Chapter II (2)

Agriculturists distinguish a taller variety of spergula,[556] but botanists are not agreed with them in finding in it sufficient characteristics of a distinct species, and some do not even make it a variety.

+Guinea Grass+—_Panicum maximum_, Jacquin.[557]

This perennial grass has a great reputation in countries lying between the tropics as a nutritious fodder, easy of cultivation. With a little care a meadow of guinea grass will last for twenty years.[558]

Its cultivation appears to have begun in the West Indies. P. Browne speaks of it in his work on Jamaica, published in the middle of the last century, and it is subsequently mentioned by Swartz.

The former mentions the name guinea grass, without any remarks on the original home of the species. The latter says, “formerly brought from the coast of Africa to the Antilles.” He probably trusted to the indication given by the common name; but we know how fallacious such indications of origin sometimes are. Witness the so-called Turkey wheat, which comes from America.

Swartz, who is an excellent botanist, says that the plant grows in the dry cultivated pastures of the West Indies, where it is also wild, which may imply that it has become naturalized in places where it was formerly cultivated. I cannot find it anywhere asserted that it is really wild in the West Indies. It is otherwise in Brazil. From data collected by de Martius and studied by Nees,[559] data afterwards increased and more carefully studied by Dœll,[560] _Panicum maximum_ grows in the clearings of the forests of the Amazon valley, near Santarem, in the provinces of Balria, Ceara, Rio de Janeiro, and Saint Paul. Although the plant is often cultivated in these countries, the localities given, by their number and nature, prove that it is indigenous. Dœll has also seen specimens from French Guiana and New Granada.

With respect to Africa, Sir William Hooker[561] mentioned specimens brought from Sierra Leone, from Aguapim, from the banks of the Quorra, and from the Island of St. Thomas, in Western Africa. Nees[562] indicates the species in several districts of Cape Colony, even in the bush and in mountainous country. Richard[563] mentions places in Abyssinia, which also seem to be beyond the limits of cultivation, but he owns to being not very sure of the species. Anderson, on the contrary, positively asserts that _Panicum maximum_ was brought from the banks of the Mozambique and of the Zambesi rivers by the traveller Peters.[564]

The species is known to have been introduced into Mauritius by the Governour Labourdonnais,[565] and to have become naturalized from cultivation as in Rodriguez and the Seychelles Isles. Its introduction into Asia must be recent, for Roxburgh and Miquel do not mention the species. In Ceylon it is only cultivated.[566]

On the whole, it seems to me that the probabilities are in favour of an African origin, as its name indicates, and this is confirmed by the general, but insufficiently grounded opinion of authors.[567] However, as the plant spreads so rapidly, it is strange that it has not reached Egypt from the Mozambique or Abyssinia, and that it was introduced so late into the islands to the east of Africa. If the co-existence of phanerogamous species in Africa and America previous to cultivation were not extremely rare, it might be inferred in this case; but this is unlikely in the case of a cultivated plant of which the diffusion is evidently very easy.

_Article III._—+Various Uses of the Stem and Leaves.+

+Tea+—_Thea sinensis_, Linnæus.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, when the shrub which produces tea was still very little known, Linnæus gave it the name of _Thea sinensis_. Soon afterwards, in the second edition of the _Species Plantarum_, he judged it better to distinguish two species, _Thea bohea_ and _Thea viridis_, which he believed to correspond to the commercial distinction between black and green teas. It has since been proved that there is but one species, comprehending several varieties, from all of which either black or green tea may be obtained according to the process of manufacture. This question was settled, when another was raised, as to whether _Thea_ really forms a genus by itself distinct from the genus _Camellia_. Some authors make _Thea_ a section of the old genus _Camellia_; but from the characters indicated with great precision by Seemann,[568] it seems to me that we are justified in retaining the genus _Thea_, together with the old nomenclature of the principal species.

