other Land, Tchiliatcheff ^ who has crossed Anatolia and
Armenia several times, does not seem to have seen the
wild apricot ; and what is still more significant, Karl
Koch, who travelled through the region to the south of
the Caucasus, in order to observe facts of this nature,
expresses himself as follows : ^ " Native countiy unknown.
At least, during my long sojourn in Armenia, I nowhere
found the apricot wild, and I have rarely seen it even
cultivated."
A traveller, W. J. Hamilton,^ said he found it wild
near Orgou and Dutch Hisar in Anatolia: but this asser-
tion has not been verified by a botanist. The supposed
wild apricot of the ruins of Baalbek, described by Eusebe
de Salle * is, from what he says of the leaf and fruit,
totally different to the common apricot. Boissier, and
the different collectors who sent him plants from Syria
and Lebanon, do not appear to have seen the species.
Spach ^ asserts that it is indigenous in Persia, but he gives
no proof. Boissier and Buhse ^ do not mention it in their
list of the plants of Transcaucasia and Persia. It is use-
less to seek its origin in Africa. The apricots which
Reynier ' says he saw, " almost wild," in Upper Egypt
must have sprung from stones grown in cultivated
ground, as is seen in Algeria.^ Schweinfurth and
Ascherson,^ in their catalogue of the plants of Egypt and
Abyssinia, only mention the species as cultivated. Besides,
if it had existed formerly in the north of Africa it would
have been early known to the Hebrews and the Romans.
Now there is no Hebrew name, and Pliny says its intro-
duction at Rome took place thirty years before he wrote.
Carrying our researches eastward, we find that Anglo-
^ Tcliihatcheff, Aifie irineure, Botanique, toL L
K. Koch, Dendrolo'jie, i. p. 87.
Noxiv. Ann. des Voyajes, Feb., 1839, p. 176.
E. de Salle, Voyage, i. p. 140.
Spach, Hist, des Veijdt. Phandr., i. p. 389.
Boissier and Buhse, Auj'ziihluncjy etc., in -Ito, 1860.
' Reynier, J^conomie des Egyptiens, p. 371.
Munby, Catal. Fl. d'Ahjer., edit. 2, p. 49.
Schweinfurth and Aschersou, Beitrage z. Fl. ^Ihicp., in 4to., 18G7,
p. 259.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 217
Indian botanists^ are agreed in considering that the
apricot, which is generally cultivated in the north of
India and in Thibet, is not wild in those regions ; but
they add that it has a tendency to become naturalized,
and that it is found upon the site of ruined villages.
JMessrs. Schlagintweit brought specimens from the north-
west provinces of India, and irom Thibet, which "West-
mael verified,^ but he was kind enough to write to me
that he cannot afhrm that it was wild, since the collector's
label gives no information on that head.
Roxburgh,^ who did not neglect the question of origin,
says, speaking of the apricot, "native of China as well
as the Avest of Asia." I read in Dr. Bretschneider's
curious little work,^ drawn up at Pekin, the following
passage, which seems to me to decide the question in
favour of a Chinese origin: "Sing, as is well known,
is the apricot {Primus armeniaca). The character (a
Chinese sign printed on p. 10) does not exist as indicat-
ing a fruit, either in the Shu-Jcing, or in the Shi-Jcing,
Cihouli, etc., but the Shan-hai-king says that several
sings grow upon the hills (here a Chinese character).
Besides, the name of the apricot is represented by a
particular sign which may show that it is indigenous in
China." The Shan-hai-ldng is attributed to the Emperor
Yli, who lived in 2205-2198 B.C. Decaisne,^ who was
the first to suspect the Chinese origin of the apricot, has
recently received from Dr. Bretschneider some specimens
accompanied by the following note: "No. 24, apricot
wild in the mountains of Pekin, where it gTows in
abundance ; the fruit is small (an inch and a quarter in
diameter), the skin red and yellow ; the flesh salmon
colour, sour, but eatable. No. 25, the stone of the apricot
cultivated round Pekin. The fruit is twice as large as
'o^
' Royle, Til. of Himalaya, p. 20.5 ; Aitchison, Cafal. of Punjah and
Sinclh. p. 56 ; Sir Joseph Hooker, Fl. of Brit, hid., ii. p. 313 ; Brandu*.
