Chapter I (2)

The red and white roots were known to the ancients, but the number of varieties has greatly increased in modern times, especially since the beetroot has been cultivated on a large scale for the food of cattle and for the production of sugar. It is one of the plants most easily improved by selection, as the experiments of Vilmorin have proved.[179]

+Manioc+—_Manihot utilissima_, Pohl; _Jatropha manihot_, Linnæus.

The manioc is a shrub belonging to the Euphorbia family, of which several roots swell in their first year; they take the form of an irregular ellipse, and contain a fecula (tapioca) with a more or less poisonous juice.

It is commonly cultivated in the equatorial or tropical regions, especially in America from Brazil to the West Indies. In Africa the cultivation is less general, and seems to be more recent. In certain Asiatic colonies it is decidedly of modern introduction. It is propagated by budding.

Botanists are divided in opinion whether the innumerable varieties of manioc should be regarded as forming one, two, or several different species. Pohl[180] admitted several besides his _Manihot utilissima_, and Dr. Müller,[181] in his monograph on the Euphorbiaceæ, places the variety _aipi_ in an allied species, _M. palmata_, a plant cultivated with the others in Brazil, and of which the root is not poisonous. This last character is not so distinct as might be believed from certain books and even from the assertions of the natives. Dr. Sagot,[182] who has compared a dozen varieties of manioc cultivated at Cayenne, says expressly, “There are maniocs more poisonous than others, but I doubt whether any are entirely free from noxious principles.”

It is possible to account for these singular differences of properties in very similar plants by the example of the potato. The _Manihot_ and _Solanum tuberosum_ both belong to suspected families (_Euphorbiaceæ_ and _Solanaceæ_). Several of their species are poisonous in some of their organs; but the fecula, wherever it is found, is never harmful, and the same holds good of the cellular tissue, freed from all deposit; that is to say, reduced to cellulose. In the preparation of cassava, or manioc flour, great care is taken to scrape the outer skin of the root, then to pound or crush the fleshy part so as to express the more or less poisonous juice, and finally the paste is submitted to a baking which expels the volatile parts.[183] Tapioca is the pure fecula without the mixture of the tissues which still exist in the cassava. In the potato the outer pellicle contracts noxious qualities when it is allowed to become green by exposure to the light, and it is well known that unripe or diseased tubers, containing too small a proportion of fecula with much sap, are not good to eat, and would cause positive harm to persons who consumed any quantity of them. All potatoes, and probably all maniocs, contain something harmful, which is observed even in the products of distillation, and which varies with several causes; but only matter foreign to the fecula should be mistrusted.

The doubts about the number of species into which the cultivated manihots should be divided are no source of difficulty regarding the question of geographic origin. On the contrary, we shall see that they are an important means of proving an American origin.

The Abbé Raynal had formerly spread the erroneous opinion that the manioc was imported into America from Africa. Robert Brown[184] denied this in 1818, but without giving reasons in support of his opinion; and Humboldt,[185] Moreau de Jonnes,[186] and Saint Hilaire[187] insisted upon its American origin. It can hardly be doubted for the following reasons:—

1. Maniocs were cultivated by the natives of Brazil, Guiana, and the warm region of Mexico before the arrival of the Europeans, as all early travellers testify. In the West Indies this cultivation was, according to Acosta,[188] common enough in the sixteenth century to inspire the belief that it was also there of a certain antiquity.

2. It is less widely diffused in Africa, especially in regions at a distance from the west coast. It is known that manioc was introduced into the Isle of Bourbon by the Governour Labourdonnais.[189] In Asiatic countries, where a plant so easy to cultivate would probably have spread had it been long known on the African continent, it is mentioned here and there as an object of curiosity of foreign origin.[190]

3. The natives of America had several ancient names for the varieties of manioc, especially in Brazil,[191] which does not appear to have been the case in Africa, even on the coast of Guinea.[192]

4. The varieties cultivated in Brazil, in Guiana, and in the West Indies are very numerous, whence we may presume a very ancient cultivation. This is not the case in Africa.

5. The forty-two known species of the genus _Manihot_, without counting _M. utilissima_, are all wild in America; most of them in Brazil, some in Guiana, Peru, and Mexico; not one in the old world.[193] It is very unlikely that a single species, and that the cultivated one, was a native both of the old and of the new world, and all the more so since in the family _Euphorbiaceæ_ the area of the woody species is usually restricted, and since phanerogamous plants are very rarely common to Africa and America.

The American origin of the manioc being thus established, it may be asked how the species has been introduced into Guinea and Congo. It was probably the result of the frequent communications established in the sixteenth century by Portuguese merchants and slave-traders.

