Chapter IV: Plants Cultivated for Their Fruits.816 (4)

About thirty years ago this pumpkin with black or brown seeds was introduced into gardens. It differs from other cultivated species in being perennial. It is sometimes called the _Siamese melon_. The _Bon Jardinier_ says that it comes from China. Dr. Bretschneider does not mention it in his letter of 1881, in which he enumerates the pumpkins grown by the Chinese.

Hitherto no botanist has found it wild. I very much doubt its Asiatic origin as all the known perennial species of _Cucurbita_ are from Mexico or California.

+Melon+—_Cucumis Melo_, Linnæus.

The aspect of the question as to the origin of the melon has completely changed since the experiments of Naudin. The paper which he published in 1859, in the _Annales des Sciences Naturelles_, 4th series, vol. ii., on the genus _Cucumis_, is as remarkable as that on the genus _Cucurbita_. He gives an account of the observations and experiments of several years on the variability of forms and the crossed fecundation of a multitude of species, breeds, or varieties coming from all parts of the world. I have already spoken (p. 250) of the physiological principle on which he believes it possible to distinguish those groups of forms which he terms species, although certain exceptions have occurred which render the criterion of fertilization less absolute. In spite of these exceptional cases, it is evident that if nearly allied forms can be easily crossed and produce fertile individuals, as we see, for example, in the human species, they must be considered as constituting a single species.

In this sense _Cucumis Melo_, according to the experiments and observations made by Naudin upon about two thousand living plants, constitutes a species which comprehends an extraordinary number of varieties and even of breeds; that is to say, forms which are preserved by heredity. These varieties or races can be fertilized by each other, and yield varied and variable products. They are classed by the author into ten groups, which he calls _canteloups_, _melons brodés_, _sucrins_, _melons d’hiver_, _serpents_, _forme de concombre_, _Chito_, _Dudaim_, _rouges de Perse_, and _sauvages_, each containing varieties or nearly allied races. These have been named in twenty-five or thirty different ways by botanists, who, without noticing transitions of form, the faculty of crossing or of change under cultivation, have distinguished as species all the varieties which occur in a given time or place.

Hence it results that several forms found wild, and which have been described as species, must be the types and sources of the cultivated forms; and Naudin makes the very just observation that these wild forms, which differ more or less the one from the other, may have produced different cultivated varieties. This is the more probable that they sometimes inhabit countries remote from each other as Southern Asia and tropical Africa, so that differences in climate and isolation may have created and consolidated varieties.

The following are the forms which Naudin enumerates as wild: 1. Those of India, which are named by Wildenow _Cucumis pubescens_, and by Roxburgh _C. turbinatus_ or _C. maderas-patanus_. The whole of British India and Beluchistan is their natural area. Its natural wildness is evident even to non-botanical travellers.[1273] The fruit varies from the size of a plum to that of a lemon. It is either striped or barred, or all one colour, scented or odourless. The flesh is sweet, insipid, or slightly acid, differences which it has in common with the cultivated Cantelopes. According to Roxburgh the Indians gather and have a taste for the fruits of _C. turbinatus_ and of _C. maderas-patanus_, though they do not cultivate it.

Referring to the most recent flora of British India, in which Clarke has described the _Cucurbitaceæ_ (ii. p. 619), it seems that this author does not agree with M. Naudin about the Indian wild forms, although both have examined the numerous specimens in the herbarium at Kew. The difference of opinion, more apparent than real, arises from the fact that the English author attributes to a nearly and certainly wild allied species, _C. trigonus_, Roxburgh, the varieties which Naudin classes under _C. Melo_. Cogniaux,[1274] who afterwards saw the same specimens, attributes only _C. turbinatus_ to _trigonus_. The specific difference between _C. Melo_ and _C. trigonus_ is unfortunately obscure, from the characters given by these three authors. The principal difference is that _C. Melo_ is an annual, the other perennial, but this duration does not appear to be very constant. Mr. Clarke says himself that _C. Melo_ is perhaps derived by cultivation from _C. trigonus_; that is to say, according to him, from the forms which Naudin attributes to _C. Melo_.

The experiments made during three consecutive years by Naudin[1275] upon the products of _Cucumis trigonus_, fertilized by _C. Melo_, seem in favour of the opinion which admits a specific diversity; for if fertilization took place the products were of different forms, and often reverted to one or other of the original parents.

2. The African forms. Naudin had no specimens in sufficiently good condition, or of which the wild state was sufficiently certain to assert positively the habitation of the species in Africa. He admits it with hesitation. He includes in the species cultivated forms, or other wild ones, of which he had not seen the fruit. Sir Joseph Hooker[1276] subsequently obtained specimens which prove more. I am not speaking of those from the Nile Valley,[1277] which are probably cultivated, but of plants gathered by Barter in Guinea in the sands on the banks of the Niger. Thonning[1278] had previously found, in sandy soil in Guinea, a _Cucumis_ to which he had given the name _arenarius_; and Cogniaux,[1279] after having seen a specimen brought home by this traveller, had classed it with _C. Melo_, as Sir J. Hooker thought. The negroes eat the fruit of the plant found by Barter. The smell is that of a fresh green melon. In Thonning’s plant the fruit is ovoid, the size of a plum. Thus in Africa as in India the species bears small fruit in a wild state, as we might expect. The _Dudaim_ among cultivated varieties is allied to it.

The majority of the species of the genus _Cucumis_ are found in Africa; a small minority in Asia or in America. Other species of _Cucurbitaceæ_ are divided between Asia and America, although as a rule, in this family, the areas of species are continuous and restricted. _Cucumis Melo_ was once perhaps, like _Citrullus Colocynthis_ of the same family, wild from the west coast of Africa as far as India without any break.

