Chapter V: Plants Cultivated for Their Seeds (1)

_Article I._—Seeds used for Food.

+Cacao+—_Theobroma Cacao_, Linnæus.

The genus _Theobroma_, of the order _Byttneriaceæ_, allied to the _Malvaceæ_, consists of fifteen to eighteen species, all belonging to tropical America, principally in the hotter parts of Brazil, Guiana, and Central America.

The common cacao, _Theobroma Cacao_, is a small tree wild in the forests of the Amazon and Orinoco basins[1564] and of their tributaries up to four hundred feet of altitude. It is also said to grow wild in Trinidad, which lies near the mouth of the Orinoco.[1565] I find no proof that it is indigenous in Guiana, although it seems probable. Many early writers indicate that it was both wild and cultivated at the time of the discovery of America from Panama to Guatemala and Campeachy; but from the numerous quotations collected by Sloane,[1566] it is to be feared that its wild character was not sufficiently verified. Modern botanists are not very explicit on this head, and in general they only mention the cacao as cultivated in these regions and in the West India Islands. G. Bernoulli,[1567] who had resided in Guatemala, only says, “wild and cultivated throughout tropical America;” and Hemsley,[1568] in his review of the plants of Mexico and Central America, made in 1879 from the rich materials of the Kew herbarium, gives no locality where the species is indigenous. It was perhaps introduced into Central America and into the warm regions of Mexico by the Indians before the discovery of America. Cultivation may have naturalized it here and there, as is said to be the case in Jamaica.[1569] In support of this hypothesis, it must be observed that Triana[1570] indicates the cacao as only cultivated in the warm regions of New Granada, a country situated between Panama and the Orinoco valley.

However this may be, the species was grown in Central America and Yucatan at the time of the discovery of America. The seeds were sent into the highlands of Mexico, and were even used as money, so highly were they valued. The custom of drinking chocolate was general. The name of this excellent drink is Mexican. The Spaniards carried the cacao from Acapulco to the Philippine Isles in 1674 and 1680,[1571] where it succeeded wonderfully. It is also cultivated in the Sunda Isles. I imagine it would succeed on the Guinea and Zanzibar coasts, but it is of no use to attempt to grow it in countries which are not very hot and very damp.

Another species, _Theobroma bicolor_, Humboldt and Bonpland, is found growing with the common cacao in American plantations. It is not so much prized. On the other hand, it does not require so high a temperature, and can live at an altitude of nearly three thousand feet in the valley of the Magdalena. It abounds in a wild state in New Granada.[1572] Bernoulli asserts that it is only cultivated in Guatemala, though the inhabitants call it mountain cacao.

+Litchi+—_Nephelium Litchi_, Cambessides.

The seed of this species and of the two following is covered with a fleshy excrescence, very sweet and scented, which is eaten with tea.

Like most of the _Sapindaceæ_, the nepheliums are trees. This one has been cultivated in the south of China, India, and the Malay Archipelago from a date of which we cannot be certain. Chinese authors living at Pekin only knew the _Litchi_ late in the third century of our era.[1573] Its introduction into Bengal took place at the end of the eighteenth century.[1574] Every one admits that the species is a native of the south of China, and, Blume[1575] adds, of Cochin-China and the Philippine Isles, but it does not seem that any botanist has found it in a truly wild state. This is probably because the southern part of China towards Siam has been little visited. In Cochin-China and in Burmah and at Chittagong the _Litchi_ is only cultivated.[1576]

+Longan+—_Nephelium longana_, Cambessides.

This second species, very often cultivated in Southern Asia, like the _Litchi_, is wild in British India, from Ceylon and Concan as far as the mountains to the east of Bengal, and in Pegu.[1577] The Chinese introduced it into the Malay Archipelago some centuries ago.

+Rambutan+—_Nephelium lappaceum_, Linnæus.

It is said to be wild in the Indian Archipelago, where it must have been long cultivated, to judge from the number of its varieties. A Malay name, given by Blume, signifies wild tree. Loureiro says it is wild in Cochin-China and Java. Yet I find no confirmation for Cochin-China in modern works, nor even for the islands. The new flora of British India[1578] indicates it at Singapore and Malacca without affirming that it is indigenous, on which head the labels in herbaria commonly tell us nothing. Certainly the species is not wild on the continent of Asia, in spite of the vague expressions of Blume and Miquel,[1579] but it is more probably a native of the Malay Archipelago.

In spite of the reputation of the nepheliums, of which the fruit can be exported, it does not appear that these trees have been introduced into the tropical colonies of Africa and America except into a few gardens as curiosities.

+Pistachio Nut+—_Pistacia vera_, Linnæus.

The pistachio, a shrub belonging to the order _Anacardiaceæ_, grows naturally in Syria. Boissier[1580] found it to the north of Damascus in Anti-Lebanon, and he saw specimens of it brought from Mesopotamia, but he could not be sure that they were found wild. There is the same doubt about branches gathered in Arabia, which have been mentioned by some writers. Pliny and Galen[1581] knew that the species was a Syrian one. The former tells us that the plant was introduced into Italy by Vitellius at the end of the reign of Tiberius, and thence into Spain by Flavius Pompeius.

There is no reason to believe that the cultivation of the pistachio was ancient even in its primitive country, but it is practised in our own day in the East, as well as in Sicily and Tunis. In the south of France and Spain it is of little importance.

+Broad Bean+—_Faba vulgaris_, Mœnch; _Vicia faba_, Linnæus.