A Japanese legend, related by Kæmpfer,[569] is often quoted. A priest who came from India into China in A.D. 519, having succumbed to sleep when he had wished to watch and pray, in a movement of anger cut off his two eyelids, which were changed into a shrub, the tea tree, whose leaves are eminently calculated to prevent sleep. Unfortunately for those people who readily admit legends in whole or in part, the Chinese have never heard of this story, although the event is said to have taken place in their country. Tea was known to them long before 519, and probably it was not brought from India. This is what Bretschneider tells us in his little work, rich in botanical and philological facts.[570] The _Pent-sao_, he says, mentions tea 2700 B.C., the _Rye_ 300 or 600 B.C.; and the commentator of the latter work, in the fourth century of our era, gave details about the plant and about the infusion of the leaves. Its use is, therefore, of very ancient date in China. It is perhaps more recent in Japan, and if it has been long known in Cochin-China, it is possible, but not proved, that it formerly spread thither from India; authors cite no Sanskrit name, nor even any name in modern Indian languages. This fact will appear strange when contrasted with what we have to say on the natural habitat of the species.

The seeds of the tea-plant often sow themselves beyond the limits of cultivation, thereby inspiring doubt among botanists as to the wild nature of plants encountered here and there. Thunberg believed the species to be wild in Japan, but Franchet and Savatier[571] absolutely deny this. Fortune,[572] who has so carefully examined the cultivation of tea in China, does not speak of the wild plant. Fontanier[573] says that the tea-plant grows wild abundantly in Mantschuria. It is probable that it exists in the mountainous districts of South-eastern China, where naturalists have not yet penetrated. Loureiro says that it is found both “cultivated and uncultivated” in Cochin-China.[574] What is more certain is, that English travellers gathered specimens in Upper Assam[575] and in the province of Cachar.[576] So that the tea-plant must be wild in the mountainous region which separates the plains of India from those of China, but the use of the leaves was not formerly known in India.

The cultivation of tea, now introduced into several colonies, has produced admirable results in Assam. Not only is the product of a superior quality to that of average Chinese teas, but the quantity obtained increases rapidly. In 1870, three million pounds of tea were produced in British India; in 1878, thirty-seven million pounds; and in 1880, a harvest of seventy million pounds was looked for.[577] Tea will not bear frost, and suffers from drought. As I have elsewhere stated,[578] the conditions which favour it are the opposite to those which suit the vine. On the other hand, it has been observed that tea flourishes in Azores, where good wine is made;[579] but it is possible to cultivate in gardens, or on a small scale, many plants which will not be profitable on a large scale. The vine grows in China, yet the manufacture of wine is unimportant. Conversely, no wine-growing country grows tea for exportation. After China, Japan, and Assam, it is in Java, Ceylon, and Brazil that tea is most largely grown, where, certainly, the vine is little cultivated, or not at all; while the wines of dry regions, such as Australia and the Cape, are already known in the market.

+Flax+—_Linum usitatissimum_, Linnæus.

The question as to the origin of flax, or rather of the cultivated flax, is one of those which give rise to most interesting researches.

In order to understand the difficulties which it presents, we must first ascertain what nearly allied forms authors designate—sometimes as distinct species of the genus _Linum_, and sometimes as varieties of a single species.

The first important work on this subject was by Planchon, in 1848.[580] He clearly showed the differences between _Linum usitatissimum_, _L. humile_, and _L. angustifolium_, which were little known. Afterwards Heer,[581] when making profound researches into ancient cultivation, went again into the characters indicated, and by adding the study of two intermediate forms, as well as the comparison of a great number of specimens, he arrived at the conclusion that there was a single species, composed of several slightly different forms. I give a translation of his Latin summary of the characters, only adding a name for each distinct form, in accordance with the custom of botanical works.

_Linum usitatissimum._

1. _Annuum_ (annual). Root annual; stem single, upright; capsules 7 to 8 mm. long; seeds 4 to 6 mm., terminating in a point. α _Vulgare_ (common). Capsules 7 mm., not opening when ripe, and displaying glabrous partitions. German names, _Schliesslein_, _Dreschlein_. β. _Humile_ (low). Capsules 8 mm., opening suddenly when ripe; the partitions hairy. _Linum humile_, Miller; _L. crepitans_, Böninghausen. German names, _Klanglein_, _Springlein_.

2. _Hyemale_ (winter). Root annual or biennial; stems numerous, spreading at the base, and bent; capsules 7 mm., terminating in a point. _Linum hyemale romanum._ In German, _Winterlein_.