I formerly hesitated to admit that the melon was indigenous in the north of the Caucasus, as it is asserted by ancient authors—an assertion which has not been confirmed by subsequent botanists. Hohenacker, who was said to have found the species near Elisabethpolis, makes no mention of it in his paper upon the province of Talysch. M. Boissier does not include _Cucumis Melo_ in his Oriental flora. He merely says that it is easily naturalized on rubbish-heaps and waste ground. The same thing has been observed elsewhere, for instance in the sands of Ussuri, in Eastern Asia. This would be a reason for mistrusting the locality of the sands of the Niger, if the small size of the fruit in this case did not recall the wild forms of India.

The culture of the melon, or of different varieties of the melon, may have begun separately in India and Africa.

Its introduction into China appears to date only from the eighth century of our era, judging from the epoch of the first work which mentions it.[1280] As the relations of the Chinese with Bactriana, and the north-west of India by the embassy of Chang-kien, date from the second century, it is possible that the culture of the species was not then widely diffused in Asia. The small size of the wild fruit offered little inducement. No Sanskrit name is known, but there is a Tamul name, probably less ancient, _molam_,[1281] which is like the Latin _Melo_.

It is not proved that the ancient Egyptians cultivated the melon. The fruit figured by Lepsius[1282] is not recognizable. If the cultivation had been customary and ancient in that country, the Greeks and Romans would have early known it. Now, it is doubtful whether the _Sikua_ of Hippocrates and Theophrastus, or the _Pepon_ of Dioscorides, or the _Melopepo_ of Pliny, was the melon. The passages referring to it are brief and insignificant; Galen[1283] is less obscure, when he says that the inside of the _Melopepones_ is eaten, but not of the _Pepones_. There has been much discussion about those names,[1284] but we want facts more than words. The best proof which I have been able to discover of the existence of the melon among the Romans is a very accurate representation of a fruit in the beautiful mosaic of fruits in the Vatican. Moreover, Dr. Comes certifies that the half of a melon is represented in a painting at Herculaneum.[1285] The species was probably introduced into the Græco-Roman world at the time of the Empire, in the beginning of the Christian era. It was probably of indifferent quality, to judge from the silence or the faint praise of writers in a country where _gourmets_ were not wanting. Since the Renaissance, an improved cultivation and relations with the East have introduced better varieties into our gardens. We know, however, that they often degenerate either from cold or bad conditions of soil, or by crossing with inferior varieties of the species.

+Water-Melon+—_Citrullus vulgaris_, Schrader; _Cucurbita Citrullus_, Linnæus.

The origin of the water-melon was long mistaken or unknown. According to Linnæus, it was a native of Southern Italy.[1286] This assertion was taken from Matthiole, without observing that this author says it was a cultivated species. Seringe,[1287] in 1828, supposed it came from India and Africa, but he gives no proof. I believed it came from Southern Asia, because of its very general cultivation in this region. It was not known in a wild state. At length it was found indigenous in tropical Africa, on both sides of the equator, which settles the question.[1288] Livingstone[1289] saw districts literally covered with it, and the savages and several kinds of wild animals eagerly devoured the wild fruit. They are sometimes, but not always, bitter, and this cannot be detected from the appearance of the fruit. The negroes strike it with an axe, and taste the juice to see whether it is good or bad. This diversity in the wild plant, growing in the same climate and in the same soil, is calculated to show the small value of such a character in cultivated _Cucurbitaceæ_. For the rest, the frequent bitterness of the water-melon is not at all extraordinary, as the most nearly allied species is _Citrullus Colocynthis_. Naudin obtained fertile hybrids from crossing the bitter water-melon, wild at the Cape, with a cultivated species which confirms the specific unity suggested by the outward appearance.

The species has not been found wild in Asia.

The ancient Egyptians cultivated the water-melon, which is represented in their paintings.[1290] This is one reason for believing that the Israelites knew the species, and called it _abbatitchim_, as is said; but besides the Arabic name, _battich_, _batteca_, evidently derived from the Hebrew, is the modern name for the water-melon. The French name, _pastèque_, comes through the Arabic from the Hebrew. A proof of the antiquity of the plant in the north of Africa is found in the Berber name, _tadelaât_,[1291] which differs too widely from the Arabic name not to have existed before the Conquest. The Spanish names _zandria_, _cindria_, and the Sardinian _sindria_,[1292] which I cannot connect with any others, show also an ancient culture in the eastern part of the Mediterranean basin. Its cultivation early spread into Asia, for there is a Sanskrit name, _chayapula_,[1293] but the Chinese only received the plant in the tenth century of the Christian era. They call it _si-kua_, that is melon of the West.[1294]

As the water-melon is an annual, it ripens out of the tropics wherever the summer is sufficiently hot. The modern Greeks cultivate it largely, and call it _carpousia_ or _carpousea_,[1295] but this name does not occur in ancient authors, nor even in the Greek of the decadence and of the Middle Ages.[1296] It is the same as the _karpus_ of the Turks of Constantinople,[1297] which we find again in the Russian _arbus_,[1298] and in Bengali and Hindustani as _tarbuj_, _turbouz_.[1299] Another Constantinople name, mentioned by Forskal, _chimonico_, recurs in Albanian _chimico_.[1300] The absence of an ancient Greek name which can with certainty be attributed to this species, seems to show that it was introduced into the Græco-Roman world about the beginning of the Christian era. The poem _Copa_, attributed to Virgil and Pliny, perhaps mentions it (lib. 19, cap. 5), as Naudin thinks, but it is doubtful.

Europeans have introduced the water-melon into America, where it is now cultivated from Chili to the United States. The _jacé_ of the Brazilians, of which Piso and Marcgraf have a drawing, is evidently introduced, for the first-named author says it is cultivated and partly naturalized.[1301]

+Cucumber+—_Cucumis sativus_, Linnæus.