Linnæus, in his best descriptive work, _Hortus cliffortianus_, admits that the origin of this species is obscure, like that of most plants of ancient cultivation. Later, in his _Species_, which is more often quoted, he says, without giving any proof, that the bean “inhabits Egypt.” Lerche, a Russian traveller at the end of the last century, found it wild in the Mungan desert of the Mazanderan, to the south of the Caspian Sea.[1582] Travellers who have collected in this region have sometimes come across it,[1583] but they do not mention it in their writings,[1584] excepting Ledebour,[1585] and the quotation on which he relies is not correct. Bosc[1586] says that Olivier found the bean wild in Persia; I do not find this confirmed in Olivier’s _Voyage_, and as a rule Bosc seems to have been too ready to believe that Olivier found a good many of our cultivated plants in the interior of Persia. He says it of buckwheat and of oats, which Olivier does not mention.

The only indication besides that of Lerche which I find in floras is a very different locality. Munby mentions the bean as wild in Algeria, at Oran. He adds that it is rare. No other author, to my knowledge, has spoken of it in northern Africa. Cosson, who knows the flora of Algeria better than any one, assures me he has not seen or received any specimen of the wild bean from the north of Africa. I have ascertained that there is no specimen in Munby’s[1587] herbarium, now at Kew. As the Arabs grow the bean on a large scale, it may perhaps be met with accidentally outside cultivated plots. It must not be forgotten, however, that Pliny (lib. xviii. c. 12) speaks of a wild bean in Mauritania, but he adds that it is hard and cannot be cooked, which throws doubt upon the species. Botanists who have written upon Egypt and Cyrenaica, especially the more recent,[1588] give the bean as cultivated.

This plant alone constitutes the genus _Faba_. We cannot, therefore, call in the aid of any botanical analogy to discover its origin. We must have recourse to the history of its cultivation and to the names of the species to find out the country in which it was originally indigenous.

We must first eliminate an error which came from a wrong interpretation of Chinese works. Stanislas Julien believed that the bean was one of the five plants which the Emperor Chin-nong commanded, 4600 years ago, to be sown every year with great solemnity.[1589] Now, according to Dr. Bretschneider,[1590] who is surrounded at Pekin with every possible resource for arriving at the truth, the seed similar to a bean which the emperors sow in the enjoined ceremony is that of _Dolichos soja_, and the bean was only introduced into China from Western Asia a century before the Christian era, at the time of Chang-kien’s embassy. Thus falls an assertion which it is hard to reconcile with other facts, for instance with the absence of an ancient cultivation of the bean in India, and of a Sanskrit name, or even of any modern Indian name.

The ancient Greeks were acquainted with the bean, which they called _kuamos_, and sometimes _kuamos ellenikos_, to distinguish it from that of Egypt, which was the seed of a totally different aquatic species, _Nelumbium_. The _Iliad_[1591] already mentions the bean as a cultivated plant, and Virchow found some beans in the excavations at Troy.[1592] The Latins called it _faba_. We find nothing in the works of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, etc., which leads us to believe the plant indigenous in Greece or Italy. It was early known, because it was an ancient Roman rite to put beans in the sacrifices to the goddess Carna, whence the name _Fabariæ Calendæ_.[1593] The Fabii perhaps took their name from _faba_, and the twelfth chapter of the eighteenth book of Pliny shows, without the possibility of a doubt, the antiquity and importance of the bean in Italy.

The word _faba_ recurs in several of the Aryan languages of Europe, but with modifications which philologists alone can recognize. We must not forget, however, Adolphe Pictet’s very just remark,[1594] that in the cases of the seeds of cereals and leguminous plants the names of one species are often transferred to another, or that certain names were sometimes specific and sometimes generic. Several seeds of like form were called _kuamos_ by the Greeks; several different kinds of haricot bean (_Phaseolus_, _Dolichos_) bear the same name in Sanskrit, and _faba_ in ancient Slav, _bobu_ in ancient Prussian, _babo_ in Armorican, _fav_, etc., may very well have been used for peas, haricot beans, etc. In our own day the phrase coffee-_bean_ is used in the trade. It has been rightly supposed that when Pliny speaks of _fabariæ_ islands, where beans were found in abundance, he alludes to a species of wild pea called botanically _Pisum maritimum_.

The ancient inhabitants of Switzerland and of Italy in the age of bronze cultivated a small-fruited variety of _Faba vulgaris_.[1595] Heer calls it _Celtica nana_, because it is only six to nine millimetres long, whereas our modern field bean is ten to twelve millimetres. He has compared the specimens from Montelier on Lake Morat, and St. Peter’s Islands on Lake Bienne, with others of the same epoch from Parma. Mortellet found, in the contemporary lake-dwellings on the Lake Bourget, the same small bean, which is, he says, very like a variety cultivated in Spain at the present day.[1596]

The bean was cultivated by the ancient Egyptians.[1597] It is true that hitherto no beans have been found in the sarcophagi, or drawings of the plant seen on the monuments. The reason is said to be that the plant was reckoned unclean.[1598] Herodotus[1599] says, “The Egyptians never sow the bean in their land, and if it grows they do not eat it either cooked or raw. The priests cannot even endure the sight of it; they imagine that this vegetable is unclean.” The bean existed then in Egypt, and probably in cultivated places, for the soil which would suit it was as a rule under cultivation. Perhaps the poor population and that of certain districts did not share the prejudices of the priests; we know that the superstitions varied with the _nomes_. Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus mention the cultivation of the bean in Egypt, but they wrote five hundred years later than Herodotus.

The word _pol_ occurs twice in the Old Testament;[1600] it has been translated bean because of the traditions preserved by the Talmud, and of the Arabic name _foul_, _fol_, or _ful_, which is that of the bean. The first of the two verses shows that the Hebrews were acquainted with the bean one thousand years before Christ.

Lastly, I shall mention a sign of the ancient existence of the bean in the north of Africa. This is the Berber name _ibiou_, in the plural _iabouen_, used by the Kabyles of the province of Algiers.[1601] It has no resemblance to the Semitic name, and dates perhaps from a remote antiquity. The Berbers formerly inhabited Mauritania, where Pliny asserts that the species was wild. It is not known whether the Guanchos (the Berber people of the Canaries) knew the bean. I doubt whether the Iberians had it, for their supposed descendants, the Basques, use the name _baba_,[1602] answering to the Roman _faba_.

