Chapter II (1)

PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES.

_Article I._—+Vegetables+.

+Common Cabbage+—_Brassica oleracea_, Linnæus.

The cabbage in its wild state, as it is represented in _Eng. Bot._, t. 637, the _Flora Danica_, t. 2056, and elsewhere, is found on the rocks by the sea-shore: (1) in the Isle of Laland, in Denmark, the island of Heligoland, the south of England and Ireland, the Channel Isles, and the islands off the coast of Charente Inférieure;[323] (2) on the north coast of the Mediterranean, near Nice, Genoa, and Lucca.[324] A traveller of the last century, Sibthorp, said that he found it at Mount Athos, but this has not been confirmed by any modern botanist, and the species appears to be foreign in Greece, on the shores of the Caspian, as also in Siberia, where Pallas formerly said he had seen it, and in Persia.[325] Not only the numerous travellers who have explored these countries have not found the cabbage, but the winters of the east of Europe and of Siberia appear to be too severe for it. Its distribution into somewhat isolated places, and in two different regions of Europe, suggests the suspicion either that plants apparently indigenous may in several cases be the result of self-sowing from cultivation,[326] or that the species was formerly common, and is tending to disappear. Its presence in the western islands of Europe favours the latter hypothesis, but its absence in the islands of the Mediterranean is opposed to it.[327]

Let us see whether historical and philological data add anything to the facts of geographical botany.

In the first place, it is in Europe that the countless varieties of cabbage have been formed,[328] principally since the days of the ancient Greeks. Theophrastus distinguished three, Pliny double that number, Tournefort twenty, De Candolle more than thirty. These modifications did not come from the East—another sign of an ancient cultivation in Europe and of a European origin.

The common names are also numerous in European languages, and rare or modern in those of Asia. Without repeating a number of names I have given elsewhere,[329] I shall mention the five or six distinct and ancient roots from which the European names are derived.

_Kap_ or _kab_ in several Keltic and Slav names. The French name _cabus_ comes from it. Its origin is clearly the same as that of _caput_, because of the head-shaped form of the cabbage.

_Caul_, _kohl_, in several Latin (_caulis_, stem or cabbage), German (_Chôli_ in Old German, _Kohl_ in modern German, _kaal_ in Danish), and Keltic languages (_kaol_ and _kol_ in Breton, _cal_ in Irish).[330]

_Bresic_, _bresych_, _brassic_, of the Keltic and Latin (_brassica_) languages, whence, probably, _berza_ and _verza_ of the Spaniards and Portuguese, _varza_ of the Roumanians.[331]

_Aza_ of the Basques (Iberians), considered by de Charencey[332] as proper to the Euskarian tongue, but which differs little from the preceding.

_Krambai_, _crambe_, of the Greeks and Latins.

The variety of names in Keltic languages tends to show the existence of the species on the west coast of Europe. If the Aryan Kelts had brought the plant from Asia, they would probably not have invented names taken from three different sources. It is easy to admit, on the contrary, that the Aryan nations, seeing the cabbage wild, and perhaps already used in Europe by the Iberians or the Ligurians, either invented names or adopted those of the earlier inhabitants.

Philologists have connected the _krambai_ of the Greeks with the Persian name _karamb_, _karam_, _kalam_, the Kurdish _kalam_, the Armenian _gaghamb_;[333] others with a root of the supposed mother-tongue of the Aryans; but they do not agree in matters of detail. According to Fick,[334] _karambha_, in the primitive Indo-Germanic tongue, signifies “_Gemüsepflanze_ (vegetable), _Kohl_ (cabbage), _karambha_ meaning stalk, like _caulis_.” He adds that _karambha_, in Sanskrit, is the name of two vegetables. Anglo-Indian writers do not mention this supposed Sanskrit name, but only a name from a modern Hindu dialect, _kopee_.[335] Pictet, on his side, speaks of the Sanskrit word _kalamba_, “vegetable stalk, applied to the cabbage.”

I have considerable difficulty, I must own, in admitting these Eastern etymologies for the Greco-Latin word _crambe_. The meaning of the Sanskrit word (if it exists) is very doubtful, and as to the Persian word, we ought to know if it is ancient. I doubt it, for if the cabbage had existed in ancient Persia, the Hebrews would have known it.[336]

For all these reasons, the species appears to me of European origin. The date of its cultivation is probably very ancient, earlier than the Aryan invasions, but no doubt the wild plant was gathered before it was cultivated.

+Garden-Cress+—_Lepidium sativum_, Linnæus.

This little Crucifer, now used as a salad, was valued in ancient times for certain properties of the seeds. Some authors believe that it answers to a certain _cardamon_ of Dioscorides; while others apply that name to _Erucaria aleppica_.[337] In the absence of sufficient description, as the modern common name is _cardamon_,[338] the first of these two suppositions is probably correct.

The cultivation of the species must date from ancient times and be widely diffused, for very different names exist: _reschad_ in Arab, _turehtezuk_[339] in Persian, _diéges_[340] in Albanian, a language derived from the Pelasgic; without mentioning names drawn from the similarity of taste with that of the water-cress (_Nasturtium officinale_). There are very distinct names in Hindustani and Bengali, but none are known in Sanskrit.[341]

At the present day the plant is cultivated in Europe, in the north of Africa, in Eastern Asia, India, and elsewhere, but its origin is somewhat obscure. I possess several specimens gathered in India, where Sir Joseph Hooker[342] does not consider the species indigenous. Kotschy brought it back from Karrak, or Karek Island, in the Persian Gulf. The label does not say that it was a cultivated plant. Boissier[343] mentions it without comment, and he afterwards speaks of specimens from Ispahan and Egypt gathered in cultivated ground. Olivier is quoted as having found the cress in Persia, but it is not said whether it was growing wild.[344] It has been asserted that Sibthorp found it in Cyprus, but reference to his work shows it was in the fields.[345] Poech does not mention it in Cyprus.[346] Unger and Kotschy[347] do not consider it to be wild in that island. According to Ledebour,[348] Koch found it round the convent on Mount Ararat; Pallas near Sarepta; Falk on the banks of the Oka, a tributary of the Volga; lastly, H. Martius mentions it in his flora of Moscow; but there is no proof that it was wild in these various localities. Lindemann,[349] in 1860, did not reckon the species among those of Russia, and he only indicates it as cultivated in the Crimea.[350] According to Nyman,[351] the botanist Schur found it wild in Transylvania, while the Austro-Hungarian floras either do not mention the species, or give it as cultivated, or growing in cultivated ground.