The _Manihot utilissima_ and the allied species or variety called _aipi_, which is also cultivated, have not been found in an undoubtedly wild state. Humboldt and Bonpland, indeed, found upon the banks of the Magdalena a plant of _Manihot utilissima_ which they called _almost_ wild,[194] but Dr. Sagot assures me that it has not been found in Guiana, and that botanists who have explored the hot region in Brazil have not been more fortunate. We gather as much from the expressions of Pohl, who has carefully studied these plants, and who was acquainted with the collections of Martius, and had no doubt of their American origin. If he had observed a wild variety identical with those which are cultivated, he would not have suggested the hypothesis that the manioc is obtained from his _Manihot pusilla_[195] of the province of Goyaz, a plant of small size, and considered as a true species or as a variety of _Manihot palmata_.[196] Martius declared in 1867, that is after having received a quantity of information of a later date than his journey, that the plant was not known in a wild state.[197] An early traveller, usually accurate, Piso,[198] speaks of a wild _mandihoca_, of which the Tapuyeris, the natives of the coast to the north of Rio Janeiro, ate the roots. “It is,” he says, “very like the cultivated plant;” but the illustration he gives of it appears unsatisfactory to authors who have studied the maniocs. Pohl attributes it to his _M. aipi_, and Dr. Müller passes it over in silence. For my part, I am disposed to believe what Piso says, and his figure does not seem to me entirely unsatisfactory. It is better than that by Vellozo, of a wild manioc which is doubtfully attributed to _M. aipi_.[199] If we do not accept the origin in eastern tropical Brazil, we must have recourse to two hypotheses: either the cultivated maniocs are obtained from one of the wild species modified by cultivation, or they are varieties which exist only by the agency of man after the disappearance of their fellows from modern wild vegetation.

+Garlic+—_Allium sativum_, Linnæus.

Linnæus, in his _Species Plantarum_, indicates Sicily as the home of the common garlic; but in his _Hortus Cliffortianus_, where he is usually more accurate, he does not give its origin. The fact is that, according to all the most recent and complete floras of Sicily, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, and Algeria, garlic is not considered to be indigenous, although specimens have been gathered here and there which had more or less the appearance of being so. A plant so constantly cultivated and so easily propagated may spread from gardens and persist for a considerable time without being wild by nature. I do not know on what authority Kunth[200] mentions that the species is found in Egypt. According to authors who are more accurate[201] in their accounts of the plants of that country, it is only found there under cultivation. Boissier, whose herbarium is so rich in Eastern plants, possesses no wild specimens of it. The only country where garlic has been found in a wild state, with the certainty of its really being so, is the desert of the Kirghis of Sungari; bulbs were brought thence and cultivated at Dorpat,[202] and specimens were afterwards seen by Regel.[203] The latter author also says that he saw a specimen which Wallich had gathered as wild in British India; but Baker,[204] who had access to the rich herbarium at Kew, does not speak of it in his review of the “_Alliums_ of India, China, and Japan.”

Let us see whether historical and philological records confirm the fact of an origin in the south-west of Siberia alone.

Garlic has been long cultivated in China under the name of _suan_. It is written in Chinese by a single sign, which usually indicates a long known and even a wild species.[205] The floras of Japan[206] do not mention it, whence I gather that the species was not wild in Eastern Siberia and Dahuria, but that the Mongols brought it into China.

According to Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians made great use of it. Archæologists have not found the proof of this in the monuments, but this may be because the plant was considered unclean by the priests.[207]

There is a Sanskrit name, _mahoushouda_,[208] become _loshoun_ in Bengali, and to which appears to be related the Hebrew name _schoum_ or _schumin_,[209] which has produced the Arab _thoum_ or _toum_. The Basque name _baratchouria_ is thought by de Charencey[210] to be allied with Aryan names. In support of his hypothesis I may add that the Berber name, _tiskert_, is quite different, and that consequently the Iberians seem to have received the plant and its name rather from the Aryans than from their probable ancestors of Northern Africa. The Lettons call it _kiplohks_, the Esthonians _krunslauk_, whence probably the German _Knoblauch_. The ancient Greek name appears to have been _scorodon_, in modern Greek _scordon_. The names given by the Slavs of Illyria are _bili_ and _cesan_. The Bretons say _quinen_,[211] the Welsh _craf_, _cenhinnen_, or _garlleg_, whence the English _garlic_. The Latin _allium_ has passed into the languages of Latin origin.[212] This great diversity of names intimates a long acquaintance with the plant, and even an ancient cultivation in Western Asia and in Europe. On the other hand, if the species has existed only in the land of the Kirghis, where it is now found, the Aryans might have cultivated it and carried it into India and Europe; but this does not explain the existence of so many Keltic, Slav, Greek, and Latin names which differ from the Sanskrit. To explain this diversity, we must suppose that its original abode extended farther to the west than that known at the present day, an extension anterior to the migrations of the Aryans.