We judge from these facts that the bean was cultivated in Europe in prehistoric terms. It was introduced into Europe probably by the western Aryans at the time of their earliest migrations (Pelasgians, Kelts, Slavs). It was taken to China later, a century before the Christian era, and still later into Japan, and quite recently into India.

Its wild habitat was probably twofold some thousands of years ago, one of the centres being to the south of the Caspian, the other in the north of Africa. This kind of area, which I have called disjunctive, and to which I formerly paid a good deal of attention,[1603] is rare in dicotyledons, but there are examples in those very countries of which I have just spoken.[1604] It is probable that the area of the bean has long been in process of diminution and of extinction. The nature of the plant is in favour of this hypothesis, for its seed has no means of dispersing itself, and rodents or other animals can easily make prey of it. Its area in Western Asia was probably less limited at one time, and that in Africa in Pliny’s day was more or less extensive. The struggle for existence which was going against this plant, as against maize, would have gradually isolated it and caused it to disappear, if man had not saved it by cultivation.

The plant which most nearly resembles the bean is _Vicia narbonensis_. Authors who do not admit the genus _Faba_, of which the characters are not very distinct from those of _Vicia_, place these two species in the same section. Now, _Vicia narbonensis_ is wild in the Mediterranean basin and in the East as far as the Caucasus, in the north of Persia, and in Mesopotamia.[1605] Its area is continuous, but this renders the hypothesis I mentioned above probable by analogy.

+Lentil+—_Ervum lens_, Linnæus; _Lens esculenta_, Mœnch.

The plants which most nearly resemble the lentil are classed by authors now in the genus _Ervum_, now in a distinct genus _Lens_, and sometimes in the genus _Cicer_; but the species of these ill-defined groups all belong to the Mediterranean basin or to Western Asia. This throws some light on the origin of the cultivated plant. Unfortunately, the lentil is no longer to be found in a wild state, at least with certainty. The floras of the south of Europe, of Northern Africa, of the East, and of India always mention it as cultivated, or as growing in fields after or with other cultivated species. A botanist[1606] saw it in the provinces to the south of the Caucasus, “cultivated and nearly wild here and there round villages.” Another[1607] indicates it vaguely in the south of Russia, but more recent floras fail to confirm this.

The history and names of this plant may give clearer indications of its origin. It has been cultivated in the East, in the Mediterranean basin and even in Switzerland, from prehistoric time. According to Herodotos, Theophrastus, etc., the ancient Egyptians used it largely. If their monuments give no proof of this, it was probably because the lentil was, like the bean, considered common and coarse. The Old Testament mentions it three times, by the name _adaschum_ or _adaschim_, which must certainly mean lentil, for the Arabic name is _ads_,[1608] or _adas_.[1609] The _red_ colour of Esau’s famous mess of pottage has not been understood by most authors. Reynier,[1610] who had lived in Egypt, confirms the explanation given formerly by Josephus; the lentils were red because they were hulled. It is still the practice in Egypt, says Reynier, to remove the husk or outer skin from the lentil, and in this case they are a pale red. The Berbers have the Semitic name _adès_ for the lentil.[1611]

The Greeks cultivated the species—_fakos_ or _fakai_. Aristophanes mentions it as an article of food of the poor.[1612] The Latins called it _lens_, a name whose origin is unknown, which is evidently allied to the ancient Slav _lesha_, Illyrian _lechja_, Lithuanian _lenszic_.[1613] The difference between the Greek and Latin names shows that the species perhaps existed in Greece and Italy before it was cultivated. Another proof of ancient existence in Europe is the discovery of lentils in the lake-dwellings of St. Peter’s Island, Lake of Bienne,[1614] which are of the age of bronze. The species may have been introduced from Italy.

According to Theophrastus,[1615] the inhabitants of Bactriana (the modern Bokkara) did not know the _fakos_ of the Greeks. Adolphe Pictet quotes a Persian name, _mangu_ or _margu_, but he does not say whether it is an ancient name, existing, for instance, in the Zend Avesta. He admits several Sanskrit names for the lentil, _masura_, _renuka_, _mangalya_, etc., while Anglo-Indian botanists, Roxburgh and Piddington, knew none.[1616] As these authors mention an analogous name in Hindustani and Bengali, _mussour_, we may suppose that _masura_ signifies lentil, while _mangu_ in Persian recalls the other name _mangalya_. As Roxburgh and Piddington give no name in other Indian languages, it may be supposed that the lentil was not known in this country before the invasion of the Sanskrit-speaking race. Ancient Chinese works do not mention the species; at least, Dr. Bretschneider says nothing of them in his work published in 1870, nor in the more detailed letters which he has since written to me.

The lentil appears to have existed in western temperate Asia, in Greece, and in Italy, where its cultivation was first undertaken in very early prehistoric time, when it was introduced into Egypt. Its cultivation appears to have been extended at a less remote epoch, but still hardly in historic time, both east and west, that is into Europe and India.

+Chick-Pea+—_Cicer arietinum_, Linnæus.

Fifteen species of the genus _Cicer_ are known, all of Western Asia or Greece, except one, which is Abyssinian. It seems, therefore, most probable that the cultivated species comes from the tract of land lying between Greece and the Himalayas, vaguely termed the East. The species has not been found undoubtedly wild. All the floras of the south of Europe, of Egypt, and of Western Asia as far as the Caucasus and India, give it as a cultivated species, or growing in fields and cultivated grounds. It has sometimes[1617] been indicated in the Crimea, and to the north, and especially to the south of the Caucasus, as nearly wild; but well-informed modern authors do not think so.[1618] This quasi-wildness can only point to its origin in Armenia and the neighbouring countries. The cultivation and the names of the species may perhaps throw some light on the question.