Fored Flora of N. W. and Central India, 191.
* Westinael, in Bull. Soc. Bot. Beljiq., viii., p. 219.
Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., edit. 2, v. ii. p. 501.
Bretschneider, On the Study and Value, etc., pp. 10, 49.
' Decaisue, Jaidin Fruitier du Museum, vol. viii., art. Abricotier.
218 OEIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
that of the wild tree." * Decaisne adds, in the lettc-
he was good enough to write to me, " In shape and
surface the stones are exactly like those of our small
a[)ricots ; they are smooth and not pitted." The leaves
he sent me are certainly those of the apricot.
The apricot is not mentioned in Japan, or in the basin
of the river Amoor.^ Perhaps the cold of the winter is
too efreat. If we recollect the absence of communication
in ancient times between China and India, and the
assertions that the plant is indigenous in both countries,
we are at first tempted to believe that the ancient area
extended from the north-west of India to China. How-
ever, if we wish to adopt this hypothesis, we must also
admit that the culture of the apricot spread very late
towards the West.^ For no Sanskrit or Hebrew name is
known, but only a Hindu name, zard alu, and a Persian
name, onischmisch, Avhich has passed into Arabic* How
is it to be supposed that so excellent a fruit, and one
which grows in abundance in Western Asia, spread so
slowly from the noi'th-west of India towards the Gnieco-
Roman world ? The Chinese knew it two or three
thousand years before the Christian era. Changkien
went as far as Bactriana, a century before our era, and
he was the first to make the West known to his fellow-
countrymen.^ It was then, perhaps, that the apricot was
introduced in W^estern Asia, and that it was cultivated
and became naturalized here and there in the north-Avest
of India, and at the foot of the Caucasus, by the scatter-
ing of the stones beyond the limits of the plantations.
Almond Amygdalus communis, Linna3us ; I'runi
species, Baillon; Frunus Amygdalus, Hooker.
' Dr. Bretschneider confirms this in a recent work. Notes on Botanical
Questions, p. 3.
* Pruniis armeniaca of Thnnberg is P. miime of Siebold and Zncclia-
rini. The apricot is not mentioned in the Enumeratio, etc., of Franchet
and Savatier.
^ Capus {Ann. Sc. Nat., sixth series, vol. xv. p. 206) found it wild in
Turkestan .it tlie height of four thousand to seven thousand feet, which
weakens the hypotlicsis of a solely Chinese origin.
* Piddington, Index ; Koxburgh, Fl. Ind. ; Forskal, Fl. gyp. ; Delile.
III. Egypt.
* Bretschneider, On the Study and Value, etc.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 219
The almond grows apparently wild or half wild in
the warm, dry regions of the Mediterranean basin and
of western temperate A.sia. As the nuts from cultivated
trees naturalize the species very easily, we must have
recourse to various indications to discern its ancient
Lome.
We may first discard the notion of its origin in
Eastern Asia. Japanese floras make no mention of the
almond. That which M. de Bonge saw cultivated in
tlie north of China was the Fersica Davidiana} Dr.
Bi-etschneider,^ in his classical work, tells us that he has
never seen the almond cultivated in China, and that the
compilation entitled Fent-sao, published in the tenth or
eleventh century of our era, describes it as a tree of the
country of the Mahometans, which signifies the north-
west of India, or Persia.
Anglo-Indian botanists ^ say that the almond is culti-
vated in the cool parts of India, but some add tliat it
does not thrive, and that many almonds are brought
from Pcisia.^ Ko Sanskrit name is known, nor even
any in the languages derived from Sanskrit. Evidently
tlie north-west of India is not the original hon.e of the
species.
On the other hand, there are many localities in the
region extending from Mesopotamia and Turkestan to
Algeria, where excellent botanists have found the almond
t:ee quite wild. Boissier ^ has seen specimens gathered
in rocky ground in Mesopotamia, Aderbijan, Turkestan,
Kurdistan, and in the forests of the Anti-Lebanon.
Karl Koch ^ has not found it wild to the south of the
Caucasus, nor Tcliihatcheff in Asia Minor. Cosson "^ found
natural woods of almond trees near Saida in Algeria. It
' Bret Schneider, Eai-h/ European Researches, p. 149.