3. _Ambiguum_ (doubtful). Root annual or perennial; stems numerous, leaves acuminate; capsules 7 mm., with partitions nearly free from hairs; seeds 4 mm., ending in a short point. _Linum ambiguum_, Jordan.

4. _Angustifolium_ (narrow-leaved). Root annual or perennial; stems numerous, spreading at the base, and bent; capsules 6 mm., with hairy partitions; seeds 3 mm., slightly hooked at the top. _Linum angustifolium._

It may be seen how easily one form passes into another. The quality of annual, biennial, or perennial, which Heer suspected to be uncertain, is vague, especially for the _angustifolium_; for Loret, who has observed this flax in the neighbourhood of Montpellier, says,[582] “In very hot countries it is nearly always an annual, and this is the case in Sicily according to Gussone; with us it is annual, biennial, or perennial, according to the nature of the soil in which it grows; and this may be ascertained by observing it on the shore, notably at Maguelone. There it may be seen that along the borders of trodden paths it lasts longer than on the sand, where the sun soon dries up the roots and the acidity of the soil prevents the plant from enduring more than a year.”

When forms and physiological conditions pass from one into another, and are distinguished by characters which vary according to circumstances, we are led to consider the individuals as constituting a single species, although these forms and conditions possess a certain degree of heredity, and date perhaps from very early times. We are, however, forced to consider them separately in our researches into their origin. I shall first indicate in what country each variety has been discovered in a wild or half-wild state. I shall then speak of cultivation, and we shall see how far geographical and historical facts confirm the opinion of the unity of species.

The _common annual flax_ has not yet been discovered, with absolute certainty, in a wild state. I possess several specimens of it from India, and Planchon saw others in the herbarium at Kew; but Anglo-Indian botanists do not admit that the plant is indigenous in British India. The recent flora of Sir Joseph Hooker speaks of it as a species cultivated principally for the oil extracted from the seeds; and Mr. C. B. Clarke, formerly director of the botanical gardens in Calcutta, writes to me that the specimens must have been cultivated, its cultivation being very common in winter in the north of India. Boissier[583] mentions _L. humile_, with narrow leaves, which Kotschy gathered “near Schiraz in Persia, at the foot of the mountain called Sabst Buchom.” This is, perhaps, a spot far removed from cultivation; but I cannot give satisfactory information on this head. Hohenacker found _L. usitatissimum_ “half wild” in the province of _Talysch_, to the south of the Caucasus, towards the Caspian Sea.[584] Steven is more positive with regard to Southern Russia.[585] According to him, it “is found pretty often on the barren hills to the south of the Crimea, between Jalta and Nikita; and Nordmann found it on the eastern coast of the Black Sea.” Advancing westward in Southern Russia, or in the region of the Mediterranean, the species is but rarely mentioned, and only as escaped from cultivation, or half wild. In spite of doubts and of the scanty data which we possess, I think it very possible that the annual flax, in one or other of these two forms, may be wild in the district between the south of Persia and the Crimea, at least in a few localities.

The _winter flax_ is only known under cultivation in a few provinces of Italy.[586]

The _Linum ambiguum_ of Jordan grows on the coast of Provence and of Languedoc in dry places.[587]

Lastly, _Linum angustifolium_, which hardly differs from the preceding, has a well-defined and rather large area. It grows wild, especially on hills throughout the region of which the Mediterranean forms the centre; that is, in the Canaries and Madeira, in Marocco,[588] Algeria,[589] and as far as the Cyrenaic;[590] from the south of Europe, as far as England,[591] the Alps, and the Balkan Mountains; and lastly, in Asia from the south of the Caucasus[592] to Lebanon and Palestine.[593] I do not find it mentioned in the Crimea, nor beyond the Caspian Sea.