If the genus Allium were once made, as a whole, the object of such a serious study as that of Gay on some of its species,[213] perhaps it might be found that certain wild European forms, included by authors under _A. arenarium_, L., _A. arenarium_, Sm., or _A. scorodoprasum_, L., are only varieties of _A. sativum_. In that case everything would agree to show that the earliest peoples of Europe and Western Asia cultivated such form of the species just as they found it from Tartary to Spain, giving it names more or less different.

ONION—_Allium Cepa_, Linnæus.

I will state first what was known in 1855;[214] I will then add the recent botanical observations which confirm the inferences from philological data.

The onion is one of the earliest of cultivated species. Its original country is, according to Kunth, unknown.[215] Let us see if it is possible to discover it. The modern Greeks call _Allium Cepa_, which they cultivate in abundance, _krommunda_.[216] This is a good reason for believing that the _krommuon_ of Theophrastus[217] is the same species, as sixteenth-century writers already supposed.[218] Pliny[219] translated the word by _cœpa_. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew several varieties, which they distinguished by the names of countries: _Cyprium_, _Cretense_, _Samothraciae_, etc. One variety cultivated in Egypt[220] was held to be so excellent that it received divine honours, to the great amusement of the Romans.[221] Modern Egyptians designate _A. Cepa_ by the name of _basal_[222] or _bussul_,[223] whence it is probable that the _bezalim_ of the Hebrews is the same species, as commentators have said.[224] There are several distinct names—_palandu_, _latarka_, _sakandaka_,[225] and a number of modern Indian names. The species is commonly cultivated in India, Cochin-China, China,[226] and even in Japan.[227] It was largely consumed by the ancient Egyptians. The drawings on their monuments often represent this species.[228] Thus its cultivation in Southern Asia and the eastern region of the Mediterranean dates from a very early epoch. Moreover, the Chinese, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin names have no apparent connection. From this last fact we may deduce the hypothesis that its cultivation was begun after the separation of the Indo-European nations, the species being found ready to hand in different countries at once. This, however, is not the present state of things, for we hardly find even vague indications of the wild state of _A. Cepa_. I have not discovered it in European or Caucasian floras; but Hasselquist[229] says, “It grows in the plains near the sea in the environs of Jericho.” Dr. Wallich mentioned in his list of Indian plants, No. 5072, specimens which he saw in districts of Bengal, without mentioning whether they were cultivated. This indication, however insufficient, together with the antiquity of the Sanskrit and Hebrew names, and the communication which is known to have existed between the peoples of India and of Egypt, lead me to suppose that this plant occupied a vast area in Western Asia, extending perhaps from Palestine to India. Allied species, sometimes mistaken for _A. Cepa_, exist in Siberia.[230]

The specimens collected by Anglo-Indian botanists, of which Wallich gave the first idea, are now better known. Stokes discovered _Allium Cepa_ wild in Beluchistan. He says, “wild on the Chehil Tun.” Griffith brought it from Afghanistan and Thomson from Lahore, to say nothing of other collectors, who are not explicit as to the wild or cultivated nature of their specimens.[231] Boissier possesses a wild specimen found in the mountainous regions of the Khorassan. The umbels are smaller than in the cultivated plant, but there is no other difference. Dr. Regel, jun., found it to the south of Kuldscha, in Western Siberia.[232] Thus my former conjectures are completely justified; and it is not unlikely that its habitation extends even as far as Palestine, as Hasselquist said.

The onion is designated in China by a single sign (pronounced _tsung_), which may suggest a long existence there as an indigenous plant.[233] I very much doubt, however, that the area extends so far to the east.

Humboldt[234] says that the Americans have always been acquainted with onions, in Mexican _xonacatl_. “Cortes,” he says, “speaking of the comestibles sold at the market of the ancient Tenochtillan, mentions onions, leeks, and garlic.” I cannot believe, however, that these names applied to the species cultivated in Europe. Sloane, in the seventeenth century, had only seen one _Allium_ cultivated in Jamaica (_A. Cepa_), and that was in a garden with other European vegetables.[235] The word _xonacatl_ is not in Hernandez, and Acosta[236] says distinctly that the onions and garlics of Peru are of European origin. The species of the genus Allium are rare in America.