In spite of the very evident difference between the melon and cucumber, which both belong to the genus _Cucumis_, cultivators suppose that the species may be crossed, and that the quality of the melon is thus sometimes spoilt. Naudin[1302] ascertained by experiments that this fertilization is not possible, and has also shown that the distinction of the two species is well founded.

The original country of _Cucumis sativus_ was unknown to Linnæus and Lamarck. In 1805, Wildenow[1303] asserted it was indigenous in Tartary and India, but without furnishing any proof. Later botanists have not confirmed the assertion. When I went into the question in 1855, the species had not been anywhere found wild. For various reasons deduced from its ancient culture in Asia and in Europe, and especially from the existence of a Sanskrit name, _soukasa_,[1304] I said, “Its original habitat is probably the north-west of India, for instance Cabul, or some adjacent country. Everything seems to show that it will one day be discovered in these regions which are as yet but little known.”

This conjecture has been realized if we admit, with the best-informed modern authors, that _Cucumis Hardwickii_, Royle, possesses the characteristics of _Cucumis sativus_. A coloured illustration of this cucumber found at the foot of the Himalayas may be seen in Royle’s _Illustrations of Himalayan Plants_, p. 220, pl. 47. The stems, leaves, and flowers are exactly those of _C. sativus_. The fruit, smooth and elliptical, has a bitter taste; but there are similar forms of the cultivated cucumber, and we know that in other species of the same family, the water-melon, for instance, the pulp is sweet or bitter. Sir Joseph Hooker, after describing the remarkable variety which he calls the _Sikkim_ cucumber,[1305] adds that the variety _Hardwickii_, wild from Kumaon to Sikkim, and of which he has gathered specimens, does not differ more from the cultivated plant than certain varieties of the latter differ from others; and Cogniaux, after seeing the plants in the herbarium at Kew, adopts this opinion.[1306]

The cucumber, cultivated in India for at least three thousand years, was only introduced into China in the second century before Christ, when the ambassador Chang-kien returned from Bactriana.[1307] The species spread more rapidly towards the West. The ancient Greeks cultivated the cucumber under the name of _sikuos_,[1308] which remains as _si-kua_ in the modern language. The modern Greeks have also the name _aggouria_, from an ancient Aryan root which is sometimes applied to the water-melon, and which recurs for the cucumber in the Bohemian _agurka_, the German _Gurke_, etc. The Albanians (Pelasgians?) have quite a different name, _kratsavets_,[1309] which we recognize in the Slav _Krastavak_. The Latins called the cucumber _cucumis_. These different names show the antiquity of the species in Europe. There is even an Esthonian name, _uggurits_, _ukkurits_, _urits_.[1310] It does not seem to be Finnish, but to belong to the same Aryan root as _aggouria_. If the cucumber came into Europe before the Aryans, there would perhaps be some name peculiar to the Basque language, or seeds would have been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland and Savoy; but this is not the case. The peoples in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus have names quite different to the Greek; in Tartar _kiar_, in Kalmuck _chaja_, in Armenian _karan_.[1311] The name _chiar_ exists also in Arabic for a variety of the cucumber.[1312] This is, therefore, a Turanian name anterior to the Sanskrit, whereby its culture in Western Asia would be more than three thousand years old.

It is often said that the cucumber is the _kischschuim_, one of the fruits of Egypt regretted by the Israelites in the desert.[1313] However, I do not find any Arabic name among the three given by Forskal which can be connected with this, and hitherto no trace has been found of the presence of the cucumber in ancient Egypt.

+West Indian Gherkin+—_Cucumis Anguria_, Linnæus.

This small species of cucumber is designated in the _Bon Jardinier_ under the name of the cucumber _Arada_. The fruit, of the size of an egg, is very prickly. It is eaten cooked or pickled. As the plant is very productive, it is largely cultivated in the American colonies. Descourtilz and Sir Joseph Hooker have published good coloured illustrations of it, and M. Cogniaux a plate with a detailed analysis of the flower.[1314]

Several botanists affirm that it is wild in the West Indies. P. Browne,[1315] in the last century, spoke of the plant as the “little wild cucumber” (in Jamaica). Descourtilz said, “The cucumber grows wild everywhere, and principally in the dry savannahs and near rivers, whose banks afford a rich vegetation.” The inhabitants call it the “maroon cucumber.” Grisebach[1316] saw specimens in several other West India Isles, and appears to admit their wild character. M. E. André found the species growing in the sand of the sea-shore at Porto-Cabello, and Burchell in a similar locality in Brazil, and Riedel near Rio di Janeiro.[1317] In the case of a number of other specimens gathered in the east of America from Brazil to Florida, it is unknown whether they were wild or cultivated. A wild Brazilian plant, badly drawn by Piso,[1318] is mentioned as belonging to the species, but I am very doubtful of this.

Botanists from Tournefort down to our own day have considered the Anguria to be of American origin, a native of Jamaica in particular. M. Naudin[1319] was the first to point out that all the other species of _Cucumis_ are of the old world, and principally African. He wondered whether this one had not been introduced into America by the negroes, like many other plants which have become naturalized. However, unable to find any similar African plant, he adopted the general opinion. Sir Joseph Hooker, on the contrary, is inclined to believe that _C. Anguria_ is a cultivated and modified form of some African species nearly allied to _C. prophetarum_ and _C. Figarei_, although these are perennial. In favour of this hypothesis, I may add: (1) The name _maroon_ cucumber, given in the French West India Islands, indicates a plant which has become wild, for this is the meaning of the word _maroon_ as applied to the negroes; (2) its extended area in America from Brazil to the West Indies, always along the coast where the slave trade was most brisk, seems to be a proof of foreign origin. If the species grew in America previous to its discovery, it would, with such an extensive habitat, have been also found upon the west coast of America, and inland, which is not the case.

The question can only be solved by a more complete knowledge of the African species of _Cucumis_, and by experiments upon fertilization, if any have the patience and ability necessary to do for the genus _Cucumis_ what Naudin has done for the genus _Cucurbita_.