^ Bretschneider, Stud]/ and Value, etc., p. 10; aud Early Enrop.
Eesear., p. 140.
Braiidis, Forest Flora; Sir J. Hoolisr, Fl. of Brit. Tnd., iii. p. 313.
* RoxLurgh, Fl. Ltd., edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 5U0 ; Ron le, III. Himal., p. 204.
* Boissier, Fl. Orien., iii. p. 641.
* K. Koch, Dendrologie, i. p. 80; Tcliihatcheff, Asie Ilineure Bota.
nique, i. p. 108.
' ^7!?!. des S'c. Nat, 3rd serie?, vol. x!x. p. 108.
220 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
is also regarded as wild on the coasts of Sicily and of
Greece;^ but there, and still more in the localities in
which it occurs in Italy, Spain, and France, it is probable,
and ahnost certain, that it springs from the casual dis-
persal of the nuts from cultivation.
The antiquity of its existence in Western Asia is
proved by Hebrew names for the almond tree schaJce I,
luz or lus (which recurs in the Arabic louz), and schc-
keclhn fur the nut.^ The Persians have another name,
hadam, but I do not know how old this is. Theophras-
tus and Dioscorides ^ mention the almond by an entirely
ditferent name, amugdalai, translated by the Latins into
amygdalus. It may be inferred from this that the Greeks
did not receive the species from the interior of Asia, but
found it in their own country, or at least in Asia Minor.
The almond tree is represented in several frescoes found
at Pompeii.* Pliny ^ doubts whether the species was
known in Italy in Cato's time, because it was called the
Greek nut. It is very possible that the almond was in-
troduced into Italy from the Greek islands. Almonds
have not been found in the terra-mare of the neiah-
bourhood of Parma, even in the upper layers.
The late introduction of the species into Italy, and the
absence of naturalization in Sardinia and Spain,^ incline
me to doubt whether it is reallv indigenous in the north
of Afiica and Sicily. In the latter countries it was more
probably naturalized some centuries ago. In confirma-
tion of this h}' pothesis, I note that the Berber natne of
the almond, taloazet^ is evidently connected with the
Arabic louz, that is to say with the language of the
conquerors who came after the Romans. In Western
Asia, on the contrary, and even in some parts of Greece,
' Gussone, Synopsis Florco SiculcB, i. p. 552; Heldreich, Nutzpflaiizen
Crlechenland^, p. 67.
* Hiller, Hierophyton, i. p. 215; Rosenmiiller, Handb. Bihl. Alterth.,
\y. p. 2m.
* Thei pbrastas. Hist., lib. l,c. 11, 18, etc. ; Dioscorides, lib. 1, c. 176.
Schouw, Die Erde, etc.; Comes, Ill.Piante nei dipinti Pomp., p. 13.
Pliny, Bl^t., lib. 16, c. 22.
* Moris, Flora Sardoa, ii. p. 5 ; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl: Higp.,
iii. p. 24.3.
* Dictionnaire Franfais B>rhere, 1814.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 221
it may be regarded as indigenous from prehistoric time,
I do not say pnmitive, for everything was preceded by
something else. I remark finally that the difference be-
tween bitter and sweet almonds was known to the Greeks
and even to the Hebrews.
Peach Awygdalus persica, Linnpeus ; Persica vul-
garis, Miller ; Prunus persica, Bentham and Hooker.
I will quote the article in which I formerly^ attributed
a Chinese origin to the peach, a contrary opinion to that
which prevailed at the time, and which people who are
not on a par with modern science continue to reproduce.
I will afterwards give the facts discovered since 1855.
"^ " The Greeks and Romans received the peach shortly
after the beginning of the Christian era. The names
jjersica, vudmn persicuvi, indicate whence they had it.
I need not dwell upon those well-known facts.^ Several
kinds of peach are now cultivated in the north of India,^
but, what is remarkable, no Sanskrit name is known ; ^
whence we may infer that its existence and its cultivation
are of no great antiquity in these regions. Roxburgh,
who is usually careful to give the modern Indian names,
only mentions Arab and Chinese names. Piddington
gives no Indian name, and Royle only Persian names.