+Spring+, or +Welsh Onion+—_Allium fistulosum_, Linnæus.

This species was for a long time mentioned in floras and works on horticulture as of unknown origin; but Russian botanists have found it wild in Siberia towards the Altaï mountains, on the Lake Baikal in the land of the Kirghis.[237] The ancients did not know the plant.[238] It must have come into Europe through Russia in the Middle Ages, or a little later. Dodoens,[239] an author of the sixteenth century, has given a figure of it, hardly recognizable, under the name of _Cepa oblonga_.

+Shallot+—_Allium ascalonicum_, Linnæus.

It was believed, according to Pliny,[240] that this plant took its name from Ascalon, in Judæa; but Dr. Fournier[241] thinks that the Latin author mistook the meaning of the word _Askalônion_ of Theophrastus. However this may be, the word has been retained in modern languages under the form of _échalote_ in French, _chalote_ in Spanish, _scalogno_ in Italian, _Aschaluch_ or _Eschlauch_ in German.

In 1855 I had spoken of the species as follows:[242]—

“According to Roxburgh,[243] _Allium ascalonicum_ is much cultivated in India. The Sanskrit name _pulandu_ is attributed to it, a word nearly identical with _palandu_, attributed to _A. Cepa_.[244] Evidently the distinction between the two species is not clear in Indian or Anglo-Indian works.

“Loureiro says he saw _Allium ascalonicum_ cultivated in Cochin-China,[245] but he does not mention China, and Thunberg does not indicate this species in Japan. Its cultivation, therefore, is not universal in the east of Asia. This fact, and the doubt about the Sanskrit name, lead me to think that it is not ancient in Southern Asia. Neither, in spite of the name of the species, am I convinced that it existed in Western Asia. Rauwolf, Forskal, and Delile do not mention it in Siberia, in Arabia, or in Egypt. Linnæus[246] mentions Hasselquist as having found the species in Palestine. Unfortunately, he gives no details about the locality, nor about its wild condition. In the _Travels_ of Hasselquist[247] I find a _Cepa montana_ mentioned as growing on Mount Tabor and on a neighbouring mountain, but there is nothing to prove that it was this species. In his article on the onions and garlics of the Hebrews he mentions only _Allium Cepa_, then _A. porrum_ and _A. sativum_. Sibthorp did not find it in Greece,[248] and Fraas[249] does not mention it as now cultivated in that country. According to Koch,[250] it is naturalized among the vines near Fiume. However, Viviani[251] only speaks of it as a cultivated plant in Dalmatia.

“From all these facts I am led to believe that _Allium ascalonicum_ is not a species. It is enough to render its primitive existence doubtful, to remark: (1) that Theophrastus and ancient writers in general have spoken of it as a form of the _Allium Cepa_, having the same importance as the varieties cultivated in Greece, Thrace, and elsewhere; (2) that its existence in a wild state cannot be proved; (3) that it is little cultivated, or not all, in the countries where it is supposed to have had its origin, as in Syria, Egypt, and Greece; (4) that it is commonly without flowers, whence the name of _Cepa sterilis_ given by Bauhin, and the number of its bulbs is an allied fact; (5) when it does flower, the organs of the flower are similar to those of _A. Cepa_, or at least no difference has been hitherto discovered, and according to Koch[252] the only difference in the whole plant is that the stalk and leaves are less swelled, although fistulous.”

Such was formerly my opinion.[253] The facts published since 1855 do not destroy my doubts, but, on the contrary, justify them. Regel, in 1875, in his monograph of the genus Allium, declares he has only seen the shallot as a cultivated species. Aucher Eloy has distributed a plant from Asia Minor under the name of _A. ascalonicum_, but judging from my specimen this is certainly not the species. Boissier tells me that he has never seen _A. ascalonicum_ in the East, and it is not in his herbarium. The plant from the Morea which bears this name in the flora of Bory and Chaubard is quite a different species, which he has named _A. gomphrenoides_. Baker,[254] in his review of the Alliums of India, China, and Japan, mentions _A. ascalonicum_ in districts of Bengal and of the Punjab, from specimens of Griffith and Aitchison; but he adds, “They are probably cultivated plants.” He attributes to _A. ascalonicum Allium sulvia_, Ham., of Nepal, a plant little known, and whose wild character is uncertain. The shallot produces many bulbs, which may be propagated or preserved in the neighbourhood of cultivation, and thus cause mistakes as to its origin.