Lastly, I would point out the absurdity of a common name for the Anguria in the United States—_Jerusalem Cucumber_.[1320] After this, is it possible to take popular names as a guide in our search for origins?

+White Gourd-melon+, or +Benincasa+—_Benincasa hispida_, Thunberg; _Benincasa cerifera_, Savi.

This species, which is the only one of the genus Benincasa, is so like the pumpkins that early botanists took it for one,[1321] in spite of the waxy efflorescence on the surface of the fruit. It is very generally cultivated in tropical countries. It was, perhaps, a mistake to abandon its cultivation in Europe after having tried it, for Naudin and the _Bon Jardinier_ both recommend it.

It is the _cumbalam_ of Rheede, the _camolenga_ of Rumphius, who had seen it cultivated in Malabar and the Sunda Islands, and give illustrations of it.

From several works, even recent ones,[1322] it might be supposed that it had never been found in a wild state, but if we notice the different names under which it has been described we shall find that this is not the case. Thus _Cucurbita hispida_, Thunberg, and _Lagenaria dasystemon_, Miquel, from authentic specimens seen by Cogniaux,[1323] are synonyms of the species, and these plants are wild in Japan.[1324] _Cucurbita littoralis_, Hasskarl,[1325] found among shrubs on the sea-shore in Java, and _Gymnopetalum septemlobum_, Miquel, also in Java, are the _Benincasa_ according to Cogniaux. As are also _Cucurbita vacua_, Mueller,[1326] and _Cucurbita pruriens_, Forster, of which he has seen authentic specimens found at Rockingham, in Australia, and in the Society Islands. Nadeaud[1327] does not mention the latter. Temporary naturalization may be suspected in the Pacific Isles and in Queensland, but the localities of Java and Japan seem quite certain. I am the more inclined to believe in the latter, that the cultivation of the Benincasa in China dates from the remotest antiquity.[1328]

+Towel Gourd+—_Momordica cylindrica_, Linnæus; _Luffa cylindrica_, Rœmer.

Naudin[1329] says, “_Luffa cylindrica_, which in some of our colonies has retained the Indian name _pétole_, is probably a native of Southern Asia, and perhaps also of Africa, Australia, and Polynesia. It is cultivated by the peoples of most hot countries, and it appears to be naturalized in many places where it doubtless did not exist originally.” Cogniaux[1330] is more positive. “An indigenous species,” he says, “in all the tropical regions of the old world; often cultivated and half wild in America between the tropics.” In consulting the works quoted in these two monographs, and herbaria, its character as a wild plant will be found sometimes conclusively certified.

With regard to Asia,[1331] Rheede saw it in sandy places, in woods and other localities in Malabar; Roxburgh says it is wild in Hindustan; Kurz, in the forests of Burmah; Thwaites, in Ceylon. I have specimens from Ceylon and Khasia. There is no Sanskrit name known, and Dr. Bretschneider, in his work _On the Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works_, and in his letters mentions no luffa either wild or cultivated in China. I suppose, therefore, that its cultivation is not ancient even in India.

The species is wild in Australia, on the banks of rivers in Queensland,[1332] and hence it is probable it will be found wild in the Asiatic Archipelago, where Rumphius, Miquel, etc., only mention it as a cultivated plant.

Herbaria contain a great number of specimens from tropical Africa, from Mozambique to the coast of Guinea, and even as far as Angola, but collectors do not appear to have indicated whether they were cultivated or wild plants. In the Delessert herbarium, Heudelot indicates it as growing in fertile ground in the environs of Galam. Sir Joseph Hooker[1333] quotes this without affirming anything. Schweinfurth and Ascheron,[1334] who are always careful in this matter, say the species is only a cultivated one in the Nile Valley. This is curious, because the plant was seen in the seventeenth century in Egyptian gardens under the Arabian name of _luff_,[1335] whence the genus was called _Luffa_, and the species _Luffa ægyptica_. The ancient Egyptian monuments show no trace of it. The absence of a Hebrew name is another reason for believing that its cultivation was introduced into Egypt in the Middle Ages. It is now grown in the Delta, not only for the fruit but also for the export of the seed, from which a preparation is made for softening the skin.

The species is cultivated in Brazil, Guiana, Mexico, etc., but I find no indication that it is indigenous in America. It appears to have been here and there naturalized, in Nicaragua for instance, from a specimen of Levy’s.

In brief, the Asiatic origin is certain, the African very doubtful, that of America imaginary, or rather the effect of naturalization.

+Angular Luffa+—_Luffa acutangula_, Roxburgh.

The origin of this species, cultivated like the preceding one in all tropical countries, is not very clear, according to Naudin and Cogniaux.[1336] The first gives Senegal, the second Asia, and, doubtfully, Africa. It is hardly necessary to say that Linnæus[1337] was mistaken in indicating Tartary and China. Clarke, in Sir Joseph Hooker’s flora, says without hesitation that it is indigenous in British India. Rheede[1338] formerly saw the plant in sandy soil in Malabar. Its natural area seems to be limited, for Thwaites in Ceylon, Kurz in British Burmah, and Loureiro in China and Cochin-China,[1339] only give the species as cultivated, or growing on rubbish-heaps near gardens. Rumphius[1340] calls it a Bengal plant. No luffa has been long cultivated in China, according to a letter of Dr. Bretschneider. No Sanskrit name is known. All these are indications of a comparatively recent culture in Asia.

A variety with bitter fruit is common in British India[1341] in a wild state, since there is no inducement to cultivate it. It exists also in the Sunda Islands. It is _Luffa amara_, Roxburgh, and _L. sylvestris_, Miquel. _L. subangulata_, Miquel, is another variety which grows in Java, which M. Cogniaux also unites with the others from authentic specimens which he saw.