The Greeks cultivated this species of pea as early as Homer’s time, under the name of _erebinthos_,[1619] and also of _krios_,[1620] from the resemblance of the pea to the head of a ram. The Latins called it _cicer_, which is the origin of all the modern names in the south of Europe. The name exists also among the Albanians, descendants of the Pelasgians, under the form _kikere_.[1621] The existence of such widely different names shows that the plant was very early known, and perhaps indigenous, in the south-east of Europe.

The chick-pea has not been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, and Italy. In the first-named locality its absence is not singular; the climate is not hot enough. A common name among the peoples of the south of the Caucasus and of the Caspian Sea is, in Georgian, _nachuda_; in Turkish and Armenian, _nachius_, _nachunt_; in Persian, _nochot_.[1622] Philologists can tell if this is a very ancient name, and if it has any connection with the Sanskrit _chennuka_.

The chick-pea is so frequently cultivated in Egypt from the earliest times of the Christian era,[1623] that it is supposed to have been also known to the ancient Egyptians. There is no proof to be found in the drawings or stores of grain in their monuments, but it may be supposed that this pea, like the bean and the lentil, was considered common or unclean. Reynier[1624] thought that the _ketsech_, mentioned by Isaiah in the Old Testament, was perhaps the chick-pea; but this name is generally attributed, though without certainty, to _Nigella sativa_ or _Vicia sativa_.[1625] As the Arabs have a totally different name for the chick-pea, _omnos, homos_, which recurs in the Kabyl language as _hammez_,[1626] it is not likely that the _ketsech_ of the Jews was the same plant. These details lead me to suspect that the species was unknown to the ancient Egyptians and to the Hebrews. It was perhaps introduced among them from Greece or Italy towards the beginning of our era.

It is of more ancient introduction into India, for there is a Sanskrit name, and several others, analogous or different, in modern Indian languages.[1627] Bretschneider does not mention the species in China.

I do not know of any proof of antiquity of culture in Spain, yet the Castilian name _garbanzo_, used also by the Basques under the form _garbantzua_, and by the French as _garvance_, being neither Latin nor Arabic, may date from an epoch anterior to the Roman conquest.

Botanical, historical, and philological data agree in indicating a habitation anterior to cultivation in the countries to the south of the Caucasus and to the north of Persia. The western Aryans (Pelasgians, Hellenes) perhaps introduced the plant into Southern Europe, where, however, there is some probability that it was also indigenous. The western Aryans carried it into India. Its area perhaps extended from Persia to Greece, and the species now exists only in cultivated ground, where we do not know whether it springs from a stock originally wild or from cultivated plants.

+Lupin+—_Lupinus albus_, Linnæus.

The ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated this leguminous plant to bury it as a green manure, and also for the sake of the seeds, which are a good fodder for cattle, and which are also used by man. The expressions of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Cato, Varro, Pliny, etc., quoted by modern writers, refer to the culture or to the medical properties of the seeds, and do not show whether the species was the white lupin, _L. albus_, or the blue-flowered lupin, _L. hirsutus_, which grows wild in the south of Europe. Fraas says[1628] that the latter is grown in the Morea at the present day; but Heldreich says[1629] that _L. albus_ grows in Attica. As this is the species which has been long cultivated in Italy, it is probable that it is the lupin of the ancients. It was much grown in the eighteenth century, especially in Italy,[1630] and de l’Ecluse settles the question of the species, as he calls it _Lupinus sativus albo flore_.[1631] The antiquity of its cultivation in Spain is shown by the existence of four different common names, according to the province; but the plant is only found cultivated or nearly wild in fields and sandy places.[1632] The species is indicated by Bertoloni in Italy, on the hills of Sarzana. Yet Caruel does not believe it to be wild here, any more than in other parts of the peninsula.[1633] Gussone[1634] is very positive for Sicily—“on barren and sandy hills, and in meadows (_in herbidis_)” Lastly, Grisebach[1635] found it in Turkey in Europe, near Ruskoï, and d’Urville[1636] saw it in abundance, in a wood near Constantinople. Castagne confirms this in a manuscript catalogue in my possession. Boissier does not mention any locality in the East; the species does not exist in India, but Russian botanists have found it to the south of the Caucasus, though we do not know with certainty if it was really wild.[1637] Other localities will perhaps be found between Sicily, Macedonia, and the Caucasus.

+Egyptian Lupin+—_Lupinus termis_, Forskal.

This species of lupin, so nearly allied to _L. albus_ that it has sometimes been proposed to unite them,[1638] is largely cultivated in Egypt and even in Crete. The most obvious difference is that the upper part of the flowers of _L. termis_ is blue. The stem is taller than that of _L. albus._ The seeds are used like those of the common lupin, after they have been steeped to get rid of their bitterness.

_L. termis_ is wild in sandy soil and mountainous districts, in Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica;[1639] in Syria and Egypt, according to Boissier;[1640] but Schweinfurth and Ascherson[1641] say that it is only cultivated in Egypt. Hartmann saw it wild in Upper Egypt.[1642] Unger[1643] mentions it among the cultivated specimens of the ancient Egyptians, but he gives neither specimen nor drawing. Wilkinson[1644] says only that it has been found in the tombs.

No lupin is grown in India, nor is there any Sanskrit name; its seeds are sold in bazaars under the name _tourmus_ (Royle, _Ill._, p. 194).

The Arabic name, _termis_ or _termus_, is also that of the Greek lupin, _termos_. It may be inferred that the Greeks had it from the Egyptians. As the species was known to the ancient Egyptians, it seems strange that it has no Hebrew name;[1645] but it may have been introduced into Egypt after the departure of the Israelites.