The peach does not succeed, or requires the greatest
care to ensure success, in the north-east of India.^ In
China, on the contrary, its cultivation dates from
the remotest antiquity. A number of superstitious
ideas and of legends about the properties of its different
varieties exist in that country.** These varieties are very
' Alph. de CandoUe, G^ogr. Bot. Bais., p. 881.
* Tlieoplirastus, Hist., iv. c. 4j Dioscorides, lib. 1, c. 164 j Pliny,
Geneva edit., bk. 15, c. 13.
Royle, III. Him., p. 204.
* Roxburgh, i*';. Ind., 2iid. edit., ii. p. 500; Piddington, Index; Royle,
ihid.
* Sir Joseph Hoi^ker, .lovrn. of Bot., 1850, p. 54.
* Rose, the head of the French trade at Canton, collected these from
Chinese mauuscripts, nnd Noisette {Jard. Fruit., i. p. 76) has transcribed
a part of liis article. Tlie facts are of the following nature. The Chinese
believe the oval peaches, which are very red on one side, to be a symbol
of a long life. In consequence of this ancient belief, peaches are used
in all ornaments in painting and sculpture, and in congratulatory pre.
222 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
numerous;^ and in particular the singular variety -with
compressed or flattened fruit,^ which appears to be further
removed than any other from the natural state of the
peach ; lastly, a simple name, to, is given to the common
peach. ^
" From all these facts, I am inclined to believe that the
peach is of Chinese rather than of western Asiatic origin.
If it had existed in Persia or Armenia from all time, the
knowledge and cultivation of so pleasant a fruit would
have spread earlier into Asia Minor and Greece. The
expedition of Alexander probably was the means of
making it known to Theophrastus (332 B.C.), who speaks
of it as a Persian fruit. Pei-haps this vague idea of
the Greeks dates from the retreat of the ten thousand
(401 B.C.) ; but Xenophon does not mention the peach.
Nor do the Hebrew writings speak of it. The peach
has no Sanskrit name, yet the peoples who spoke this
language came into India from the north-west ; that is
to say, from the generally received home of the species.
On this hypothesis, how are we to account for the fact
that neither the Greeks of the early times of Greece, nor
the Hebrews, nor the Sanskrit-speaking pco])lcs, who all
radiated from the upper part of the Euphrates valley or
X communicated with it, did not cultivate the peach ? On
the other hand, it is very possible that the stones of a
fruit tree cultivated in China from the remotest times,
should have been carried over the mountains from the
centre of Asia into Kashmir, Bokhara, and Persia. The
Chinese had very early discovered this route. The im-
portation would have taken place between the epoch of
the Sanskrit emiirrations and the relations of the Persians
with the Greeks. The cultivation of the peach, once
sents, etc. Accorrliiipf to the work of Chin-Tionofkinof, tlie peach Vu
prevents death. If it is not e;iten in time, it at least pie.:erves the body
i'rom decay until the end of the world. Tlie peach is always mentioned
among the fruits of immortality, with which were entertained the hopes
of Tsitjchi-Iloang, Vouty, of the llaus and other emperors who pretended
to immortality, etc.
> Lindley, T/a?u<t. TTort. ffoc, v. p. 121.
' Trana. I [art. Soc. Lorul., iv. p. 512, tab. 19,
Koxburgh, Fl, Ind.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOU THEIR FRUITS. 223
established in Persia, would have easily spread on the
one side towards the west ; on the other, through Cabal
towards the north of India, where it is not so very ancient.
" In confirmation of the hypothesis of a Chinese origin,
it may be added that the peach was introduced into
Cochin-China from China,^ and that the Japanese give
the Chinese name Tao ^ to the peach. M. Stanislas
Julien was kind enough to read to me in French some
passages of the Japanese encyclopaedia (bk. Ixxxvi. p. 7),
in which the peach tree tao is said to be a tree of
Western countries, which should be understood to mean
the interior of China as compared to the eastern coast,
since the passage is taken from a Chinese author. The
tao occurs in the writings of 'Confucius in the fifth
century before the Christian era, and even in the Ritual
in the tenth century before Christ. Its wild nature is
not specified in the encyclopsedia of which I have just
spoken ; but Chinese authors pay little attention to this
point."
After a few details about the common names of the
peach in difierent languages, I went on to say, " The
absence of Sanskrit and Hebrew names remains the most
important fact, whence we may infer an introduction
into Western Asia from a more distant land, that is to
say, from China.