Finally, in spite of the progress of botanical investigations in the East and in India, this form of Allium has not been found wild with certainty. It appears to me, therefore, more probable than ever that it is a modification of _A. Cepa_, dating from about the beginning of the Christian era—a modification less considerable than many of those observed in other cultivated plants, as, for instance, in the cabbage.

+Rocambole+—_Allium scorodoprasum_, Linnæus.

If we cast a glance at the descriptions and names of _A. scorodoprasum_ in works on botany since the time of Linnæus, we shall see that the only point on which authors are agreed is the common name of _rocambole_. As to the distinctive characters, they sometimes approximate the plant to _Allium sativum_, sometimes regard it as altogether distinct. With such different definitions, it is difficult to know in what country the plant, well known in its cultivated state as the _rocambole_, is found wild. According to Cosson and Germain,[255] it grows in the environs of Paris. According to Grenier and Godron,[256] the same form grows in the east of France. Burnat says he found the species undoubtedly wild in the Alpes-Maritimes, and he gave specimens of it to Boissier. Willkomm and Lange do not consider it to be wild in Spain,[257] though one of the French names of the cultivated plant is _ail_ or _eschalote d’Espagne_. Many other European localities seem to me doubtful, since the specific characters are so uncertain. I mention, however, that, according to Ledebour,[258] the plant which he calls _A. scorodoprasum_ is very common in Russia from Finland to the Crimea. Boissier received a specimen of it from Dobrutscha, sent by the botanist Sintenis. The natural habitat of the species borders, therefore, on that of _Allium sativum_, or else an attentive study of all these forms will show that a single species, comprising several varieties, extends over a great part of Europe and the bordering countries of Asia.

The cultivation of this species of onion does not appear to be of ancient date. It is not mentioned by Greek and Roman authors, nor in the list of plants recommended by Charlemagne to the intendants of his gardens.[259] Neither does Olivier de Serres speak of it. We can only give a small number of original common names among ancient peoples. The most distinctive are in the North. _Skovlög_ in Denmark, _keipe_ and _rackenboll_ in Sweden.[260] _Rockenbolle_, whence comes the French name, is German. It has not the meaning given by Littré. Its etymology is _Bolle_, onion, growing among the rocks, _Rocken_.[261]

+Chives+—_Allium schœnoprasum_, Linnæus.

This species occupies an extensive area in the northern hemisphere. It is found all over Europe, from Corsica and Greece to the south of Sweden, in Siberia as far as Kamtschatka, and also in North America, but only near the Lakes Huron and Superior and further north[262]—a remarkable circumstance, considering its European habitat. The variety found in the Alps is the nearest to the cultivated form.[263]

The ancient Greeks and Romans must certainly have known the species, since it is wild in Italy and Greece. Targioni believes it to be the _Scorodon schiston_ of Theophrastus; but we are dealing with words without descriptions, and authors whose specialty is the interpretation of Greek text like Fraas and Lenz, are prudent enough to affirm nothing. If the ancient names are doubtful, the fact of the cultivation of the plant at this epoch is yet more so. It is possible that the custom of gathering it in the fields existed.

+Colocasia+—_Arum esculentum_, Linnæus; _Colocasia antiquorum_, Schott.[264]

This species is cultivated in the damp districts of the tropics, for the swelled lower portion of the stem, which forms an edible rhizome similar to the subterraneous part of the iris. The petioles and the young leaves are also utilized as a vegetable. Since the different forms of the species have been properly classed, and since we have possessed more certain information about the floras of the south of Asia, we cannot doubt that this plant is wild in India, as Roxburgh[265] formerly, and Wight[266] and others have more recently asserted; likewise in Ceylon,[267] Sumatra,[268] and several islands of the Malay Archipelago.[269]

Chinese books make no mention of it before a work of the year 100 B.C.[270] The first European navigators saw it cultivated in Japan and as far as the north of New Zealand,[271] in consequence probably of an early introduction, and without the certain co-existence of wild stocks. When portions of the stem or of the tuber are thrown away by the side of streams, they naturalize themselves easily. This was perhaps the case in Japan and the Fiji Islands,[272] judging from the localities indicated. The colocasia is cultivated here and there in the West Indies, and elsewhere in tropical America, but much less than in Asia or Africa, and without the least indication of an American origin.

In the countries where the species is wild there are common names, sometimes very ancient, totally different from each other, which confirms their local origin. Thus the Sanskrit name is _kuchoo_, which persists in modern Hindu languages—in Bengali, for instance.[273] In Ceylon the wild plant is styled _gahala_, the cultivated plant _kandalla_.[274] The Malay names are _kelady_,[275] _tallus_, _tallas_, _tales_, or _taloes_,[276] from which perhaps comes the well-known name of the Otahitans and New Zealanders—_tallo_ or _tarro_,[277] _dalo_[278] in the Fiji Islands. The Japanese have a totally distinct name, _imo_,[279] which shows an existence of long duration either indigenous or cultivated.