+Field-Pea+—_Pisum arvense_, Linnæus.

This pea is grown on a large scale for the seed, and also sometimes for fodder. Although its appearance and botanical characters allow of its being easily distinguished from the garden-pea, Greek and Roman authors confounded them, or are not explicit about them. Their writings do not prove that it was cultivated in their time. It has not been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, France, and Italy. Bobbio has a legend (A.D. 930), in which it is said that the Italian peasants called a certain seed _herbilia_, whence it has been supposed to be the modern _rubiglia_ or the _Pisum sativum_ of botanists.[1646] The species is cultivated in the East, and as far as the north of India.[1647] It is of recent cultivation in the latter country, for there is no Sanskrit name, and Piddington gives only one name in one of the modern languages.

Whatever may be the date of the introduction of its culture, the species is undoubtedly wild in Italy, not only in hedges and near cultivated ground, but also in forests and wild mountainous districts.[1648] I find no positive indication in the floras that it grows in like manner in Spain, Algeria, Greece, and the East. The plant is said to be indigenous in the south of Russia, but sometimes its wild character is doubtful, and sometimes the species itself is not certain, from a confusion with _Pisum sativum_ and _P. elatius_. Of all Anglo-Indian botanists, only Royle admits it to be indigenous in the north of India.

+Garden-Pea+—_Pisum sativum_, Linnæus.

The pea of our kitchen gardens is more delicate than the field-pea, and suffers from frost and drought. Its natural area, previous to cultivation, was probably more to the south and more restricted. It has not hitherto been found wild, either in Europe or in the west of Asia, whence it is supposed to have come. Bieberstein’s indication of the species in the Crimea is not correct, according to Steven, who was a resident in the country.[1649] Perhaps botanists have overlooked its habitation; perhaps the plant has disappeared from its original dwelling; perhaps also it is a mere modification, effected by culture, of _Pisum arvense_. Alefeld held the latter opinion,[1650] but he has published too little on the subject for us to be able to conclude anything from it. He only says that, having cultivated a great number of varieties both of the field and garden pea, he concludes that they belong to the same species. Darwin[1651] learnt through a third person that Andrew Knight had crossed the field-pea with a garden variety known as the Prussian pea, and that the product was fertile. This would certainly be a proof of specific unity, but further observation and experiment is required. In the mean time, in the search for geographic origin, etc., I am obliged to consider the two forms separately.

Botanists who distinguish many species in the genus Pisum, admit eight, all European or Asiatic. _Pisum sativum_ was cultivated by the Greeks in the time of Theophrastus.[1652] They called it _pisos_, or _pison_. The Albanians, descendants of the Pelasgians, call it _pizelle_.[1653] The Latins had _pisum_.[1654] This uniformity of nomenclature seems to show that the Aryans knew the plant when they arrived in Greece and Italy, and perhaps brought it with them. Other Aryan languages have several names for the generic sense of _pea_; but it is evident, from Adolphe Pictet’s learned discussion on the subject,[1655] that none of these names can be applied to _Pisum sativum_ in particular. Even when one of the modern languages, Slav or Breton, limits the sense to the garden-pea, it is very probable that formerly the word signified field-pea, lentil, or any other leguminous plant.

The garden-pea[1656] has been found among the remains in the lake-dwellings of the age of bronze, in Switzerland and Savoy. The seed is spherical, wherein it differs from _Pisum arvense_. It is smaller than our modern pea. Heer says he found it also among relics of the stone age, at Moosseedorf; but he is less positive, and only gives figures of the less ancient pea of St. Peter’s Island. If the species dates from the stone age in Switzerland, it would be anterior to the immigration of the Aryans.

There is no indication of the culture of _Pisum sativum_ in ancient Egypt or in India. On the other hand, it has long been cultivated in the north of India, if it had, as Piddington says, a Sanskrit name, _harenso_, and if it has several names very different to this in modern Indian languages.[1657] It has been introduced into China from Western Asia. The _Pent-sao_, drawn up at the end of the sixteenth century, calls it the Mahometan pea.[1658] In conclusion: the species seems to have existed in Western Asia, perhaps from the south of the Caucasus to Persia, before it was cultivated. The Aryans introduced it into Europe, but it perhaps existed in Northern India before the arrival of the eastern Aryans. It no longer exists in a wild state, and when it occurs in fields, half-wild, it is not said to have a modified form so as to approach some other species.

+Soy+—_Dolichos soja_, Linnæus; _Glycine soja_, Bentham.

This leguminous annual has been cultivated in China and Japan from remote antiquity. This might be gathered from the many uses of the soy bean and from the immense number of varieties. But it is also supposed to be one of the farinaceous substances called _shu_ in Chinese writings of Confucius’ time, though the modern name of the plant is _ta-tou_.[1659] The bean is nourishing, and contains a large proportion of oil, and preparations similar to butter, oil, and cheese are extracted from it and used in Chinese and Japanese cooking.[1660] Soy is also grown in the Malay Archipelago, but at the end of the eighteenth century it was still rare in Amboyna,[1661] and Forster did not see it in the Pacific Isles at the time of Cook’s voyages. It is of modern introduction in India, for Roxburgh had only seen the plant in the botanical gardens at Calcutta, where it was brought from the Moluccas.[1662] There are no common Indian names.[1663] Besides, if its cultivation had been ancient in India, it would have spread westward into Syria and Egypt, which is not the case.

Kæmpfer[1664] formerly published an excellent illustration of the soy bean, and it had existed for a century in European botanical gardens, when more extensive information about China and Japan excited about ten years ago a lively desire to introduce it into our countries. In Austria, Hungary, and France especially, attempts have been made on a large scale, of which the results have been summed up in works worthy of consultation.[1665] It is to be hoped these efforts may be successful; but we must not digress from the aim of our researches, the probable origin of the species.