I am led to believe, by this assemblage of more or less doubtful facts, that the plant is of Persian origin, whence it may have spread, after the Sanskrit epoch, into the gardens of India, Syria, Greece, and Egypt, and even as far as Abyssinia.[352]

+Purslane+—_Portulaca oleracea_, Linnæus.

Purslane is one of the kitchen garden plants most widely diffused throughout the old world from the earliest times. It has been transported into America,[353] where it spreads itself, as in Europe, in gardens, among rubbish, by the wayside, etc. It is more or less used as a vegetable, a medicinal plant, and is excellent food for pigs.

A Sanskrit name for it is known, _lonica_ or _lounia_, which recurs in the modern languages of India.[354] The Greek name _andrachne_ and the Latin _portulaca_ are very different, as also the group of names, _cholza_ in Persian, _khursa_ or _koursa_ in Hindustani, _kourfa kara-or_ in Arab and Tartar, which seem to be the origin of _kurza noka_ in Polish, _kurj-noha_ in Bohemian, _Kreusel_ in German, without speaking of the Russian name _schrucha_, and some others of Eastern Asia.[355] One need not be a philologist to see certain derivations in these names showing that the Asiatic peoples in their migrations transported with them their names for the plant, but this does not prove that they transported the plant itself. They may have found it in the countries to which they came. On the other hand, the existence of three or four different roots shows that European peoples anterior to the Asiatic migrations had already names for the species, which is consequently very ancient in Europe as well as in Asia.

It is very difficult to discover in the case of a plant so widely diffused, and which propagates itself so easily by means of its enormous number of little seeds, whether a specimen is cultivated, naturalized by spreading from cultivation, or really wild.

It does not appear to be so ancient in the east as in the west of the Asiatic continent, and authors never say that it is a wild plant.[356] In India the case is very different. Sir Joseph Hooker says[357] that it grows in India to the height of five thousand feet in the Himalayas. He also mentions having found in the north-west of India the variety with upright stem, which is cultivated together with the common species in Europe. I find nothing positive about the localities in Persia, but so many are mentioned, and in countries so little cultivated, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus, and even in the south of Russia,[358] that it is difficult not to admit that the plant is indigenous in that central region whence the Asiatic peoples overran Europe. In Greece the plant is wild as well as cultivated.[359] Further to the west, in Italy, etc., we begin to find it indicated in floras, but only growing in fields, gardens, rubbish-heaps, and other suspicious localities.[360]

Thus the evidence of philology and botany alike show that the species is indigenous in the whole of the region which extends from the western Himalayas to the south of Russia and Greece.

+New Zealand Spinach+—_Tetragonia expansa_, Murray.

This plant was brought from New Zealand at the time of Cook’s famous voyage, and cultivated by Sir Joseph Banks, and hence its name. It is a singular plant from a double point of view. In the first place, it is the only cultivated species which comes from New Zealand; and secondly, it belongs to an order of usually fleshy plants, the _Ficoideæ_, of which no other species is used. Horticulturists[361] recommend it as an annual vegetable, of which the taste resembles that of spinach, but which bears drought better, and is therefore a resource in seasons when spinach fails.

Since Cook’s voyage it has been found wild chiefly on the sea coast, not only in New Zealand but also in Tasmania, in the south and west of Australia, in Japan, and in South America.[362] It remains to be discovered whether in the latter places it is not naturalized, for it is found in the neighbourhood of towns in Japan and Chili.[363]

+Garden Celery+—_Apium graveolens_, Linnæus.

Like many Umbellifers which grow in damp places, wild celery has a wide range. It extends from Sweden to Algeria, Egypt, Abyssinia, and in Asia from the Caucasus to Beluchistan, and the mountains of British India.[364]

It is spoken of in the _Odyssey_ under the name of _selinon_, and in Theophrastus; but later, Dioscorides and Pliny[365] distinguish between the wild and cultivated celery. In the latter the leaves are blanched, which greatly diminishes their bitterness. The long course of cultivation explains the numerous garden varieties. The one which differs more widely from the wild plant is that of which the fleshy root is eaten cooked.

+Chervil+—_Scandix cerefolium_, Linnæus; _Anthriscus cerefolium_, Hoffmann.

Not long ago the origin of this little Umbellifer, so common in our gardens, was unknown. Like many annuals, it sprang up on rubbish-heaps, in hedges, in waste places, and it was doubted whether it should be considered wild. In the west and south of Europe it seems to have been introduced, and more or less naturalized; but in the south-east of Russia and in western temperate Asia it appears to be indigenous. Steven[366] tells us that it is found “here and there in the woods of the Crimea.” Boissier[367] received several specimens from the provinces to the south of the Caucasus, from Turcomania and the mountains of the north of Persia, localities of which the species is probably a native. It is wanting in the floras of India and the east of Asia.

Greek authors do not mention it. The first mention of the plant by ancient writers occurs in Columella and Pliny,[368] that is, at the beginning of the Christian era. It was then cultivated. Pliny calls it _cerefolium_. The species was probably introduced into the Greco-Roman world after the time of Theophrastus, that is in the course of the three centuries which preceded our era.

+Parsley+—_Petroselinum sativum_, Mœnch.

This biennial Umbellifer is wild in the south of Europe, from Spain to Turkey. It has also been found at Tlemcen in Algeria, and in Lebanon.[369]

Dioscorides and Pliny speak of it under the names of _Petroselinon_ and _Petroselinum_,[370] but only as a wild medicinal plant. Nothing proves that it was cultivated in their time. In the Middle Ages Charlemagne counted it among the plants which he ordered to be cultivated in his gardens.[371] Olivier de Serres in the sixteenth century cultivated parsley. English gardeners received it in 1548.[372] Although this cultivation is neither ancient nor important, it has already developed two varieties, which would be called species if they were found wild; the parsley with crinkled leaves, and that of which the fleshy root is edible.