Let us now turn to the cultivation of flax, destined in most instances to furnish a textile substance, often also to yield oil, and cultivated among certain peoples for the nutritious properties of the seed. I first studied the question of its origin in 1855,[594] and with the following result:—

It was abundantly shown that the ancient Egyptians and the Hebrews made use of linen stuffs. Herodotus affirms this. Moreover, the plant may be seen figured in the ancient Egyptian drawings, and the microscope indubitably shows that the bandages which bind the mummies are of linen.[595] The culture of flax is of ancient date in Europe; it was known to the Kelts, and in India according to history. Lastly, the widely different common names indicate likewise an ancient cultivation or long use in different countries. The Keltic name _lin_, and Greco-Latin _linon_ or _linum_, has no analogy with the Hebrew _pischta_,[596] nor with the Sanskrit names _ooma_, _atasi_, _utasi_.[597] A few botanists mention the flax as “nearly wild” in the south-east of Russia, to the south of the Caucasus and to the east of Siberia, but it was not known to be truly wild. I then summed up the probabilities, saying, “The varying etymology of the names, the antiquity of cultivation in Egypt, in Europe, and in the north of India, the circumstance that in the latter district flax is cultivated for the yield of oil alone, lead me to believe that two or three species of different origin, confounded by most authors under the name of _Linum usitatissimum_, were formerly cultivated in different countries, without imitation or communication the one with the other.... I am very doubtful whether the species cultivated by the ancient Egyptians was the species indigenous in Russia and in Siberia.”

My conjectures were confirmed ten years later by a very curious discovery made by Oswald Heer. The lake-dwellers of Eastern Switzerland, at a time when they only used stone implements, and did not know the use of hemp, cultivated and wove a flax which is not our common annual flax, but the perennial flax called _Linum angustifolium_, which is wild south of the Alps. This is shown by the examination of the capsules, seeds, and especially of the lower part of a plant carefully extracted from the sediment at Robenhausen.[598] The illustration published by Heer shows distinctly a root surmounted by from two to four stems after the manner of perennial plants. The stems had been cut, whereas our common flax is plucked up by the roots, another proof of the persistent nature of the plant. With the remains of the Robenhausen flax some grains of _Silene cretica_ were found, a species which is also foreign to Switzerland, and abundant in Italy in the fields of flax.[599] Hence Heer concluded that the Swiss lake-dwellers imported the seeds of the Italian flax. This was apparently the case, unless we suppose that the climate of Switzerland at that time differed from that of our own epoch, for the perennial flax would not at the present day survive the winters of Eastern Switzerland.[600] Heer’s opinion is supported by the surprising fact that flax has not been found among the remains of the lake-dwellings of Laybach and Mondsee of the Austrian States, where bronze has been discovered.[601] The late epoch of the introduction of flax into this region excludes the hypothesis that the inhabitants of Switzerland received it from Eastern Europe, from which, moreover, they were separated by immense forests.

Since the ingenious observations of the Zürich _savant_, a flax has been discovered which was employed by the prehistoric inhabitants of the peat-mosses of Lagozza, in Lombardy; and Sordelli has shown that it was the same as that of Robenhausen, _L. angustifolium_.[602] This ancient people was ignorant of the use of hemp and of metals, but they possessed the same cereals as the Swiss lake-dwellers of the stone age, and ate like them the acorns of _Quercus robur_, var. _sessiliflora_. There was, therefore, a civilization which had reached a certain development on both sides of the Alps, before metals, even bronze, were in common use, and before hemp and the domestic fowl were known.[603] It was probably before the arrival of the Aryans in Europe, or soon after that event.[604]

The common names of the flax in ancient European languages may throw some light on this question.