Linnæus says, in his _Species_, “habitat in India,” and refers to Kæmpfer, who speaks of the plant in Japan, and to his own flora of Ceylon, where he gives the plant as _cultivated_. Thwaites’s modern flora of Ceylon makes no mention of it. We must evidently go further east to find the origin both of the species and of its cultivation. Loureiro says that it grows in Cochin-China and that it is often cultivated in China.[1666] I find no proof that it is wild in the latter country, but it may perhaps be discovered, as its culture is so ancient. Russian botanists[1667] have only found it cultivated in the north of China and in the basin of the river Amur. It is certainly wild in Japan.[1668] Junghuhn[1669] found it in Java on Mount Gunung-Gamping, and a plant sent also from Java by Zollinger is supposed to belong to this species, but it is not certain that the specimen was wild.[1670] A Malay name, _kadelee_,[1671] a quite different to the Japanese and Chinese common names, is in favour of its indigenous character in Java.

Known facts and historical and philological probabilities tend to show that the species was wild from Cochin-China to the south of Japan and to Java when the ancient inhabitants of this region began to cultivate it at a very remote period, to use it for food in various ways, and to obtain from it varieties of which the number is remarkable, especially in Japan.

+Pigeon-Pea+—_Cajanus indicus_, Sprengel; _Cytisus Cajan_, Linnæus.

This leguminous plant, often grown in tropical countries, is a shrub, but it fruits in the first year, and in some countries it is grown as an annual. Its seed is an important article of the food of the negroes and natives, but the European colonists do not care for it unless cooked green like our garden-pea. The plant is easily naturalized in poor soil round cultivated plots, even in the West India Islands, where it is not indigenous.[1672]

In Mauritius it is called _ambrevade_; in the English colonies, _doll_, _pigeon-pea_; and in the French Antilles, _pois d’Angola_, _pois de Congo_, _pois pigeon_.

It is remarkable that, though the species is diffused in three continents, the varieties are not numerous. Two are cited, based only upon the yellow or reddish colour of the flower, which were formerly regarded as distinct species; but a more attentive examination has resulted in their being classed as one, in accordance with Linnæus’ opinion.[1673] The small number of variations obtained even in the organ for which the species is cultivated is a sign of no very ancient culture. Its habitation previous to culture is uncertain. The best botanists have sometimes supposed it to be a native of India, sometimes of tropical Africa. Bentham, who has made a careful study of the leguminous plants, believed in 1861 in the African origin; in 1865 he inclined rather to Asia.[1674] The problem is, therefore, an interesting one. There is no question of an American origin. The cajan was introduced into the West Indies from the coast of Africa by the slave trade, as the common names quoted above show,[1675] and the unanimous opinion of authors or American floras. It has also been taken to Brazil, Guiana, and into all the warm parts of the American continent.

The facility with which the species is naturalized would alone prevent attaching great importance to the statements of collectors, who have found it more or less wild in Asia or in Africa; and besides, these assertions are not precise, but are usually doubtful. Most writers on the flora of continental India have only seen the plant cultivated,[1676] and none, to my knowledge, affirms that it exists wild. For the island of Ceylon Thwaites says,[1677] “It is said not to be really wild, and the country names seem to confirm this.” Sir Joseph Hooker, in his _Flora of British India_, says, “Wild (?) and cultivated to the height of six thousand feet in the Himalayas.” Loureiro[1678] gives it as cultivated and non-cultivated in China and Cochin-China. Chinese authors do not appear to have spoken of it, for the species is not named by Bretschneider in his work _On the Study_, etc. In the Sunda Isles it is mentioned as cultivated, and that rarely, at Amboyna at the end of the eighteenth century, according to Rumphius.[1679] Forster had not seen it in the Pacific Isles at the time of Cook’s voyages, but Seemann says that it has been recently introduced by missionaries into the Fiji Isles.[1680] All this argues no very ancient extension of cultivation to the east and south of the continent of Asia. Besides the quotation from Loureiro, I find the species indicated on the mountain of Magelang, Java;[1681] but, supposing this to be a true and ancient wild growth in both cases, it would be very extraordinary not to find the species in many other Asiatic localities.

The abundance of Indian and Malay names[1682] shows a somewhat ancient cultivation. Piddington even gives a Sanskrit name, _arhuku_, which was not known to Roxburgh, but he gives no proof in support of his assertion. The name may have been merely supposed from the Hindu and Bengali names _urur_ and _orol_. No Semitic name is known.

In Africa the cajan is often found from Zanzibar to the coast of Guinea.[1683] Authors say it is cultivated, or else make no statement on this head, which would seem to show that the specimens are sometimes wild. In Egypt this cultivation is quite modern, of the nineteenth century.[1684]

Briefly, then, I doubt that the species is really wild in Asia, and that it has been grown there for more than three thousand years. If more ancient peoples had known it, it would have come to the knowledge of the Arabs and Egyptians before our time. In tropical Africa, on the contrary, it is possible that it has existed wild or cultivated for a very long time, and that it was introduced into Asia by ancient travellers trading between Zanzibar and India or Ceylon.

The genus Cajanus has only one species, so that no analogy of geographical distribution leads us to believe it to be rather of Asiatic than African origin, or _vice versâ_.

+Carob Tree+[1685]—_Ceratonia siliqua_, Linnæus.