+Smyrnium+, or +Alexanders+—_Smyrnium olus-atrum_, Linnæus.

Of all the Umbellifers used as vegetables, this was one of the commonest in gardens for nearly fifteen centuries, and it is now abandoned. We can trace its beginning and end. Theophrastus spoke of it as a medicinal plant under the name of _Ipposelinon_, but three centuries later Dioscorides[373] says that either the root or the leaves might be eaten, which implies cultivation. The Latins called it _olus-atrum_, Charlemagne _olisatum_, and commanded it to be sown in his farms.[374] The Italians made great use of it under the name _macerone_.[375] At the end of the eighteenth century the tradition existed in England that this plant had been formerly cultivated; later English and French horticulturists do not mention it.[376]

The _Smyrnium olus-atrum_ is wild throughout Southern Europe, in Algeria, Syria, and Asia Minor.[377]

+Corn Salad+, or +Lamb’s Lettuce+—_Valerianella olitoria_, Linnæus.

Frequently cultivated as a salad, this annual, of the Valerian family, is found wild throughout temperate Europe to about the sixtieth degree of latitude, in Southern Europe, in the Canary Isles, Madeira, and the Azores, in the north of Africa, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus.[378] It often grows in cultivated ground, near villages, etc., which renders it somewhat difficult to know where it grew before cultivation. It is mentioned, however, in Sardinia and Sicily, in the meadows and mountain pastures.[379] I suspect that it is indigenous only in these islands, and that everywhere else it is introduced or naturalized. The grounds for this opinion are the fact that no name which it seems possible to assign to this plant has been found in Greek or Latin authors. We cannot even name any botanist of the Middle Ages or of the sixteenth century who has spoken of it. Neither is it mentioned among the vegetables used in France in the seventeenth century, either by the _Jardinier Français_ of 1651, or by Laurenberg’s work, _Horticultura_ (Frankfurt, 1632). The cultivation and even the use of this salad appear to be modern, a fact which has not been noticed.

+Cardoon+—_Cynara cardunculus_, Linnæus.

+Artichoke+—_Cynara scolymus_, Linnæus; _C. cardunculus_, var. _sativa_, Moris.

For a long time botanists have held the opinion that the artichoke is probably a form obtained by cultivation from the wild cardoon.[380] Careful observations have lately proved this hypothesis. Moris,[381] for instance, having cultivated, in the garden at Turin, the wild Sardinian plant side by side with the artichoke, affirmed that true characteristic distinctions no longer existed.

Willkomm and Lange,[382] who have carefully observed the plant in Spain, both wild and cultivated, share the same opinion. Moreover, the artichoke has not been found out of gardens; and since the Mediterranean region, the home of all the _Cynaræ_, has been thoroughly explored, it may safely be asserted that it exists nowhere wild.

The cardoon, in which we must also include _C. horrida_ of Sibthorp, is indigenous in Madeira and in the Canary Isles, in the mountains of Marocco near Mogador, in the south and east of the Iberian peninsula, the south of France, of Italy, of Greece, and in the islands of the Mediterranean Sea as far as Cyprus.[383] Munby[384] does not allow _C. cardunculus_ to be wild in Algeria, but he does admit _Cynara humilis_ of Linnæus, which is considered by a few authors as a variety.

The cultivated cardoon varies a good deal with regard to the division of the leaves, the number of spines, and the size—diversities which indicate long cultivation. The Romans eat the receptacle which bears the flowers, and the Italians also eat it, under the name of _girello_. Modern nations cultivate the cardoon for the fleshy part of the leaves, a custom which is not yet introduced into Greece.[385]

The artichoke offers fewer varieties, which bears out the opinion that it is a form derived from the cardoon. Targioni,[386] in an excellent article upon this plant, relates that the artichoke was brought from Naples to Florence in 1466, and he proves that ancient writers, even Athenæus, were not acquainted with the artichoke, but only with the wild and cultivated cardoons. I must mention, however, as a sign of its antiquity in the north of Africa, that the Berbers have two entirely distinct names for the two plants: _addad_ for the cardoon, _taga_ for the artichoke.[387]

It is believed that the _kactos_, _kinara_, and _scolimos_ of the Greeks, and the _carduus_ of Roman horticulturists, were _Cynara cardunculus_,[388] although the most detailed description, that of Theophrastus, is sufficiently confused. “The plant,” he said, “grows in Sicily”—as it does to this day—“and,” he added, “not in Greece.” It is, therefore, possible that the plants observed in our day in that country may have been naturalized from cultivation. According to Athenæus,[389] the Egyptian king Ptolemy Energetes, of the second century before Christ, had found in Libya a great quantity of wild _kinara_, by which his soldiers had profited.

Although the indigenous species was to be found at such a little distance, I am very doubtful whether the ancient Egyptians cultivated the cardoon or the artichoke. Pickering and Unger[390] believed they recognized it in some of the drawings on the monuments; but the two figures which Unger considers the most admissible seem to me extremely doubtful. Moreover, no Hebrew name is known, and the Jews would probably have spoken of this vegetable had they seen it in Egypt. The diffusion of the species in Asia must have taken place somewhat late. There is an Arab name, _hirschuff_ or _kerschouff_, and a Persian name, _kunghir_,[391] but no Sanskrit name, and the Hindus have taken the Persian word _kunjir_,[392] which shows that it was introduced at a late epoch. Chinese authors do not mention any _Cynara_.[393] The cultivation of the artichoke was only introduced into England in 1548.[394] One of the most curious facts in the history of _Cynara cardanculus_ is its naturalization in the present century over a vast extent of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, where its abundance is a hindrance to travellers.[395] It is becoming equally troublesome in Chili.[396] It is not asserted that the artichoke has anywhere been naturalized in this manner, and this is another sign of its artificial origin.

+Lettuce+—_Latuca Scariola_, var. _sativa_.