M. Naudin does not say what traveller gives the plant as wild in Senegambia; but he says the negroes call it _papengaye_, and as this is the name of the Mauritius planters,[1342] it is probable that the plant is cultivated in Senegal, and perhaps naturalized near dwellings. Sir Joseph Hooker, in the _Flora of Tropical Africa_, gives the species, but without proof that it is wild in Africa, and Cogniaux is still more brief. Schweinfurth and Ascheron[1343] do not mention it either as wild or cultivated in Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia. There is no trace of its ancient cultivation in Egypt.

The species has often been sent from the West Indies, New Granada, Brazil, and other parts of America, but there is no indication that it has been long in these places, nor even that it occurs at a distance from gardens in a really wild state.

The conditions or probabilities of origin, and of date of culture, are, it will be seen, identical for the two cultivated species of luffa. In support of the hypothesis that the latter is not of African origin, I may say that the four other species of the genus are Asiatic or American; and as a sign that the cultivation of the luffa is not very ancient, I will add that the form of the fruit varies much less than in the other cultivated cucurbitacea.

+Snake Gourd+—_Trichosanthes anguina_, Linnæus.

An annual creeping _Cucurbitacea_, remarkable for its fringed corolla. It is called _petole_ in Mauritius, from a Java name. The fruit, which is something like a long fleshy pod of some leguminous plants, is eaten cooked like a cucumber in tropical Asia.

As the botanists of the seventeenth century received the plant from China, they imagined that the plant was indigenous there, but it was probably cultivated. Dr. Bretschneider[1344] tells us that the Chinese name, _mankua_, means “cucumber of the southern barbarians.” Its home must be India, or the Indian Archipelago. No author, however, asserts that it has been found in a distinctly wild state. Thus Clarke, in Hooker’s _Flora of British India_, ii. p. 610, says only, “India, cultivated.” Naudin,[1345] before him, said, “Inhabits the East Indies, where it is much cultivated for its fruits. It is rarely found wild.” Rumphius[1346] is not more positive for Amboyna. Loureiro and Kurz in Cochin-China and Burmah, Blume and Miquel in the islands to the south of Asia, have only seen the plant cultivated. The thirty-nine other species of the genus are all of the old world, found between China or Japan, the west of India and Australia. They belong especially to India and the Malay Archipelago. I consider the Indian origin as the most probable one.

The species has been introduced into Mauritius, where it sows itself round cultivated places. Elsewhere it is little diffused. No Sanskrit name is known.

+Chayote+, or +Choco+—_Sechium edule_ Swartz.

This plant, of the order _Cucurbitaceæ_, is cultivated in tropical America for its fruits, shaped like a pear, and tasting like a cucumber. They contain only one seed, so that the flesh is abundant.

The species alone constitutes the genus Sechium. There are specimens in every herbarium, but generally collectors do not indicate whether they are naturalized, or really wild, and apparently indigenous in the country. Without speaking of works in which this plant is said to come from the East Indies, which is entirely a mistake, several of the best give Jamaica[1347] as the original home. However, P. Browne,[1348] in the middle of the last century, said positively that it was cultivated there, and Sloane does not mention it. Jacquin[1349] says that it “inhabits Cuba, and is cultivated there,” and Richard copies this phrase in the flora of R. de La Sagra without adding any proof. Naudin says,[1350] “a Mexican plant,” but he does not give his reasons for asserting this. Cogniaux,[1351] in his recent monograph, mentions a great number of specimens gathered from Brazil to the West Indies without saying if he had seen any one of these given as wild. Seemann[1352] saw the plant cultivated at Panama, and he adds a remark, important if correct, namely, that the name _chayote_, common in the isthmus, is the corruption of an Aztec word, _chayotl_. This is an indication of an ancient existence in Mexico, but I do not find the word in Hernandez, the classic author on the Mexican plants anterior to the Spanish conquest. The _chayote_ was not cultivated in Cayenne ten years ago.[1353] Nothing indicates an ancient cultivation in Brazil. The species is not mentioned by early writers, such as Piso and Marcgraf, and the name _chuchu_, given as Brazilian,[1354] seems to me to come from _chocho_, the Jamaica name, which is perhaps a corruption of the Mexican word.

The plant is probably a native of the south of Mexico and of Central America, and was transported into the West India Islands and to Brazil in the eighteenth century. The species was afterwards introduced into Mauritius and Algeria, where it is very successful.[1355]

+Indian Fig+, or +Prickly Pear+—_Opuntia ficus indica_, Miller.

This fleshy plant of the _Cactus_ family, which produces the fruit known in the south of Europe as the Indian fig, has no connection with the fig tree, nor has the fruit with the fig. Its origin is not Indian but American. Everything is erroneous and absurd in this common name. However, since Linnæus took his botanical name from it, _Cactus ficus indica_, afterwards connected with the genus _Opuntia_, it was necessary to retain the specific name to avoid changes which are a source of confusion, and to recall the popular denomination. The prickly forms, and those more or less free from spines, have been considered by some authors as distinct species, but an attentive examination leads us to regard them as one.[1356]

The species existed both wild and cultivated in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards. Hernandez[1357] describes nine varieties of it, which shows the antiquity of its cultivation. The cochineal insect appears to feed on one of these, almost without thorns, more than on the others, and it has been transported with the plant to the Canary Isles and elsewhere. It is not known how far its habitat extended in America before man transported pieces of the plant, shaped like a racket, and the fruits, which are two easy ways of propagating it. Perhaps the wild plants in Jamaica, and the other West India Islands mentioned by Sloane,[1358] in 1725, were the result of its introduction by the Spaniards. Certainly the species has become naturalized in this direction as far as the climate permits; for instance, as far as Southern Florida.[1359]

It was one of the first plants which the Spaniards introduced to the old world, both in Europe and Asia. Its singular appearance was the more striking that no other species belonging to the family had before been seen.[1360] All sixteenth-century botanists mention it, and the plant became naturalized in the south of Europe and in Africa as its cultivation was introduced. It was in Spain that the prickly pear was first known under the American name _tuna_, and it was probably the Moors who took it into Barbary when they were expelled from the peninsula. They called it fig of the Christians.[1361] The custom of using the plant for fences, and the nourishing property of the fruits, which contain a large proportion of sugar, have determined its extension round the Mediterranean, and in general in all countries near the tropics.