The seeds and pods of the carob are highly prized in the hotter parts of the Mediterranean basin, as food for animals and even for man. De Gasparin[1686] has given interesting details about the raising, uses, and habitation of the species as a cultivated tree. He notes that it does not pass the northern limit beyond which the orange cannot be grown without shelter. This fine evergreen tree does not thrive either in very hot countries, especially where there is much humidity. It likes the neighbourhood of the sea and rocky places. Its original country, according to Gasparin, is “probably the centre of Africa. Denham and Clapperton found it in Burnou.” This proof seems to me insufficient, for in all the Nile Valley and in Abyssinia the carob is not wild nor even cultivated.[1687] R. Brown does not mention it in his account of Denham and Clapperton’s journey. Travellers have seen it in the forests of Cyrenaica between the highlands and the littoral; but the able botanists who have drawn up the catalogue of the plants of this country are careful to say,[1688] “perhaps indigenous.” Most botanists merely mention the species in the centre and south of the Mediterranean basin, from Spain and Marocco to Syria and Anatolia, without inquiring closely whether it is indigenous or cultivated, and without entering upon the question of its true country previous to cultivation. Usually they indicate the carob tree, as “cultivated and subspontaneous, or nearly wild.” However, it is stated to be wild in Greece by Heldreich, in Sicily by Gussone and Bianca, in Algeria by Munby;[1689] and these authors have each lived long enough in the country for which each is quoted to form an enlightened opinion.

Bianca remarks, however, that the carob tree is not always healthy and productive in those restricted localities where it exists in Sicily, in the small adjacent islands, and on the coast of Italy. He puts forward the opinion, moreover, based upon the similarity of the Italian name _carrubo_ with the Arabic word, that the species was anciently introduced into the south of Europe, the species being of Syrian or north African origin. He maintains as probable the theory of Hœfer and Bonné,[1690] that the lotus of the lotophagi was the carob tree, of which the flower is sweet and the fruit has a taste of honey, which agrees with the expressions of Homer. The lotus-eaters dwelt in Cyrenaica, so that the carob must have been abundant in their country. If we admit this hypothesis we must suppose that Pliny and Herodotus did not know Homer’s plant, for the one describes the lotus as bearing a fruit like a mastic berry (_Pistacia lentiscus_), the other as a deciduous tree.[1691]

An hypothesis regarding a doubtful plant formerly mentioned by a poet can hardly serve as the basis of an argument upon facts of natural history. After all, Homer’s lotus plant perhaps existed only in the fabled garden of Hesperides. I return to more serious arguments, on which Bianca has said a few words.

The carob has two names in ancient languages—the one Greek, _keraunia_ or _kerateia_;[1692] the other Arabic, _chirnub_ or _charûb_. The first alludes to the form of the pod, which is like a slightly curved horn; the other means merely pod, for we find in Ebn Baithar’s[1693] work that four other leguminous plants bear the same name, with a qualifying epithet. The Latins had no special name; they used the Greek word, or the expression _siliqua_, _siliqua græca_ (Greek pod).[1694] This dearth of names is the sign of a once restricted area, and of a culture which probably does not date from prehistoric time. The Greek name is still retained in Greece. The Arab name persists among the Kabyles, who call the fruit _kharroub_, the tree _takharrout_,[1695] and the Spaniards _algarrobo_. Curiously enough, the Italians also took the Arab name _currabo_, _carubio_, whence the French _caroubier_. It seems that it must have been introduced after the Roman epoch by the Arabs of the Middle Ages, when there was another name for it. These details are all in favour of Bianca’s theory of a more southern origin than Sicily. Pliny says the species belonged to Syria, Ionia, Cnidos, and Rhodes, but he does not say whether it was wild or cultivated in these places. Pliny also says that the carob tree did not exist in Egypt. Yet it has been recognized in monuments belonging to a much earlier epoch than that of Pliny, and Egyptologists even attribute two Egyptian names to it, _kontrates_ or _jiri_.[1696] Lepsius gives a drawing of a pod which appears to him to be certainly a carob, and the botanist Kotschy made certain by microscopic investigation that a stick taken from a sarcophagus was made from the wood of the carob tree.[1697] There is no known Hebrew name for the species, which is not mentioned in the Old Testament. The New Testament speaks of it by the Greek name in the parable of the prodigal son. It is a tradition of the Christians in the East that St. John Baptist fed upon the fruit of the carob in the desert, and hence came the names given to it in the Middle Ages—_bread of St. John_, and _Johannis brodbaum_.

Evidently this tree became important at the beginning of the Christian era, and it spread, especially through the agency of the Arabs, towards the West. If it had previously existed in Algeria, among the Berbers, and in Spain, older names would have persisted, and the species would probably have been introduced into the Canaries by the Phœnicians.

The information gained on the subject may be summed up as follows:—

The carob grew wild in the Levant, probably on the southern coast of Anatolia and in Syria, perhaps also in Cyrenaica. Its cultivation began within historic time. The Greeks diffused it in Greece and Italy; but it was afterwards more highly esteemed by the Arabs, who propagated it as far as Marocco and Spain. In all these countries the tree has become naturalized here and there in a less productive form, which it is needful to graft to obtain good fruit.

The carob has not been found in the tufa and quaternary deposits of Southern Europe. It is the only one of its kind in the genus _Ceratonia_, which is somewhat exceptional among the _Leguminosæ_, especially in Europe. Nothing shows that it existed in the ancient tertiary or quaternary flora of the south-west of Europe.

+Common Haricot Kidney Bean+—_Phaseolus vulgaris_, Savi.

When, in 1855, I wished to investigate the origin of the genera _Phaseolus_ and _Dolichos_,[1698] the distinction of species was so little defined, and the floras of tropical countries so rare, that I was obliged to leave several questions on one side. Now, thanks to the works of Bentham and Georg von Martens,[1699] completing the previous labours of Savi,[1700] the _Leguminæ_ of hot countries are better known; lastly, the seeds discovered quite recently in the Peruvian tombs of Ancon, examined by Wittmack, have completely modified the question of origin.

I will speak first of the common haricot bean, afterwards of some other species, without, however, enumerating all those which are cultivated, for several of these are still ill defined.