Botanists are agreed in considering the cultivated lettuce as a modification of the wild species called _Latuca Scariola_.[397] The latter grows in temperate and southern Europe, in the Canary Isles, Madeira,[398] Algeria,[399] Abyssinia,[400] and in the temperate regions of Eastern Asia. Boissier speaks of specimens from Arabia Petrea to Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.[401] He mentions a variety with crinkled leaves, similar therefore to some of our garden lettuces, which the traveller Hausknecht brought with him from the mountains of Kurdistan. I have a specimen from Siberia, found near the river Irtysch, and it is now known with certainty that the species grows in the north of India, in Kashmir, and in Nepal.[402] In all these countries it is often near cultivated ground or among rubbish, but often also in rocky ground, clearings, or meadows, as a really wild plant.

The cultivated lettuce often spreads from gardens, and sows itself in the open country. No one, as far as I know, has observed it in such a case for several generations, or has tried to cultivate the wild _L. Scariola_, to see whether the transition is easy from the one form to the other. It is possible that the original habitat of the species has been enlarged by the diffusion of cultivated lettuces reverting to the wild form. It is known that there has been a great increase in the number of cultivated varieties in the course of the last two thousand years. Theophrastus indicated three;[403] _le Bon Jardinier_ of 1880 gives forty varieties existing in France.

The ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated the lettuce, especially as a salad. In the East its cultivation possibly dates from an earlier epoch. Nevertheless it does not appear, from the original common names both in Asia and Europe, that this plant was generally or very anciently cultivated. There is no Sanskrit nor Hebrew name known, nor any in the reconstructed Aryan tongue. A Greek name exists, _tridax_; Latin, _latuca_; Persian and Hindu, _kahn_; and the analogous Arabic form _chuss_ or _chass_. The Latin form exists also, slightly modified, in the Slav and Germanic languages,[404] which may indicate either that the Western Aryans diffused the plant, or that its cultivation spread with its name at a later date from the south to the north of Europe.

Dr. Bretschneider has confirmed my supposition[405] that the lettuce is not very ancient in China, and that it was introduced there from the West. He says that the first work in which it is mentioned dates from A.D. 600 to A.D. 900.[406]

+Wild Chicory+—_Cichorium Intybus_, Linnæus.

The wild perennial chicory, which is cultivated as a salad, as a vegetable, as fodder, and for its roots, which are used to mix with coffee, grows throughout Europe, except in Lapland, in Marocco, and Algeria,[407] from Eastern Europe to Afghanistan and Beluchistan,[408] in the Punjab and Kashmir,[409] and from Russia to Lake Baikal in Siberia.[410] The plant is certainly wild in most of these countries; but as it often grows by the side of roads and fields, it is probable that it has been transported by man from its original home. This must be the case in India, for there is no known Sanskrit name.

The Greeks and Romans employed this species wild and cultivated,[411] but their notices of it are too brief to be clear. According to Heldreich, the modern Greeks apply the general name of _lachana_, a vegetable or salad, to seventeen different chicories, of which he gives a list.[412] He says that the species commonly cultivated is _Cichorium divaricatum_, Schousboe (_C. pumilum_, Jacquin); but it is an annual, and the chicory of which Theophrastus speaks was perennial.

+Endive+—_Cichorium Endivia_, Linnæus.

The white chicories or endives of our gardens are distinguished from _Cichorium Intybus_, in that they are annuals, and less bitter to the taste. Moreover, the hairs of the pappus which crowns the seed are four times longer, and unequal instead of being equal. As long as this plant was compared with _C. Intybus_, it was difficult not to admit two species. The origin of _C. Endivia_ is uncertain. When we received, forty years ago, specimens of an Indian _Cichorium_, which Hamilton named _C. cosmia_, they seemed to us so like the endive that we supposed the latter to have an Indian origin, as has been sometimes suggested;[413] but Anglo-Indian botanists said, and continue to assert, that in India the plant only grows under cultivation.[414] The uncertainty persisted as to the geographical origin. After this, several botanists[415] conceived the idea of comparing the endive with an annual species, wild in the region of the Mediterranean, _Cichorium pumilum_, Jacquin (_C. divaricatum_, Schousboe), and the differences were found to be so slight that some have suspected, and others have affirmed, their specific identity. For my part, after having seen wild specimens from Sicily, and compared the good illustrations published by Reichenbach (_Icones_, vol. xix., pls. 1357, 1358), I am disposed to take the cultivated endives for varieties of the same species as _C. pumilum_. In this case the oldest name being _C. Endivia_, it is the one which ought to be retained, as has been done by Schultz. It resembles, moreover, a popular name common to several languages.

The wild plant exists in the whole region, of which the Mediterranean is the centre, from Madeira,[416] Marocco,[417] and Algeria,[418] as far as Palestine,[419] the Caucasus, and Turkestan.[420] It is very common in the islands of the Mediterranean and in Greece. Towards the west, in Spain and Madeira, for instance, it is probable that it has become naturalized from cultivation, judging from the positions it occupies in the fields and by the wayside.

No positive proof is found in ancient authors of the use of this plant by the Greeks and Romans;[421] but it is probable that they made use of it and several other _Cichoria_. The common names tell us nothing, since they may have been applied to two different species. These names vary little,[422] and suggest a cultivation of Græco-Roman origin. A Hindu name, _kasni_, and a Tamul one, _koschi_,[423] are mentioned, but no Sanskrit name, and this indicates that the cultivation of this plant was of late origin in the east.

+Spinach+—_Spinacia oleracea_, Linnæus.

This vegetable was unknown to the Greeks and Romans.[424] It was new to Europe in the sixteenth century,[425] and it has been a matter of dispute whether it should be called _spanacha_, as coming from Spain, or _spinacia_, from its prickly fruit.[426] It was afterwards shown that the name comes from the Arabic _isfânâdsch_, _esbanach_, or _sepanach_, according to different authors.[427] The Persian name is _ispany_, or _ispanaj_,[428] and the Hindu _isfany_, or _palak_, according to Piddington, and also _pinnis_, according to the same and to Roxburgh. The absence of any Sanskrit name shows a cultivation of no great antiquity in these regions. Loureiro saw the spinach cultivated at Canton, and Maximowicz in Mantschuria;[429] but Bretschneider tells us that the Chinese name signifies _herb of Persia_, and that Western vegetables were commonly introduced into China a century before the Christian era.[430] It is therefore probable that the cultivation of this plant began in Persia from the time of the Græco-Roman civilization, or that it did not quickly spread either to the east or to the west of its Persian origin. No Hebrew name is known, so that the Arabs must have received both plant and name from the Persians. Nothing leads us to suppose that they carried this vegetable into Spain. Ebn Baithar, who was living in 1235, was of Malaga; but the Arabic works he quotes do not say where the plant was cultivated, except one of them, which says that its cultivation was common at Nineveh and Babylon. Herrera’s work on Spanish agriculture does not mention the species, although it is inserted in a supplement of recent date, whence it is probable that the edition of 1513 did not speak of it; so that the European cultivation must have come from the East about the fifteenth century.