The cultivation of the cochineal, which was unfavourable to the production of the fruit,[1362] is dying out since the manufacture of colouring matters by chemical processes.

+Gooseberry+—_Ribes grossularia_ and _R. Vacrispa_, Linnæus.

The fruit of the cultivated varieties is generally smooth, or provided with a few stiff hairs, while that of the wild varieties has soft and shorter hairs; but intermediate forms exist, and it has been shown by experiment that by sowing the seeds of the cultivated fruit, plants with either smooth or hairy fruit are obtained.[1363] There is, therefore, but one species, which has produced under cultivation one principal variety and several sub-varieties as to the size, colour, or taste of the fruit.

The gooseberry grows wild throughout temperate Europe, from Southern Sweden to the mountainous regions of Central Spain, of Italy, and of Greece.[1364] It is also mentioned in Northern Africa, but the last published catalogue of Algerian plants[1365] indicates it only in the mountains of Aures, and Ball has found a variety in the Atlas of Marocco.[1366] It grows in the Caucasus,[1367] and under more or less different forms in the western Himalayas.[1368]

The Greeks and Romans do not mention the species, which is rare in the South, and which is hardly worth planting where grapes will ripen. It is especially in Germany, Holland, and England that it has been cultivated from the sixteenth century,[1369] principally as a seasoning, whence the English name, and the French _groseille à maquereaux_ (mackerel currant). A wine is also made from it.

The frequency of its cultivation in the British Isles and in other places where it is found wild, which are often near gardens, has suggested to some English botanists the idea of an accidental naturalization. This is likely enough in Ireland;[1370] but as it is an essentially European species, I do not see why it should not have existed in England, where the wild plant is more common, since the establishment of most of the species of the British flora; that is to say, since the end of the glacial period, before the separation of the island from the continent. Phillips quotes an old English name, _feaberry_ or _feabes_, which supports the theory of an ancient existence, and two Welsh names,[1371] of which I cannot, however, certify the originality.

+Red Currant+—_Ribes rubrum_, Linnæus.

The common red currant is wild throughout Northern and Temperate Europe, and in Siberia[1372] as far as Kamtschatka, and in America, from Canada and Vermont to the mouth of the river Mackenzie.[1373]

Like the preceding species, it was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and its cultivation was only introduced in the Middle Ages. The cultivated plant hardly differs from the wild one. That the plant was foreign to the south of Europe is shown by the name of _groseillier d’outremer_ (currant from beyond the sea), given in France[1374] in the sixteenth century. In Geneva the currant is still commonly called _raisin de mare_, and in the canton of Soleure _meertrübli_. I do not know why the species was supposed, three centuries ago, to have come from beyond seas. Perhaps this should be understood to mean that it was brought by the Danes and the Northmen, and that these peoples from beyond the northern seas introduced its cultivation. I doubt it, however, for the _Ribes rubrum_ is wild in almost the whole of Great Britain[1375] and in Normandy;[1376] the English, who were in constant communication with the Danes, did not cultivate it as late as 1557, from a list of the fruits of that epoch drawn up by Th. Tusser, and published by Phillips;[1377] and even in the time of Gerard, in 1597,[1378] its cultivation was rare, and the plant had no particular name.[1379] Lastly, there are French and Breton names which indicate a cultivation anterior to the Normans in the west of France.

The old names in France are given in the dictionary by Ménage. According to him, red currants are called at Rouen _gardes_, at Caen _grades_, in Lower Normandy _gradilles_, and in Anjou _castilles_. Ménage derives all these names from _rubius_, _rubicus_, etc., by a series of imaginary transformations, from the word _ruber_, red. Legonidec[1380] tells us that red currants are also called _Kastilez_ (l. liquid) in Brittany, and he derives this name from Castille, as if a fruit scarcely known in Spain and abundant in the north could come from Spain. These words, found both in Brittany and beyond its limits, appear to me to be of Celtic origin; and I may mention, in support of this theory, that in Legonidec’s dictionary _gardis_ means _rough_, _harsh_, _pungent_, _sour_, etc., which gives a hint as to the etymology. The generic name _Ribes_ has caused other errors. It was thought the plant might be one which was so called by the Arabs; but the word comes rather from a name for the currant very common in the north, _ribs_ in Danish,[1381] _risp_ and _resp_ in Swedish.[1382] The Slav names are quite different and in considerable number.

+Black Currant+—_Cassis_; _Ribes nigrum_, Linnæus.

The black currant grows wild in the north of Europe, from Scotland and Lapland as far as the north of France and Italy; in Bosnia,[1383] Armenia,[1384] throughout Siberia, in the basin of the river Amur, and in the western Himalayas;[1385] it often becomes naturalized, as for instance, in the centre of France.[1386]

This shrub was unknown in Greece and Italy, for it is proper to colder countries. From the variety of the names in all the languages, even in those anterior to the Aryans, of the north of Europe, it is clear that this fruit was very early sought after, and its cultivation was probably begun before the Middle Ages. J. Bauhin[1387] says it was planted in gardens in France and Italy, but most sixteenth-century authors do not mention it. In the _Histoire de la Vie Privée des Français_, by Le Grand d’Aussy, published in 1872, vol. i. p. 232, the following curious passage occurs: “The black currant has been cultivated hardly forty years, and it owes its reputation to a pamphlet entitled _Culture du Cassis_, in which the author attributed to this shrub all the virtues it is possible to imagine.” Further on (vol. iii. p. 80), the author mentions the frequent use, since the publication of the pamphlet in question, of a liqueur made from the black currant. Bosc, who is always accurate in his articles in the _Dictionnaire d’Agriculture_, mentions this fashion under the head _Currant_, but he is careful to add, “It has been very long in cultivation for its fruit, which has a peculiar odour agreeable to some, disagreeable to others, and which is held to be stomachic and diuretic.” It is also used in the manufacture of the liqueurs known as ratafia de Cassis.[1388]

+Olive+—_Olea Europea_, Linnæus.