European botanists first knew the colocasia in Egypt, where it has perhaps not been very long cultivated. The monuments of ancient Egypt furnish no indication of it, but Pliny[280] spoke of it as the _Arum Ægyptium_. Prosper Alpin saw it in the sixteenth century, and speaks of it at length.[281] He says that its name in its country is _culcas_, which Delile[282] writes _qolkas_, and _koulkas_. It is clear that this Arab name of the Egyptian arum has some analogy with the Sanskrit _kuchoo_, which is a confirmation of the hypothesis, sufficiently probable, of an introduction from India or Ceylon. De l’Ecluse[283] had seen the plant cultivated in Portugal, as introduced from Africa, under the name _alcoleaz_, evidently of Arab origin. In some parts of the south of Italy, where the plant has become naturalized, it is, according to Parlatore, called _aro di Egitto_.[284]

The name _colocasia_, given by the Greeks to a plant of which the root was used by the Egyptians, may evidently come from _colcas_, but it has been transferred to a plant differing from the true colcas. Indeed, Dioscorides applies it to the Egyptian bean, or _nelumbo_,[285] which has a large root, or rather rhizome, rather stringy and not good to eat. The two plants are very different, especially in the flower. The one belongs to the _Araceæ_, the other to the _Nymphæaceæ_; the one belongs to the class of _Monocotyledons_, the other to that of the _Dicotyledons_. The nelumbo of Indian origin has ceased to grow in Egypt, while the colocasia of modern botanists has persisted there. If there is any confusion, as seems probable in the Greek authors, it must be explained by the fact that the colcas rarely flowers, at least in Egypt. From the point of view of botanical nomenclature, it matters little that mistakes were formerly made about the plants to which the name colocasia should be applied. Fortunately, modern scientific names are not based upon the doubtful definitions of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and it is sufficient to say now, if the etymology is insisted upon, that colocasia comes from colcas in consequence of an error.

+Apé+, or +Large-rooted Alocasia+—_Alocasia macrorrhiza_, Schott; _Arum macrorrhizum_, Linnæus.

This araceous plant, which Schott places now in the genus Colocasia, now in the Alocasia, and whose names are far more complicated than might be supposed from those indicated above,[286] is less frequently cultivated than the common colocasia, but in the same manner and nearly in the same countries. Its rhizomes attain the length of a man’s arm. They have a distinctly bitter taste, which it is indispensable to remove by cooking.

The aborigines of Otahiti call it _apé_, and those of the Friendly Isles _kappe_.[287] In Ceylon, the common name is _habara_, according to Thwaites.[288] It has other names in the Malay Archipelago, which argues an existence prior to that of the more recent peoples of these regions.

The plant appears to be wild, especially in Otahiti.[289] It is also wild in Ceylon, according to Thwaites, who has studied botany for a long time in that island. It is mentioned also in India[290] and in Australia,[291] but its wild condition is not affirmed—a fact always difficult to establish in the case of a species cultivated on the banks of streams, and which is propagated by bulbs. Moreover, it is sometimes confounded with the _Colocasia indica_ of Kunth, which grows in the same manner, and is found here and there in cultivated ground; and this species grows wild, or is naturalized in the ditches and streams of Southern Asia, although its history is not yet well known.

+Konjak+—_Amorphophallus Konjak_, Koch; _Amorphophallus Rivieri_, du Rieu, var. _Konjak_, Engler.[292]

The konjak is a tuberous plant of the family Araceæ, extensively cultivated by the Japanese, a culture of which Vidal has given full details in the _Bulletin de la Société d’Acclimatation_ of July, 1877. It is considered by Engler as a variety of _Amorphophallus Rivieri_, of Cochin-China, of which horticultural periodicals have given several illustrations in the last few years.[293] It can be cultivated in the south of Europe, like the dahlia, as a curiosity; but to estimate the value of the bulbs as food, they should be prepared with lime-water, in Japanese fashion, so as to ascertain the amount of fecula which a given area will produce.

Dr. Vidal gives no proof that the Japanese plant is wild in that country. He supposes it to be so from the meaning of the common name, which is, he says, _konniyakou_ or _yamagonniyakou_, _yama_ meaning “mountain.” Franchet and Savatier[294] have only seen the plant in gardens. The Cochin-China variety, believed to belong to the same species, grows in gardens, and there is no proof of its being wild in the country.