"The ])each has been found wild in different parts
of Asia ; but it is always a question whether it is indige-
nous there, or whether it sprang from the dispersion of
stones produced by cultivated trees. The question is
the more necessary since the stones germinate easily, and
several of the modifications of the peach are hereditary.^
Apparently wild peach trees have often been found in
the neighbouihood of the Caucasus. Pallas * saw several
on the banks of the Terek, where the inhabitants give
' Lonreiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 38fi.
* Kaempfer, ^mojft., p. 798; Thunberg, PZ. Jap., p. 199. K^mpfer
and Thunberg also give the name moimi, but Siebold (Fl. Jap., i. p. 29)
attributes a somewhat similar name, mume, to a plum tree, Prunus
mtime, Sieb. and Z.
Noisette, Jard. Fr., p. 77; Trans. Soc. Hort. Lond., iv. p. 513.
* Pallas, Fl. Ros.nca, p. 13.
224 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS,
it a name which he calls Persian, schejifaia} It fruit is
velvety, sour, not very fleshy, and hardly larger than
a walnut ; the tree small. Pallas suspects" that this tree
has degenerated from cultivated peaches. He adds that
it is found in tTie Crimea, to the south of the Caucasus,
and in Persia; but Marsliall, Bicberstein, Mej^er, and
Hohenacker do not give the wild peach in the neigh-
I'ourhood of the Caucasu.s. Early travellers, Gmelin,
Guldenstadt, and Georgi, quoted by Ledebour, mentioned
it. C. Koch ^ is the only modern botanist who said he
found the peach tree in abundance in the Caucasian
provinces. Ledebour, however, prudently adds, Is it wild ?
The stones which Brugniere and Olivier brought from
Ispahan, which were sown in Paris and yielded a good
velvety peach, were not, as Bo.sc ^ asserted, taken from
a peach tree wild in Persia, but from one growing in
a garden at Ispahan.* I do not know of any proof of a
peach tree found wild in Persia, and if travellers mention
any it is always to be feared that these are only sown
trees. Dr. Royle^ says that the peach grows wild in
several places south of the Himalayas, notably near
Mussouri, but we have seen that its culture is not ancient
in these regions, and neither Roxburgh nor Don's Flora
Nepalensis mention the peach. Bunge ^ only found cul-
tivated trees in the north of China. This country has
hardly been explored, and Chinese legends seem some-
times to indicate wild peaches. Thus the Chou-y-H,
according to the author previously quoted, saj's, ' Who-
soever eats of the peaches of Mount Kouoliou shall
obtain eternal life.' For Japan, Thunberg ' says, Crescit
uhique vulgaris, prcecipiLe juxta Nagasaki. In omni
horto colitur oh elegantiam Jtorum. It seems from this
passage that the species grows both in and out of gardens,
but perhaps in the first case he only alludes to peaches
growing in the open air and without shelter.
Shuft aloo is, according to Royle (III. Him. p. 204), the Persian
name for the riectarite.
* Ledebour, Fl. 7^o^.,i. p. 3. Spe p. 228, the subsequent opinion of Koch.
8 Bosc, Diet. d'Aqric, ix. p. 481. Thouin, Ann. Mus., viii. p. -433.
Royle, III. Him., p. 204. Buiige, Enum. PL Chin., p. 23.
Thunberg, Fl. Jap. 199.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 225
"I have said nothing hitherto of the distinction to
oe established between the different varieties or species
of the peach, since most of them are cultivated in all
countries at least the clearly defined kinds, which may
be considered as botanical species. Thus the great dis-
tinction betw^een the downy and smooth-skinned fruits
(peaches proper and nectarines), on wdiich it is proposed
to found two species {Persica vulgaris, Mill, and P. levU,
D. C), exists in Japan ^ and in Europe, as in most of the
intermediate countries.^ Less importance is attached
to distinctions founded on the adherence or non-adherence
of the skin, on the white, yellow, or red colour of the
flesh, and on the general form of the fruit. The great
division into peaches and nectarines presents most of
these modifications in Europe, in Western Asia, and
probably in China. It is certain that in the latter
country the form of the fruit varies more than else-
where ; for there are as in Europe oval peaches, and also
the peaches of which I spoke just now, which are quite
flattened, in wdiich the top of the stone is not even covered
with flesh.^ The colour also varies greatly.^ In Europe
the most distinct varieties, nectarines and peaches,
freestones and clingstones, existed three centuries ago,
for J. Bauhin enumerates them very clearly ; ^ and before
him Dalechamp, in 1587, also gave the principal ones.*'
At that time nectarines were called Niicipersica, because
of their resemblance in shape, size, and colour to the
walnut. It is in the same sense that the Italians call
them pescanoce.