Some popular works repeat that spinach is a native of Northern Asia, but there is nothing to confirm this supposition. It evidently comes from the empire of the ancient Medes and Persians. According to Bosc,[431] the traveller, Olivier brought back some seeds of it, found in the East in the open country. This would be a positive proof, if the produce of these seeds had been examined by a botanist in order to ascertain the species and the variety. In the present state of our knowledge it must be owned that spinach has not yet been found in a wild state, unless it be a cultivated modification of _Spinacia tetandra_, Steven, which is wild to the south of the Caucasus, in Turkestan, in Persia, and in Afghanistan, and which is used as a vegetable under the name of _schamum_.[432]

Without entering here into a purely botanical discussion, I may say that, after reading the descriptions quoted by Boissier, and looking at Wight’s[433] plate of _Spinacia tetandra_, Roxb., cultivated in India, and the specimens of several herbaria, I see no decided difference between this plant and the cultivated spinach with prickly fruit. The term _tetandra_ implies that one of the plants has five and the other four stamens, but the number varies in our cultivated spinaches.[434]

If, as seems probable, the two plants are two varieties, the one cultivated, the other sometimes wild and sometimes cultivated, the oldest name, _S. oleracea_, ought to persist, especially as the two plants are found in the cultivated grounds of their original country.

The _Dutch_ or _great spinach_, of which the fruit has no spines, is evidently a garden product. Tragus, or Bock was the first to mention it in the sixteenth century.[435]

+Amaranth+—_Amarantus gangeticus_, Linnæus.

Several annual amaranths are cultivated as a green vegetable in Mauritius, Bourbon, and the Seychelles Isles, under the name of _brède de Malabar_.[436] This appears to be the principal species. It is much cultivated in India. Anglo-Indian botanists mistook it for a time for _Amarantus oleraceus_ of Linnæus, and Wight gives an illustration of it under this name,[437] but it is now acknowledged to be a different species, and belongs to _A. gangeticus_. Its numerous varieties, differing in size, colour, etc., are called in the Telinga dialect _tota kura_, with the occasional addition of an adjective for each. There are other names in Bengali and Hindustani. The young shoots sometimes take the place of asparagus at the table of the English.[438] _A. melancholicus_, often grown as an ornamental plant in European gardens, is considered one of the forms of this species.

Its original home is perhaps India, but I cannot discover that the plant has ever been found there in a wild state; at least, this is not asserted by any author. All the species of the genus _Amarantus_ spread themselves in cultivated ground, on rubbish-heaps by the wayside, and thus become half-naturalized in hot countries as well as in Europe. Hence the extreme difficulty in distinguishing the species, and above all in guessing or proving their origin. The species most nearly akin to _A. gangeticus_ appear to be Asiatic.

_A. gangeticus_ is said by trustworthy authorities to be wild in Egypt and Abyssinia;[439] but this is perhaps only the result of such naturalization as I spoke of just now. The existence of numerous varieties and of different names in India, render its Indian origin most probable.

The Japanese cultivate as vegetables _A. caudatus_, _A. mangostanus_, and _A. melancholicus_ (or _gangeticus_) of Linnæus,[440] but there is no proof that any of them are indigenous. In Java _A. polystachyus_, Blume, is cultivated; it is very common among rubbish, by the wayside, etc.[441]

I shall speak presently of the species grown for the seed.

+Leek+—_Allium ampeloprasum_, var. _Porrum_.

According to the careful monograph by J. Gay,[442] the leek, as early writers[443] suspected, is only a cultivated variety of _Allium ampeloprasum_ of Linnæus, so common in the East, and in the Mediterranean region, especially in Algeria, which in Central Europe sometimes becomes naturalized in vineyards and round ancient cultivations.[444] Gay seems to have mistrusted the indications of the floras of the south of Europe, for, contrary to his method with other species of which he gives the localities out of Algeria, he only quotes in the present case the Algerian localities; admitting, however, the identity of name in the authors for other countries.

The cultivated variety of _Porrum_ has not been found wild. It is only mentioned in doubtful localities, such as vineyards, gardens, etc. Ledebour[445] indicates for _A. ampeloprasum_ the borders of the Crimea, and the provinces to the south of the Caucasus. Wallich brought a specimen from Kamaon, in India,[446] but we cannot be sure that it was wild. The works on Cochin-China (Loureiro), China (Bretschneider), and Japan (Franchet and Savatier) make no mention of it.

_Article II._—+Fodder.+

+Lucern+—_Medicago sativa_, Linnæus.

The lucern was known to the Greeks and Romans. They called it in Greek _medicai_, in Latin medica, or _herba medica_, because it had been brought from Media at the time of the Persian war, about 470 years before the Christian era.[447] The Romans often cultivated it, at any rate from the beginning of the first or second century. Cato does not speak of it,[448] but it is mentioned by Varro, Columella, and Virgil. De Gasparin[449] notices that Crescenz, in 1478, does not mention it in Italy, and that in 1711 Tull had not seen it beyond the Alps. Targioni, however, who could not be mistaken on this head, says that the cultivation of lucern was maintained in Italy, especially in Tuscany, from ancient times.[450] It is rare in modern Greece.[451] French cultivators have often given to the lucern the name of _sainfoin_, which belongs properly to _Onobrychis sativa_; and this transposition still exists, for instance in the neighbourhood of Geneva. The name _lucern_ has been supposed to come from the valley of Luzerne, in Piedmont; but there is another and more probable origin. The Spaniards had an old name, _eruye_, mentioned by J. Bauhin,[452] and the Catalans call it _userdas_[453] whence perhaps the patois name in the south of France, _laouzerdo_, nearly akin to _luzerne_. It was so commonly cultivated in Spain that the Italians have sometimes called it _herba spagna_.[454] The Spaniards have, besides the names already given, _mielga_, or _melga_, which appears to come from _Medica_, but they principally used names derived from the Arabic—_alfafa_, _alfasafat_, _alfalfa_. In the thirteenth century, the famous physician Ebn Baithar, who wrote at Malaga, uses the Arab word _fisfisat_, which he derives from the Persian _isfist_.[455] It will be seen that, if we are to trust to the common names, the origin of the plant would be either in Spain, Piedmont, or Persia. Fortunately botanists can furnish direct and possible proofs of the original home of the species.