The wild olive, called in botanical books the variety _sylvestris_ or _oleaster_, is distinguished from the cultivated olive tree by a smaller fruit, of which the flesh is not so abundant. The best fruits are obtained by selecting the seeds, buds, or grafts from good varieties.

The oleaster now exists over a wide area east and west of Syria, from the Punjab and Beluchistan[1389] as far as Portugal and even Madeira, the Canaries and even Marocco,[1390] and from the Atlas northwards as far as the south of France, the ancient Macedonia, the Crimea, and the Caucasus.[1391] If we compare the accounts of travellers and of the authors of floras, it will be seen that towards the limits of this area there is often a doubt as to the wild and indigenous (that is to say ancient in the country) nature of the species. Sometimes it offers itself as a shrub which fruits little or not at all; and sometimes, as in the Crimea, the plants are rare as though they had escaped, as an exception, the destructive effects of winters too severe to allow of a definite establishment. As regards Algeria and the south of France, these doubts have been the subject of a discussion among competent men in the Botanical Society.[1392] They repose upon the uncontestable fact that birds often transport the seed of the olive into uncultivated and sterile places, where the wild form, the oleaster, is produced and naturalized.

The question is not clearly stated when we ask if such and such olive trees of a given locality are really wild. In a woody species which lives so long and shoots again from the same stock when cut off by accident, it is impossible to know the origin of the individuals observed. They may have been sown by man or birds at a very early epoch, for olive trees of more than a thousand years old are known. The effect of such sowing is a naturalization, which is equivalent to an extension of area. The point in question is, therefore, to discover what was the home of the species in very early prehistoric times, and how this area has grown larger by different modes of transport.

It is not by the study of living olive trees that this question can be answered. We must seek in what countries the cultivation began, and how it was propagated. The more ancient it is in any region, the more probable it is that the species has existed wild there from the time of those geological events which took place before the coming of prehistoric man.

The earliest Hebrew books mention the olive _sait_, or _zeit_,[1393] both wild and cultivated. It was one of the trees promised in the land of Canaan. It is first mentioned in Genesis, where it is said that the dove sent out by Noah should bring back a branch of olive. If we take into account this tradition, which is accompanied by miraculous details, it may be added that the discoveries of modern erudition show that the Mount Ararat of the Bible must be to the east of the mountain in Armenia which now bears that name, and which was anciently called Masis. From a study of the text of the Book of Genesis, François Lenormand[1394] places the mountain in question in the Hindu Kush, and even near the sources of the Indus. This theory supposes it near to the land of the Aryans, yet the olive has no Sanskrit name, not even in that Sanskrit from which the Indian languages[1395] are derived. If the olive had then, as now, existed in the Punjab, the eastern Aryans in their migrations towards the south would probably have given it a name, and if it had existed in the Mazanderan, to the south of the Caspian Sea, as at the present day, the western Aryans would perhaps have known it. To these negative indications, it can only be objected that the wild olive attracts no considerable attention, and that the idea of extracting oil from it perhaps arose late in this part of Asia.

Herodotus[1396] tells us that Babylonia grew no olive trees, and that its inhabitants made use of oil of sesame. It is certain that a country so subject to inundation was not at all favourable to the olive. The cold excludes the higher plateaux and the mountains of the north of Persia.

I do not know if there is a name in Zend, but the Semitic word _sait_ must date from a remote antiquity, for it is found in modern Persian, _seitun_,[1397] and in Arabic, _zeitun_, _sjetun_.[1398] It even exists in Turkish and among the Tartars of the Crimea, _seitun_,[1399] which may signify that it is of Turanian origin, or from the remote epoch when the Turanian and Semitic peoples intermixed.

The ancient Egyptians cultivated the olive tree, which they called _tat_.[1400] Several botanists have ascertained the presence of branches or leaves of the olive in the sarcophagi.[1401] Nothing is more certain, though Hehn[1402] has recently asserted the contrary, without giving any proof in support of his opinion. It would be interesting to know to what dynasty belong the most ancient mummy-cases in which olive branches have been found. The Egyptian name, quite different to the Semitic, shows an existence more ancient than the earliest dynasties. I shall mention presently another fact in support of this great antiquity.

Theophrastus says[1403] that the olive was much grown, and the harvest of oil considerable in Cyrenaica, but he does not say that the species was wild there, and the quantity of oil mentioned seems to point to a cultivated variety. The low-lying, very hot country between Egypt and the Atlas is little favourable to a naturalization of the olive outside the plantations. Kralik, a very accurate botanist, did not anywhere see on his journey to Tunis and into Egypt the olive growing wild,[1404] although it is cultivated in the oases. In Egypt it is only cultivated, according to Schweinfurth and Ascherson,[1405] in their _resumé_ of the Flora of the Nile Valley.

Its prehistoric area probably extended from Syria towards Greece, for the wild olive is very common along the southern coast of Asia Minor, where it forms regular woods.[1406] It is doubtless here and in the archipelago that the Greeks early knew the tree. If they had not known it on their own territory, had received it from the Semites, they would not have given it a special name, _elaia_, whence the Latin _olea_. The _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ mention the hardness of the olive wood and the practice of anointing the body with olive oil. The latter was in constant use for food and lighting. Mythology attributed to Minerva the planting of the olive in Attica, which probably signifies the introduction of cultivated varieties and suitable processes for extracting the oil. Aristæus introduced or perfected the manner of pressing the fruit.