" I have sought in vain for a proof that the nectarine
existed in Italy in the time of ancient Rome. Pliny,'
who confounds in his compilation peaches, plums, the
Laurus Persea,^ and perhaps other trees, says nothing
> Thunberg, Fl. Jap., 193.
* The accounts about China which I have consTilted do not mention
the nectarine ; but as it exists in Japan, it is extremely probable that it
does also in China.
N( isette, Jard. Fr., p. 77; Trans. Eorf. Soc, iv. p. 512, tab. 19.
* Linlley, Trans. Hort. Soc, V. p. 122. * J. Bauhin, His^, i. pp. 162,163.
Dalechamp, Hist., i. p. 295. ' Hiny, lib. xv, cap. 12 and 13.
Pliny, De Div. Gen. Malorum, lib. ii. cap. 14.
22G ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
which can apply to such a fruit. Sometimes people have
thought they recognized it in the inheres of which he
speaks. It was a tree imported from Syria in the time
of Augustus. There were both red and white tuheres.
Others (tuheres? or viala?) of the neighbourhood of
Verona were downy. Some graceful verses of Petronus,
quoted by Dalechamp,^ clearly prove that the tuheres
of the Romans in Nero's time were a smooth-skinned
fruit; but this might be the jujube (Zhi/phus),
D'lospyros, or some Cratcegus, just as well as the smooth-
skinned peach. Each author in the time of the Renais-
sance had his opinion on this point, or criticized that
of the others.^ Perhaps there were two or three species
of tdheres, as Pliny says, and one of them which was
grafted on plum trees was the nectarine (?) ^ but 1 doubt
whether this question can ever be cleared up.^
" Even admitting that the A^ucijiersicawns only intro-
duced into Europe in the Middle Ages, we cannot help
remarking that in European gardens for centuries, and
in Japan from time unknown, there was an intermix-
ture of all the principal kinds of peach. It seems that
its different qualities were produced everywhere from
a primitive species, which Avas probably the downy
peach. If the two kinds had existed from the beginning,
either they would have been in different countries, and
their cultivation would have been established separately,
or they would have been in the same country, and in
this case it is probable that one kind would have been
anciently introduced into this country and the other
into that."
I laid stress, in 18.55, on other considerations in support
of the theory that the nectarine is derived from the
common peach ; but Darwdn has given such a large
number of cases in which a branch of nectarine has
Diilechamp, Hist., i. p. 358.
' Dalechamp, ibid.; Matthiuli, p. 122; Ccosalpinus, p. 107; J. Bauhin,
p. \C3, etc.
^ I'li'iy, lib. xvii. cap. 10.
* I li;;VJ not been able to discover an Italian name for a glabrons or
other fruit derived from lube: or tuheres, which is singular, as the
auciont names of fra'ts arc usually preserved cnder some form or other.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 227
unexpectedly appeared upon a peacli tree, that it is
useless to insist longer upon this point, and I will only
add that the nectarine has every appearance of an arti-
ficial tree. Not only is it not found wild, but it never
becomes naturalized, and each tree lives for a shorter
time than the common peach. It is, in fact, a weakened
form.
" The facility," I said, " with which our peach trees are
mult plied from seed in America, and have produced
fl ,shy fruits, sometimes very fine ones, without the resource
of grafting, inclines me to think that the species is in a
natural state, little changed by a long cultivation or by
hybrid fertilization. In Virginia and the neighbouring
states there are peaches grown on trees raised from seed
and not grafted, and their abundance is so great that
brandy is made from them.^ On some trees the fruit is
magnificent.^ At Juan Fernandez, says Bertero,* the
peach tree is so abundant that it is impossible to form
an idea of the quantity of fruit which is gathered ; it is
usually very good, although the trees have reverted to a
wild condition. From the.se instances it would not be
surprising if the wild peaches with indifferent fruit found
in Western Asia were simply naturalized trees in a climate
not wholly favourable, and that the species was of Chinese
origin, where its cultivation seems most ancient."