It has been found wild, with every appearance of an indigenous plant, in several provinces of Anatolia, to the south of the Caucasus, in several parts of Persia, in Afghanistan, in Beluchistan,[456] and in Kashmir.[457] In the south of Russia, a locality mentioned by some authors, it is perhaps the result of cultivation as well as in the south of Europe. The Greeks may, therefore, have introduced the plant from Asia Minor as well as from India, which extended from the north of Persia.

This origin of the lucern, which is well established, makes me note as a singular fact that no Sanskrit name is known.[458] Clover and sainfoin have none either, which leads us to suppose that the Aryans had no artificial meadows.

+Sainfoin+—_Hedysarum Onobrychis_, Linnæus; _Onobrychis sativa_, Lamarck.

This leguminous plant, of which the usefulness in the dry and chalky soils of temperate regions is incontestable, has not been long in cultivation. The Greeks did not grow it, and their descendants have not introduced it into their agriculture to this day.[459] The plant called _Onobrychis_ by Dioscorides and Pliny, is _Onobrychis Caput-Galli_ of modern botanists,[460] a species wild in Greece and elsewhere, which is not cultivated. The sainfoin, or _lupinella_ of the Italians, was highly esteemed as fodder in the south of France in the time of Olivier de Serres,[461] that is to say, in the sixteenth century; but in Italy it was only in the eighteenth century that this cultivation spread, particularly in Tuscany.[462]

Sainfoin is a herbaceous plant, which grows wild in the temperate parts of Europe, to the south of the Caucasus, round the Caspian Sea,[463] and even beyond Lake Baikal.[464] In the south of Europe it grows only on the hills. Gussone does not reckon it among the wild species of Sicily, nor Moris among those of Sardinia, nor Munby among those of Algeria.

No Sanskrit, Persian, or Arabic names are known. Everything tends to show that the cultivation of this plant originated in the south of France as late perhaps as the fifteenth century.

+French Honeysuckle+, or +Spanish Sainfoin+—_Hedysarum coronarium_, Linnæus.

The cultivation of this leguminous plant, akin to the sainfoin, and of which a good illustration may be found in the _Flora des Serres et des Jardins_, vol. xiii. pl. 1382, has been diffused in modern times through Italy, Sicily, Malta, and the Balearic Isles.[465] Marquis Grimaldi, who first pointed it out to cultivators in 1766, had seen it at Seminara, in Lower Calabria; De Gasparin[466] recommends it for Algeria, and it is probable that cultivators under similar conditions in Australia, at the Cape, in South America or Mexico, would do well to try it. In the neighbourhood of Orange, in Algeria, the plant did not survive the cold of 6° centigrade.

_Hedysarum coronarium_ grows in Italy from Genoa to Sicily and Sardinia,[467] in the south of Spain[468] and in Algeria,[469] where it is rare. It is, therefore, a species of limited geographical area.

+Purple Clover+—_Trifolium pratense_, Linnæus.

Clover was not cultivated in ancient times, although the plant was doubtless known to nearly all the peoples of Europe and of temperate Western Asia. Its use was first introduced into Flanders in the sixteenth century, perhaps even earlier, and, according to Schwerz, the Protestants expelled by the Spaniards carried it into Germany, where they established themselves under the protection of the Elector Palatine. It was also from Flanders that the English received it in 1633, through the influence of Weston, Earl of Portland, then Lord Chancellor.[470]

_Trifolium pratense_ is wild throughout Europe, in Algeria,[471] on the mountains of Anatolia, in Armenia, and in Turkestan,[472] in Siberia towards the Altaï Mountains,[473] and in Kashmir and Garwhall.[474]

The species existed, therefore, in Asia, in the land of the Aryan nations; but no Sanskrit name is known, whence it may be inferred that it was not cultivated.

+Crimson+ or +Italian Clover+—_Trifolium incarnatum_, Linnæus.

An annual plant grown for fodder, whose cultivation, says Vilmorin, long confined to a few of the southern departments, becomes every day more common in France.[475] De Candolle, at the beginning of the present century, had only seen it in the department of Ariège.[476] It has existed for about sixty years in the neighbourhood of Geneva. Targioni does not think that it is of ancient date in Italy,[477] and the trivial name _trafoglio_ strengthens his opinion.

The Catalan _fé_, _fench_,[478] and, in the patois of the south of France,[479] _farradje_ (Roussillon), _farratage_ (Languedoc), _feroutgé_ (Gascony), whence the French name _farouch_, have, on the other hand, an original character, which indicates an ancient cultivation round the Pyrenees. The term which is sometimes used, “clover of Roussillon,” also shows this.

The wild plant exists in Galicia, in Biscaya, and Catalonia,[480] but not in the Balearic Isles;[481] it is found in Sardinia[482] and in the province of Algiers.[483] It appears in several localities in France, Italy, and Dalmatia, in the valley of the Danube and Macedonia, but in many cases it is not known whether it may not have strayed from neighbouring cultivation. A singular locality in which it appears to be indigenous, according to English authors, is on the coast of Cornwall, near the Lizard. In this place, according to Bentham, it is the pale yellow variety, which is truly wild on the Continent, while the crimson variety is only naturalized in England from cultivation.[484] I do not know to what degree this remark of Bentham’s as to the wild nature of the sole variety of a yellow colour (var. _Molinerii_, Seringe) is confirmed in all the countries where the species grows. It is the only one indicated by Moris in Sardinia, and in Dalmatia by Viviani,[485] in the localities which appear natural (_in pascuis collinis_, _in montanis_, _in herbidis_). The authors of the _Bon Jardinier_[486] affirm with Bentham that _Trifolium Molinerii_ is wild in the north of France, that with crimson flowers being introduced from the south; and while they admit the absence of a good specific distinction, they note that in cultivation the variety _Molinerii_ is of slower growth, often biennial instead of annual.