Botanists held for a long time that the common haricot was of Indian origin. No one had found it wild, nor has it yet been found, but it was supposed to be of Indian origin, although the species was also cultivated in Africa and America, in temperate and hot regions, at least in those where the heat and humidity are not excessive. I called attention to the fact that there is no Sanskrit name, and that sixteenth-century gardeners often called the species _Turkish bean_. Convinced, moreover, that the Greeks cultivated this plant under the names _fasiolos_ and _dolichos_, I suggested that it came originally from Western Asia, and not from India. Georg von Martens adopted this hypothesis.

However, the meaning of the words _dolichos_ of Theophrastus, _fasiolos_ of Dioscorides, _faseolus_ and _phaseolus_ of the Romans,[1701] is far from being sufficiently defined to allow them to be attributed with certainty to _Phaseolus vulgaris_. Several cultivated _Leguminosæ_ are supported by the trellises mentioned by authors, and have pods and seeds of a similar kind. The best argument for translating these names by _Phaseolus vulgaris_ is that the modern Greeks and Italians have names derived from _fasiolus_ for the common haricot. In modern Greek it is _fasoulia_, Albanian (Pelasgic?) _fasulé_, in Italian _fagiolo_. It is possible, however, that the name has been transferred from a species of pea or vetch, or from a haricot formerly cultivated, to our modern haricot. It is rather bold to determine a species of _Phaseolus_ from one or two epithets in an ancient author, when we see how difficult is the distinction of species to modern botanists with the plants under their eyes. Nevertheless, the _dolichos_ of Theophrastus has been definitely referred to the _scarlet runner_, and the _fasiolos_ to the dwarf haricot of our gardens, which are the two principal modern varieties of the common haricot, with an immense number of sub-varieties in the form of the pods and seed. I can only say it may be so.

If the common haricot was formerly known in Greece, it was not one of the earliest introductions, for the _faseolos_ did not exist at Rome in Cato’s time, and it is only at the beginning of the empire that Latin authors speak of it. Virchow brought from the excavations at Troy the seeds of several leguminæ, which Wittmack[1702] has ascertained to belong to the following species: broad bean (_Faba vulgaris_), garden-pea (_Pisum sativum_), ervilla (_Ervum ervilia_), and perhaps the flat-podded vetchling (_Lathyrus Cicera_), but no haricot. Nor has the species been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, Austria, and Italy.

There are no proofs or signs of its existence in ancient Egypt. No Hebrew name is known answering to the _Phaseolus_ or _Dolichos_ of botanists. A less ancient name, for it is Arabic, _loubia_, exists in Egypt for _Dolichos lubia_, and in Hindustani as _loba_ for _Phaseolus vulgaris_.[1703] As regards the latter species, Piddington only gives two names in modern languages, and those both Hindustani, _loba_ and _bakla_. This, together with the absence of a Sanskrit name, points to a recent introduction into Southern Asia. Chinese authors do not mention _P. vulgaris_,[1704] which is a further indication of a recent introduction into India, and also into Bactriana, whence the Chinese have imported plants from the second century of our era.

All these circumstances incline me to doubt whether the species was known in Asia before the Christian era. The argument based upon the modern Greek and Italian names for the haricot, derived from _fasiolos_, needs some support. It may be said in its favour that it was used in the Middle Ages, probably for the common haricot. In the list of vegetables which Charlemagne commanded to be sown in his farms, we find _fasiolum_,[1705] without explanation. Albertus Magnus describes under the name _faseolus_ a leguminous plant which appears to be our dwarf haricot.[1706] I notice, on the other hand, that writers in the fifteenth century, such as Pierre Crescenzio[1707] and Macer Floridus,[1708] mention no _faseolus_ or similar name. On the other hand, after the discovery of America, from the sixteenth century all authors publish descriptions and drawings of _Phaseolus vulgaris_, with a number of varieties.

It is doubtful that its cultivation is ancient in tropical Africa. It is indicated there less often than that of other species of the Dolichos and Phaseolus genera.

It had not occurred to any one to seek the origin of the haricot in America till, quite recently, some remarkable discoveries of fruits and seeds were made in Peruvian tombs at Ancon, near Lima. Rochebrune[1709] published a list of the species of different families from the collection made by Cossac and Savatier. Among the number are three kinds of haricot, none of which, says the author, is _Phaseolus vulgaris_; but Wittmack,[1710] who studied the leguminæ brought from these same tombs by Reiss and Stubel, says he made out several varieties of the common haricot among other seeds belonging to _Phaseolus lunatus_, Linnæus. He had identified them with the varieties of _P. vulgaris_ called by botanists _Oblongus purpureus_ (Martens), _Ellipticus præcox_ (Alefeld), and _Ellipticus atrofuscus_ (Alefeld), which belong to the category of dwarf or branchless haricots.

It is not certain that the tombs in question are all anterior to the advent of the Spaniards. The work of Reiss and Stubel, now in the press, will perhaps give some information on this head; but Wittmack admits, on their authority, that some of the tombs are not ancient. I notice a fact, however, which has passed without observation. The fifty species of Rochebrune are all American. There is not one which can be suspected to be of European origin. Evidently these plants and seeds were either deposited before the conquest, or, in certain tombs which perhaps belong to a subsequent epoch, the inhabitants took care not to put species of foreign origin. This was natural enough according to their ideas, for the custom of depositing plants in the tombs was not a result of the Catholic religion, but was an inheritance from the customs and opinions of the natives. The presence of the common haricot among exclusively American plants seems to me important, whatever the date of the tombs.

It may be objected that the seeds are insufficient ground for determining the species of a _phaseolus_, and that several species of this genus which are not yet well known were cultivated in South America before the arrival of the Spaniards. Molina[1711] speaks of thirteen or fourteen species (or varieties?) cultivated formerly in Chili alone.