The name _lin_, _llin_, _linu_, _linon_, _linum_, _lein_, _lan_, exists in all the European languages of Aryan origin of the centre and south of Europe, Keltic, Slavonic, Greek, or Latin. This name is, however, not common to the Aryan languages of India; consequently, as Pictet[605] justly says, the cultivation must have been begun by the western Aryans, and before their arrival in Europe. Another idea occurred to me which led me into further researches, but they were unproductive. I thought that, since this flax was cultivated by the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy before the arrival of the Aryan peoples, it was probably also grown by the Iberians, who then occupied Spain and Gaul; and perhaps some special name for it has remained among the Basques, the supposed descendants of the Iberians. Now, according to several dictionaries of their language,[606] _liho_, _lino_, or _li_, according to the dialects, signifies flax, which agrees with the name diffused throughout Southern Europe. The Basques seem, therefore, to have received flax from peoples of Aryan origin, or perhaps they have lost the ancient name and substituted that of the Kelts and Romans. The name _flachs_ or _flax_ of the Teutonic languages comes from the Old German _flahs_. There are also special names in the north-west of Europe—_pellawa_, _aiwina_, in Finnish;[607] _hor_, _härr_, _hor_, in Danish;[608] _hor_ and _tone_ in ancient Gothic.[609] _Haar_ exists in the German of Salzburg.[610] This word may be in the ordinary sense of the German for thread or hair, as the name _li_ may be connected with the same root as _ligare_, to bind, and as _hör_, in the plural _hörvar_, is connected by philologists[611] with _harva_, the German root for _Flachs_; but it is, nevertheless, a fact that in Scandinavian countries and in Finland terms have been used which differ from those employed throughout the south of Europe. This variety shows the antiquity of the cultivation, and agrees with the fact that the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy cultivated a species of flax before the first invasion of the Aryans. It is possible, I might even say probable, that the latter imported the name _li_ rather than the plant or its cultivation; but as there is no wild flax in the north of Europe, an ancient people, the Finns, of Turanian origin, introduced the flax into the north before the Aryans. In this case they must have cultivated the annual flax, for the perennial variety will not bear the severity of the northern winters; while we know how favourable the climate of Riga is in summer to the cultivation of the annual flax. Its first introduction into Gaul, Switzerland, and Italy may have been from the south, by the Iberians, and in Finland by the Finns; and the Aryans may have afterwards diffused those names which were commonest among themselves—that of _linum_ in the south, and of _flahs_ in the north. Perhaps the Aryans and Finns had brought the annual flax from Asia, which would soon have been substituted for the perennial variety, which is less productive and less adapted to cold countries. It is not known precisely at what epoch the cultivation of the annual flax in Italy took the place of that of the perennial _linum angustifolium_, but it must have been before the Christian era; for Latin authors speak of a well-established cultivation, and Pliny says that the flax was sown in spring and rooted up in the summer.[612] Metal implements were not then wanting, and therefore the flax would have been cut if it had been perennial. Moreover, the latter, if sown in spring, would not have ripened till autumn.

For the same reasons the flax cultivated by the ancient Egyptians must have been an annual. Hitherto neither entire plants nor a great number of capsules have been found in the catacombs of a nature to furnish direct and incontestable proof. Unger[613] alone was able to examine a capsule taken from the bricks of a monument, which Leipsius attributes to the thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ, and he found it more like those of _L. usitatissimum_ than of _L. angustifolium_. Out of three seeds which Braun[614] saw in the Berlin Museum, mixed with those of other cultivated plants, one appeared to him to belong to _L. angustifolium_, and the other to _L. humile_; but it must be owned that a single seed without plant or capsule is not sufficient proof. Ancient Egyptian paintings show that flax was not reaped with a sickle like cereals, but uprooted.[615] In Egypt flax is cultivated in the winter, for the summer drought would no more allow of a perennial variety, than the cold of northern countries, where it is sown in spring, to be gathered in summer. It may be added that the annual flax of the variety called _humile_ is the only one now grown in Abyssinia, and also the only one that modern collectors have seen in Egypt.[616]

Heer suggests that the ancient Egyptians may have cultivated _L. angustifolium_ of the Mediterranean region, sowing it as an annual plant.[617] I am more inclined to believe that they had previously imported or received their flax from Egypt, already in the form of the species _L. humile_. Their modes of cultivation, and the figures on the monuments, show that their knowledge of the plant dated from a remote antiquity. Now it is known that the Egyptians of the first dynasties before Cheops belonged to a proto-semitic race, which came into Egypt by the isthmus of Suez.[618] Flax has been found in a tomb of ancient Chaldea prior to the existence of Babylon,[619] and its use in this region is lost in the remotest antiquity. Thus the first Egyptians of white race may have imported the cultivated flax, or their immediate successors may have received it from Asia before the epoch of the Phœnician colonies in Greece, and before direct communication was established between Greece and Egypt under the fourteenth dynasty.[620]

A very early introduction of the plant into Egypt from Asia does not prevent us from admitting that it was at different times taken from the East to the West at a later epoch than that of the first Egyptian dynasties. Thus the western Aryans and the Phœnicians may have introduced into Europe a flax more advantageous than _L. angustifolium_ during the period from 2500 to 1200 years before our era.