+Yams+—_Dioscorea sativa_, _D. batatas_, _D. japonica_ and _D. alata_.

The yams, monocotyledonous plants, belonging to the family _Dioscorideæ_, constitute the genus _Dioscorea_, of which botanists have described about two hundred species, scattered over all tropical and sub-tropical countries. They usually have rhizomes, that is, underground stems or branches of stems, more or less fleshy, which become larger when the annual, exposed part of the plant is near its decay.[295] Several species are cultivated in different countries for these farinaceous rhizomes, which are cooked and eaten like potatoes.

The botanical distinction of the species has always presented difficulties, because the male and female flowers are on different individuals, and because the characters of the rhizomes and the lower part of the exposed stems cannot be studied in the herbarium. The last complete work is that of Kunth,[296] published in 1850. It requires revision on account of the number of specimens brought home by travellers in these last few years. Fortunately, with regard to the origin of cultivated species, certain historical and philological considerations will serve as a guide, without the absolute necessity of knowing and estimating the botanical characters of each.

Roxburgh enumerates several _Dioscoreæ_[297] cultivated in India, but he found none of them wild, and neither he nor Piddington[298] mentions Sanskrit names. This last point argues a recent cultivation, or one of originally small extent, in India, arising either from indigenous species as yet undefined, or from foreign species cultivated elsewhere. The Bengali and Hindu generic name is _alu_, preceded by a special name for each species or variety; _kam alu_, for instance, is _Dioscorea alata_. The absence of distinct names in each province also argues a recent cultivation. In Ceylon, Thwaites[299] indicates six wild species, and he adds that _D. sativa_, L., _D. alata_, L., and _D. purpurea_, Roxb., are cultivated in gardens, but are not found wild.

The Chinese yam, _Dioscorea batatas_ of Decaisne,[300] extensively cultivated by the Chinese under the name of _Sain-in_, and introduced by M. de Montigny into European gardens, where it remains as a luxury, has not hitherto been found wild in China. Other less-known species are also cultivated by the Chinese, especially the _chou-yu_, _tou-tchou_, _chan-yu_, mentioned in their ancient works on agriculture, and which has spherical rhizomes (instead of the pyriform spindles of the _D. batatas_). The names mean, according to Stanislas Julien, mountain arum, whence we may conclude the plant is really a native of the country. Dr. Bretschneider[301] gives three _Dioscoreæ_ as cultivated in China (_D. batatas_, _alata_, _sativa_), adding, “The _Dioscorea_ is indigenous in China, for it is mentioned in the oldest work on medicine, that of the Emperor Schen-nung.”

_Dioscorea japonica_, Thunberg, cultivated in Japan, has also been found in clearings in various localities, but Franchet and Savatier[302] say that it is not positively known to what degree it is wild or has strayed from cultivation. Another species, more often cultivated in Japan, grows here and there in the country according to the same authors. They assign it to _Dioscorea sativa_ of Linnæus; but it is known that the famous Swede had confounded several Asiatic and American species under that name, which must either be abandoned or restricted to one of the species of the Indian Archipelago. If we choose the latter course, the true _D. sativa_ would be the plant cultivated in Ceylon with which Linnæus was acquainted, and which Thwaites calls the _D. sativa_ of Linnæus. Various authors admitted the identity of the Ceylon plant with others cultivated on the Malabar coast, in Sumatra, Java, the Philippine Isles, etc. Blume[303] asserts that _D. sativa_, L., to which he attributes pl. 51 in Rheede’s _Hortus Malabaricus_, vol. viii., grows in damp places in the mountains of Java and of Malabar. In order to put faith in these assertions, it would be necessary to have carefully studied the question of species from authentic specimens.

The yam, which is most commonly cultivated in the Pacific Isles under the name _ubi_, is the _Dioscorea alata_ of Linnæus. The authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries speak of it as widely spread in Tahiti, in New Guinea, in the Moluccas, etc.[304] It is divided into several varieties, according to the shape of the rhizome. No one pretends to have found this species in a wild state, but the flora of the islands whence it probably came, in particular that of Celebes and of New Guinea, is as yet little known.