Dr. Bretschneider,* who at Pekin has access to all the
resources of Chinese literature, merely says, after reading
the above passages, " Tao is the peach tree. De CandoUe
thinks that China is the native country of the peach.
He may be right"
The antiquity of the existence of the species and its
wild nature in Western Asia have become more doubtful
since 1855. Anglo-Indian botanists speak of the peach
solely as a cultivated tree,^ or as cultivated and becoming
naturalized and apparently wild in the north-west of
India.^ Boissier' mentions specimens gathered in Ghilan
Braddlck, Trans. Ilort. Soc. Lond., ii. p. 205. ' Ibid., pi. 13.
' Bertero, Annales Sc. Nat., xxi. p. 350.
* Bretscbneider, On the Study and Value, etc., p. 10.
^ Sir J. Hooker, Flora of Brit. Ind., ii. p. 318.
Brandis, Fo^-est Flora, etc., p. 191. ' Boissier, Fl. 0> icnf., ii. p. 6 10,
11
228 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.
and to the south of the CaiieasiiR, Lut lie says nothinfj as
to their wild nature; and Karl Koch/ after tia\ellin^'
through this district, says, speaking of the peach,
" Country unknown, perhaps Persia. Eois>ier saw trees
growing in the gorges on Mount Hyinettus, near Athens."
The peach spreads easily in the countries in which it
is cultivated, so that it is hard to say whether a given
tree is of natural origin and anterior to cultivati(jn, or
whether it is naturalized. But it certainly was first culti-
vated in China ; it was spoken of there two thousand
years hefore its introduction into the Greco-Roman world,
a thousand years perhaps before its introduction into the
lands of the Sanskrit-speaking race.
The group of peaches (genus or subgenus) is composed
of five forms, which Decaisne^ regards as species, but
which other botanists are inclined to call varieties. The
one is the common peach ; the second the nectarine, Mhich
we know to be derived ; the third is the flattened peach
(P. platycarim, Decaisne) cultivated in China ; and tlie
two last are indigenous in China (P. simonii, Decaisne,
and P. Davidii, Caiiiere). It is, therefore, essentially a
Chinese group.
It is difficult, from all these facts, not to admit the
Chinese origin of the common peach, as I had formerly
inferred from more scanty data. Its arrival in Italy at
the beginning of the Christian era is now confirmed by
the absence of peach stones in the terra-mare or lake-
dwellings of Parma and Lombardy, and by the represen-
tations of the peach tree in the paintings on the walls of
the richer houses in Pompeii.^
I have yet to deal with an opinion formerly expressed
by Knight, and supported by several horticulturists, that
the peach is a modification of the almond. Darwin *
collected facts in support of this idea, not omitting to
mention one which seems opposed to it. They may be
concisely put as follows : (1) Cro.ssed fertilization, which
* K. Koch, Dfindrolngte, i. p. 83.
* Decaisne, Jard. Fr. du Mua., Pichers, p. 42.
* Comes, Hhis. Piante nei Dipinti Pompcio-ni, p. 14.
* Darwin, Variation of Plants aijd Animals, dc. i. p. 3.38.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 229
presented Knight with somewhat doubtful results ; (2)
intermediate forms, as to the fleshiness of the fruit and
the size of the nut or stone, obtained by sowing peach
stones, or by chance in plantations, forms of which the
almond-peach is an example which has long been known.
Decaisne ^ pointed out differences between the almond
and peach in the size and length of the leaves indepen-
dently of the fruit. He calls Knight's theory a " strange
hypothesis."
Geographical botany opposes his hypotliesis, for the
almond tree has its origin in Western Asia ; it was not
indigenous in the centre of the Asiatic continent, and its
introduction into China as a cultivated species was not
anterior to the Christian era. The Chinese, however, had
already possessed for thousands of years ditierent varieties
of the common peach besides the two wild forms I have
just mentioned. The almond and the peach, starting
from two such widely separated regions, can hardly be
considered as the same species. The one was established
in China, the other in Syria and in Anatolia. The peach,
after being transported from China into C 