The same mythical personage carried, it was said, the olive tree from the north of Greece into Sicily and Sardinia. It seems that this may have been early done by the Phœnicians, but in support of the idea that the species, or a perfected variety of it, was introduced by the Greeks, I may mention that the Semitic name _seit_ has left no trace in the islands of the Mediterranean. We find the Græco-Latin name here as in Italy,[1407] while upon the neighbouring coast of Africa, and in Spain, the names are Egyptian or Arabic, as I shall explain directly.

The Romans knew the olive later than the Greeks. According to Pliny,[1408] it was only at the time of Tarquin the Ancient, 627 B.C., but the species probably existed already in Great Greece, as in Greece and Sicily. Besides, Pliny was speaking of the cultivated olive.

A remarkable fact, and one which has not been noted or discussed by philologists, is that the Berber name for the olive, both tree and fruit, has the root _taz_ or _tas_, similar to the _tat_ of the ancient Egyptians. The Kabyles of the district of Algiers, according to the French-Berber dictionary, published by the French Government, calls the wild olive _tazebboujt_, _tesettha_, _ou’ zebbouj_, and the grafted olive _tazemmourt_, _tasettha_, _ou’ zemmour_. The Touaregs, another Berber nation, call it _tamahinet_.[1409] These are strong indications of the antiquity of the olive in Africa. The Arabs having conquered this country and driven back the Berbers into the mountains and the desert, having likewise subjected Spain excepting the Basque country, the names derived from the Semitic _zeit_ have prevailed even in Spanish. The Arabs of Algiers say _zenboudje_ for the wild, _zitoun_ for the cultivated olive,[1410] _zit_ for olive oil. The Andalusians call the wild olive _azebuche_, and the cultivated _aceytuno_.[1411] In other provinces we find the name of Latin origin, _olivio_, side by side with the Arabic words.[1412] The oil is in Spanish _aceyte_, which is almost the Hebrew name; but the holy oils are called _oleos santos_, because they belong to Rome. The Basques use the Latin name for the olive tree.

Early voyagers to the Canaries, Bontier for instance, in 1403, mention the olive tree in these islands, where modern botanists regard it as indigenous.[1413] It may have been introduced by the Phœnicians, if it did not previously exist there. We do not know if the Guanchos had names for the olive and its oil. Webb and Berthelot do not give any in their learned chapter on the language of the aborigines,[1414] so the question is open to conjecture. It seems to me that the oil would have played an important part among the Guanchos if they had possessed the olive, and that some traces of it would have remained in the actual speech of the people. From this point of view the naturalization in the Canaries is perhaps not more ancient than the Phœnician voyages.

No leaf of the olive has hitherto been found in the tufa of the south of France, of Tuscany, and Sicily, where the laurel, the myrtle, and other shrubs now existing have been discovered. This is an indication, until the contrary is proved, of a subsequent naturalization.

The olive thrives in dry climates like that of Syria and Assyria. It succeeds at the Cape, in parts of America, in Australia, and doubtless it will become wild in these places when it has been more generally planted. Its slow growth, the necessity of grafting or of choosing the shoots of good varieties, and especially the concurrence of other oil-producing species, have hitherto impeded its extension; but a tree which produces in an ungrateful soil should not be indefinitely neglected. Even in the old world, where it has existed for so many thousands of years, its productiveness might be doubled by taking the trouble to graft on wild trees, as the French have done in Algeria.

+Star Apple+—_Chrysophyllum Caïnito_, Linnæus.

The star apple belongs to the family of the Sapotaceæ. It yields a fruit valued in tropical America, though Europeans do not care much for it. I do not find that any pains have been taken to introduce it into the colonies of Asia or Africa. Tussac gives a good illustration of it in his _Flore des Antilles_, vol. ii. pl. 9.

Seemann[1415] saw the star apple wild in several places in the Isthmus of Panama. De Tussac, a San Domingo colonist, considered it wild in the forests of the West India Islands, and Grisebach[1416] says it is both wild and cultivated in Jamaica, San Domingo, Antigua, and Trinidad. Sloane considered it had escaped from cultivation in Jamaica, and Jacquin says vaguely, “Inhabits Martinique and San Domingo.”[1417]

+Caïmito+, or +Abi+—_Lucuma Caïnito_, Alph. de Candolle.

This Peruvian Caïmito must not be confounded with the _Chrysophyllum Caïnito_ of the West Indies. Both belong to the family Sapotaceæ, but the flowers and seeds are different. There is a figure of this one in Ruiz and Pavon, _Flora Peruviana_, vol. iii. pl. 240. It has been transported from Peru, where it is cultivated, to Ega on the Amazon River, and to Para, where it is commonly called _abi_ or _abiu_.[1418] Ruiz and Pavon say it is wild in the warm regions of Peru, and at the foot of the Andes.

+Marmalade Plum+, or +Mammee Sapota+—_Lucuma mammosa_, Gærtner.

This fruit tree, of the order Sapotaceæ and a native of tropical America, has been the subject of several mistakes in works on botany.[1419] There exists no satisfactory and complete illustration of it as yet, because colonists and travellers think it is too well known to send selected specimens of it, such as may be described in herbaria. This neglect is common enough in the case of cultivated plants. The mammee is cultivated in the West Indies and in some warm regions of America. Sagot tells us it is grown in Venezuela, but not in Cayenne.[1420] I do not find that it has been transported into Africa and Asia, the Philippines[1421] excepted. This is probably due to the insipid taste of the fruit. Humboldt and Bonpland found it wild in the forests on the banks of the Orinoco.[1422] All authors mention it in the West Indies, but as cultivated or without asserting that it is wild. In Brazil it is only a garden species.

+Sapodilla+—_Sapota achras_, Miller.