Passing to America, we find there also several species of this genus growing wild, in Brazil and Guiana, for instance, but it seems more probable that the cultivated varieties were introduced. Authors indicate but few cultivated species or varieties (Plumier one, Sloane two) and few common names. The most widely spread is _yam_, _igname_, or _inhame_, which is of African origin, according to Hughes, and so also is the plant cultivated in his time in Barbados.[305]

He says that the word _yam_ means “to eat,” in several negro dialects on the coast of Guinea. It is true that two travellers nearer to the date of the discovery of America, whom Humboldt quotes,[306] heard the word _igname_ pronounced on the American continent: Vespucci in 1497, on the coast of Paria; Cabral in 1500, in Brazil. According to the latter, the name was given to a root of which bread was made, which would better apply to the manioc, and leads me to think there must be some mistake, more especially since a passage from Vespucci, quoted elsewhere by Humboldt,[307] shows the confusion he made between the manioc and the yam. _D. Cliffortiana_, Lam., grows wild in Peru[308] and in Brazil,[309] but it is not proved to be cultivated. Presl says _verosimiliter colitur_, and the _Flora Brasiliensis_ does not mention cultivation.

The species chiefly cultivated in French Guiana, according to Sagot,[310] is _Dioscoreæ triloba_, Lam., called Indian yam, which is also common in Brazil and the West India Islands. The common name argues a native origin, whereas another species, _D. cayennensis_, Kunth, also cultivated in Guiana, but under the name of _negro-country yam_, was most likely brought from Africa, an opinion the more probable that Sir W. Hooker likens a yam cultivated in Africa on the banks of the Nun and the Quorra,[311] to _D. cayennensis_. Lastly, the _free yam_ of Guiana is, according to Dr. Sagot, _D. alata_ introduced from the Malay Archipelago and Polynesia.

In Africa there are fewer indigenous _Dioscoreæ_ than in Asia and America, and the culture of yams is less widely spread. On the west coast, according to Thonning,[312] only one or two species are cultivated; Lockhardt[313] only saw one in Congo, and that only in one locality. Bojer[314] mentions four cultivated species in Mauritius, which are, he says, of Asiatic origin, and one, _D. bulbifera_, Lam., from India, if the name be correct. He asserts that it came from Madagascar, and has spread into the woods beyond the plantations. In Mauritius it bears the name _Cambare marron_. Now, _cambare_ is something like the Hindu name _kam_, and _marron_ (marroon) indicates a plant escaped from cultivation. The ancient Egyptians cultivated no yams, which argues a cultivation less ancient in India than that of the colocasia. Forskal and Delile mention no yams cultivated in Egypt at the present day.

To sum up: several _Dioscoreæ_ wild in Asia (especially in the Asiatic Archipelago), and others less numerous growing in America and in Africa, have been introduced into cultivation as alimentary plants, probably more recently than many other species. This last conjecture is based on the absence of a Sanskrit name, on the limited geographical range of cultivation, and on the date, which appears to be not very ancient, of the inhabitants of the Pacific Isles.

+Arrowroot+—_Maranta arundinacea_, Linnæus. A plant of the family of the _Scitamineæ_, allied to the genus _Canna_, of which the underground suckers[315] produce the excellent fecula called arrowroot. It is cultivated in the West India Islands and in several tropical countries of continental America. It has also been introduced into the old world—on the coast of Guinea, for instance.[316]

_Maranta arundinacea_ is certainly American. According to Sloane,[317] it was brought from Dominica to Barbados, and thence to Jamaica, which leads us to suppose that it was not indigenous in the West Indies. Körnicke, the last author who studied the genus Maranta,[318] saw several specimens which were gathered in Guadaloupe, in St. Thomas, in Mexico, in Central America, in Guiana, and in Brazil; but he did not concern himself to discover whether they were taken from wild, cultivated, or naturalized plants. Collectors hardly ever indicate this; and for the study of the American continent (excepting the United States) we are unprovided with local floras, and especially with floras made by botanists residing in the country. In published works I find the species mentioned as cultivated[319] or growing in plantations,[320] or without any explanation. A locality in Brazil, in the thinly peopled province of Matto Grosso, mentioned by Körnicke, supposes an absence of cultivation. Seemann[321] mentions that the species is found in sunny spots near Panama.

A species is also cultivated in the West Indies, Maranta_ indica_, which, Tussac says, was brought from the East Indies. Körnicke believes that _M. ramosissima_ of Wallich found at Sillet, in India, is the same species, and thinks it is a variety of _M. arundinacea_. Out of thirty-six more or less known species of the genus Maranta, thirty at least are of American origin. It is therefore unlikely that two or three others should be Asiatic. Until Sir Joseph Hooker’s _Flora of British India_ is completed, these questions on the species of the _Scitamineæ_ and their origin will be very obscure.

Anglo-Indians obtain arrowroot from another plant of the same family, _Curcuma angustifolia_, Roxburgh, which grows in the forests of the Deccan and in Malabar.[322] I do not know whether it is cultivated.