+Alexandrine+ or +Egyptian Clover+—_Trifolium Alexandrinum_, Linnæus.

This species is extensively cultivated in Egypt as fodder. Its Arab name is _bersym_ or _berzun_.[487] There is nothing to show that it has been long in use; the name does not occur in Hebrew and Armenian botanical works. The species is not wild in Egypt, but it is certainly wild in Syria and Asia Minor.[488]

+Ervilia+—_Ervum Ervilia_, Linnæus; _Vicia Ervilia_, Willdenow.

Bertoloni[489] gives no less than ten common Italian names—_ervo_, _lero_, _zirlo_, etc. This is an indication of an ancient and general culture. Heldreich[490] says that the modern Greeks cultivate the plant in abundance as fodder. They call it _robai_, from the ancient Greek _orobos_, as _ervos_ comes from the Latin _ervum_. The cultivation of the species is mentioned by ancient Greek and Latin authors.[491] The Greeks made use of the seed; for some has been discovered in the excavations on the site of Troy.[492] There are a number of common names in Spain, some of them Arabic,[493] but the species has not been so widely cultivated there for several centuries.[494] In France it is so little grown that many modern works on agriculture do not mention it. It is unknown in British India.[495]

General botanical works indicate _Ervum Ervilia_ as growing in Southern Europe, but if we take severally the best floras, it will be seen that it is in such localities as fields, vineyards, or cultivated ground. It is the same in Western Asia, where Boissier[496] speaks of specimens from Syria, Persia, and Afghanistan. Sometimes, in abridged catalogues,[497] the locality is not given, but nowhere do I find it asserted that the plant has been seen wild in places far from cultivation. The specimens in my own herbarium furnish no further proof on this head.

In all likelihood the species was formerly wild in Greece, Italy, and perhaps Spain and Algeria, but the frequency of its cultivation in the very regions where it existed prevent us from now finding the wild stocks.

+Tare+, or +Common Vetch+—_Vicia sativa_, Linnæus.

_Vicia sativa_ is an annual leguminous plant wild throughout Europe, except in Lapland. It is also common in Algeria,[498] and to the south of the Caucasus as far as the province of Talysch.[499] Roxburgh pronounces it to be wild in the north-west provinces and in Bengal, but Sir Joseph Hooker admits this only as far as the variety called _angustifolia_[500] is concerned. No Sanskrit name is known, and in the modern languages of India only Hindu names.[501] Targioni believes it to be the _ketsach_ of the Hebrews.[502] I have received specimens from the Cape and from California. The species is certainly not indigenous in the two last-named regions, but has escaped from cultivation.

The Romans sowed this plant both for the sake of the seed and as fodder as early as the time of Cato.[503] I have discovered no proof of a more ancient cultivation. The name _vik_, whence _vicia_, dates from a very remote epoch in Europe, for it exists in Albanian,[504] which is believed to be the language of the Pelasgians, and among the Slav, Swedish, and Germanic nations, with slight modifications. This does not prove that the species was cultivated. It is distinct enough and useful enough to herbivorous animals to have received common names from the earliest times.

+Flat-podded Pea+—_Lathyrus Cicera_, Linnæus.

An annual leguminous plant, esteemed as fodder, but whose seed, if used as food in any quantity, becomes dangerous.[505]

It is grown in Italy under the name of _mochi_.[506] Some authors suspect that it is the _cicera_ of Columella and the _ervilia_ of Varro,[507] but the common Italian name is very different to these. The species is not cultivated in Greece.[508] It is more or less grown in France and Spain, without anything to show that its use dates from ancient times. However, Wittmack[509] attributes to it, but doubtfully, some seeds brought by Virchow from the Trojan excavations.

According to the floras, it is evidently wild in dry places, beyond the limits of cultivation in Spain and Italy.[510] It is also wild in Lower Egypt, according to Schweinfurth and Ascherson;[511] but there is no trace of ancient cultivation in this country or among the Hebrews. Towards the East its wild character becomes less certain. Boissier indicates the plant “in cultivated ground from Turkey in Europe, and Egypt as far as the south of the Caucasus and Babylon.”[512] It is not mentioned in India either as wild or cultivated, and has no Sanskrit name.[513]

The species is probably a native of the region comprised between Spain and Greece, perhaps also of Algeria,[514] and diffused by a cultivation, not of very ancient date, over Western Asia.

+Chickling Vetch+—_Lathyrus sativus_, Linnæus.

An annual leguminous plant, cultivated in the South of Europe, from a very early age, as fodder, and also for the seeds. The Greeks called it _lathyros_[515] and the Latins _cicercula_.[516] It is also cultivated in the temperate regions of Western Asia, and even in the north of India;[517] but it has no Hebrew[518] nor Sanskrit name,[519] which argues a not very ancient cultivation in these regions.

Nearly all the floras of the south of Europe and of Algeria give the plant as cultivated and half-wild, rarely and only in a few localities as truly wild. It is easy to understand the difficulty of recognizing the wild character of a species often mixed with cereals, and which persists and spreads itself after cultivation. Heldreich does not allow that it is indigenous in Greece.[520] This is a strong presumption that in the rest of Europe and in Algeria the plant has escaped from cultivation.