The cultivation of the plant by the Aryans must have extended further north than that by the Phœnicians. In Greece, at the time of the Trojan war, fine linen stuffs were still imported from Colchis; that is to say, from that region at the foot of the Caucasus where the common annual flax has been found wild in modern times. It does not appear that the Greeks cultivated the plant at that epoch.[621] The Aryans had perhaps already introduced its cultivation into the valley of the Danube. However, I noticed just now that the lacustrine remains of Mondsee and Laybach show no trace of any flax. In the last centuries before the Christian era the Romans procured very fine linen from Spain, although the names of the plant in that country do not tend to show that the Phœnicians introduced it. There is not any Oriental name existing in Europe belonging either to antiquity or to the Middle Ages. The Arabic name _kattan_, _kettane_, or _kittane_, of Persian origin,[622] has spread westward only among the Kabyles of Algeria.[623]

The sum of facts and probabilities appear to me to lead to the following statements, which may be accepted until they are modified by further discoveries.

1. _Linum angustifolium_, usually perennial, rarely biennial or annual, which is found wild from the Canary Isles to Palestine and the Caucasus, was cultivated in Switzerland and the north of Italy by peoples more ancient than the conquerors of Aryan race. Its cultivation was replaced by that of the annual flax.

2. The annual flax (_L. usitatissimum_), cultivated for at least four thousand or five thousand years in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Egypt, was and still is wild in the districts included between the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea.

3. This annual flax appears to have been introduced into the north of Europe by the Finns (of Turanian race), afterwards into the rest of Europe by the western Aryans, and perhaps here and there by the Phœnicians; lastly into Hindustan by the eastern Aryans, after their separation from the European Aryans.

4. These two principal forms or conditions of flax exist in cultivation, and have probably been wild in their modern areas for the last five thousand years at least. It is not possible to guess at their previous condition. Their transitions and varieties are so numerous that they may be considered as one species comprising two or three hereditary varieties, which are each again divided into sub-varieties.

+Jute+—_Corchorus capsularis_ and _Corchorus olitorius_, Linnæus.

The fibres of the jute, imported in great quantities in the last few years, especially into England, are taken from the stem of these two species of Corchorus, annuals of the family of the Tiliaceæ. The leaves are also used as a vegetable.

_C. capsularis_ has a nearly spherical fruit, flattened at the top, and surrounded by longitudinal ridges. There is a good coloured illustration of it in the work of the younger Jacquin, _Eclogæ_, pl. 119. _C. olitorius_, on the contrary, has a long fruit, like the pod of a Crucifer. It is figured in the _Botanical Magazine_, fig. 2810, and in Lamarck, fig. 478.

The species of the genus are distributed nearly equally in the warm regions of Asia, Africa, and America; consequently the origin of each cannot be guessed. It must be sought in floras and herbaria, with the help of historical and other data.

_Corchorus capsularis_ is commonly cultivated in the Sunda Islands, in Ceylon, in the peninsula of Hindustan, in Bengal, in Southern China, in the Philippine Islands,[624] generally in Southern Asia. Forster does not mention it in his work on the plants in use among the inhabitants of the Pacific, whence it may be inferred that at the time of Cook’s voyages, a century ago, its cultivation had not spread in that direction. It may even be suspected from this fact that it does not date from a very remote epoch in the isles of the Indian Archipelago.

Blume says that _Corchorus capsularis_ grows in the marshes of Java near Parang,[625] and I have two specimens from Java which are not given as cultivated.[626] Thwaites mentions it as “very common” in Ceylon.[627]

On the continent of Asia, authors speak more of it as a plant cultivated in Bengal and China. Wight, who gives a good illustration of the plant, does not mention its native place. Edgeworth,[628] who has studied on the spot the flora of the district of Banda, says that it is found in “the fields.” In the _Flora of British India_, Masters, who drew up the article on the Tiliaceæ from the herbarium at Kew, says “in the hottest regions of India, cultivated in most tropical countries.”[629] I have a specimen from Bengal which is not given as cultivated. Loureiro says “wild, and cultivated in the province of Canton in China,”[630] which probably means wild in Cochin-China, and cultivated in Canton. In Japan the plant grows in cultivated soil.[631] In conclusion, I am not convinced that the species exists in a truly wild state north of Calcutta, although it may perhaps have spread from cultivation and have sown itself here and there.