It is probable that this was not the case in Western Asia; for authors cite sufficiently wild localities, where agriculture plays a less considerable part than in Europe. Ledebour,[521] for instance, mentions specimens gathered in the desert, near the Caspian Sea, and in the province of Lenkoran. Meyer[522] confirms the assertion with respect to Lenkoran. Baker, in his flora of British India, after indicating the species as scattered here and there in the northern provinces, adds, “often cultivated,” whence it may be inferred that he considers it as indigenous, at least in the north. Boissier asserts nothing with regard to the localities in Persia which he mentions in his Oriental flora.[523]

To sum up, I think it probable that the species was indigenous before cultivation in the region extending from the south of the Caucasus, or of the Caspian Sea, to the north of India, and that it spread towards Europe in the track of ancient cultivation, mixed perhaps with cereals.

+Ochrus+—_Pisum ochrus_, Linnæus; _Lathyrus ochrus_, de Candolle.

Cultivated as an annual fodder in Catalonia, under the name of _tapisots_,[524] and in Greece, particularly in the island of Crete, under that of _ochros_,[525] mentioned by Theophrastus,[526] but without a word of description. Latin authors do not speak of it, which argues a rare and local cultivation in ancient times.

The species is certainly wild in Tuscany.[527] It appears to be wild also in Greece and Sardinia, where it is found in hedges,[528] and in Spain, where it grows in uncultivated ground;[529] but as for the south of France, Algeria, and Sicily, authors are either silent as to the locality, or mention only fields and cultivated ground. The plant is unknown further east than Syria,[530] where probably it is not wild.

The fine plate published by Sibthorp, _Flora Græca_, 589, suggests that the species is worthy of more general cultivation.

+Trigonel+, or +Fenugreek+—Trigonella fænum-græcum, Linnæus.

The cultivation of this annual leguminous plant was common in ancient Greece and Italy,[531] either for spring forage, or for the medicinal properties of its seeds. Abandoned almost everywhere in Europe, and notably in Greece,[532] it is maintained in the East and in India,[533] where it is probably of very ancient date, and throughout the Nile Valley.[534] The species is wild in the Punjab and in Kashmir,[535] in the deserts of Mesopotamia and of Persia,[536] and in Asia Minor,[537] where, however, the localities cited do not appear sufficiently distinct from the cultivated ground. It is also indicated[538] in several places in Southern Europe, such as Mount Hymettus and other localities in Greece, the hills above Bologna and Genoa, and a few waste places in Spain; but the further west we go the more we find mentioned such localities as fields, cultivated ground, etc.; and careful authors do not fail to note that the species has probably escaped from cultivation.[539] I do not hesitate to say that if a plant of this nature were indigenous in Southern Europe, it would be far more common, and would not be wanting to the insular floras, such as those of Sicily, Ischia, and the Balearic Isles.[540]

The antiquity of the species and of its use in India is confirmed by the existence of several different names in different dialects, and above all of a Sanskrit and modern Hindu name, _methi_.[541] There is a Persian name, _schemlit_, and an Arab name, _helbeh_;[542] but none is known in Hebrew.[543] One of the names of the plant in ancient Greek, _tailis_ τηλις, may, perhaps, be considered by philologists as akin to the Sanskrit name,[544] but of this I am no judge. The species may have been introduced by the Aryans, and the primitive name have left no trace in northern languages, since it can only live in the south of Europe.

+Bird’s Foot+—_Ornithopus sativus_, Brotero; _O. isthmocarpus_, Cosson.

The true bird’s foot, wild and cultivated in Portugal, was described for the first time in 1804 by Brotero,[545] and Cosson has distinguished it more clearly from allied species.[546] Some authors had confounded it with _Ornithopus roseus_ of Dufour, and agriculturists have sometimes given it the name of a very different species, _O. perpusillus_, which by reason of its small size is unsuited for cultivation. It is only necessary to see the pod of _Ornithopus sativus_ to make certain of the species, for it is when ripe contracted at intervals and considerably bent. If there are in the fields plants of a similar appearance, but whose pods are straight and not contracted, they are the result of a cross with _O. roseus_, or, if the pod is curved but not contracted, with _O. compressus_. From the appearance of these plants, it seems that they might be grown in the same manner, and would present, I suppose, the same advantages.

The bird’s foot is only suited to a dry and sandy soil. It is an annual which furnishes in Portugal a very early spring fodder. Its cultivation has been successfully introduced into Campine.[547]

_O. sativus_ appears to be wild in several districts of Portugal and the south of Spain. I have a specimen from Tangier; and Cosson found it in Algeria. It is often found in abandoned fields, and even elsewhere. It is difficult to say whether the specimens are not from plants escaped from cultivation, but localities are cited where this seems improbable; for instance, a pine wood near Chiclana, in the south of Spain (Willkomm).

+Spergula+, or +Corn Spurry+—_Spergula arvensis_, Linnæus.

This annual, belonging to the family of the Caryophylaceæ, grows in sandy fields and similar places in Europe, in North Africa and Abyssinia,[548] in Western Asia as far as Hindustan,[549] and even in Java.[550] It is difficult to know over what extent of the old world it was originally indigenous. In many localities we do not know if it is really wild or naturalized from cultivation. Sometimes a recent introduction may be suspected. In India, for instance, numerous specimens have been gathered in the last few years; but Roxburgh, who was so diligent a collector at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century, does not mention the species. No Sanskrit or modern Hindu name is known,[551] and it has not been found in the countries between India and Turkey.

The common names may tell us something with regard to the origin of the species and to its cultivation.

No Greek or Latin name is known. _Spergula_, in Italian _spergola_, seems to be a common name long in use in Italy. Another Italian name, _erba renaiola_, indicates only its growth in the sand (_rena_). The French (_spargoule_), Spanish (_esparcillas_), Portuguese (_espargata_), and German (_Spark_), have all the same root. It seems that throughout the south of Europe the species was taken from country to country by the Romans, before the division of the Latin languages. In the north the case is very different. There is a Russian name, _toritsa_;[552] several Danish names, _humb_ or _hum_, _girr_ or _kirr_;[553] and Swedish, _knutt_, _fryle_, _nägde_, _skorff_.[554] This great diversity shows that attention had long been drawn to this plant in this part of Europe, and argues an ancient cultivation. It was cultivated in the neighbourhood of Montbelliard in the sixteenth century,[555] and it is not stated that it was then of recent introduction. Probably it arose in the south of Europe during the Roman occupation, and perhaps earlier in the north. In any case, its original home must have been Europe.