_C. capsularis_ has been introduced into various parts of tropical Africa and even of America, but it is only cultivated on a large scale for the production of jute thread in Southern Asia, and especially in Bengal.

_C. olitorius_ is more used as a vegetable than for its fibres. Out of Asia it is employed exclusively for the leaves. It is one of the commonest of culinary plants among the modern Egyptians and Syrians, who call it in Arabic _melokych_, but it is not likely that they had any knowledge of it in ancient times, as we know of no Hebrew name.[632] The present inhabitants of Crete cultivate it under the name of _mouchlia_,[633] evidently derived from the Arabic, and the ancient Greeks were not acquainted with it.

According to several authors[634] this species of Corchorus is wild in several provinces of British India. Thwaites says it is common in the hot districts of Ceylon; but in Java, Blume only mentions it as growing among rubbish (_in ruderatis_). I cannot find it mentioned in Cochin-China or Japan. Boissier saw specimens from Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, Syria, and Anatolia, but gives as a general indication, “culta, et in ruderatis subspontanea.” No Sanskrit name for the two cultivated species of Corchorus is known.[635]

Touching the indigenous character of the plant in Africa, Masters, in Oliver’s _Flora of Tropical Africa_ (i. p. 262), says, “wild, or cultivated as a vegetable throughout tropical Africa.” He attributes to the same species two plants from Guinea which G. Don had described as different, and as to whose wild nature he probably knew nothing. I have a specimen from Kordofan gathered by Kotschy, No. 45, “on the borders of the fields of sorghum.” Peters, as far as I know, is the only author who asserts that the plant is wild. He found _C. olitorius_ “in dry places, and also in the meadows in the neighbourhood of Sena and Tette.” Schweinfurth only gives it as a cultivated plant in the whole Nile Valley.[636] This is also the case in the flora of Senegambia by Guillemin, Perrottet, and Richard.

To sum up, _C. olitorius_ seems to be wild in the moderately warm regions of Western India, of Kordofan, and probably of some intermediate countries. It must have spread from the coast of Timor, and as far as Northern Australia, into Africa and towards Anatolia, in the wake of a cultivation not perhaps of earlier date than the Christian era, even at its origin.

In spite of the assertions made in various works, the cultivation of this plant is rarely indicated in America. I note, however, on Grisebach’s authority,[637] that it has become naturalized in Jamaica from gardens, as often happens in the case of cultivated annuals.

+Sumach.+—_Rhus coriaria._

This tree is cultivated in Spain and Italy[638] for the young shoots and leaves, which are dried and made into a powder for tanning. I recently saw a plantation in Sicily, of which the product was exported to America. As oak-bark becomes more rare and substances for tanning are more in demand, it is probable that this cultivation will spread; all the more that it is suitable to sandy, sterile regions. In Algeria, Australia, at the Cape, and in the Argentine Republic, it might be introduced with advantage.[639] Ancient peoples used the slightly acid fruits as a seasoning, and the custom has lingered here and there; but I find no proof that they cultivated the species.

It grows wild in the Canaries and in Madeira, in the Mediterranean region and in the neighbourhood of the Black Sea, preferring dry and stony ground. In Asia its area extends as far as the south of the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and Persia.[640] The species is so common that it may have been in use before it was cultivated.

Sumach is the Persian and Tartar name;[641] _rous_, _rhus_, the ancient name among the Greeks and Romans.[642] A proof of the persistence of certain common names is found in the French “Currier’s _roux_ or _roure_.”

+Khât+, or +Arab Tea+—_Catha edulis_, Forskal; _Celastrus edulis_, Vahl.

This shrub, belonging to the family of the _Celastraceæ_, is largely cultivated in Abyssinia, under the name of _tchut_ or _tchat_, and in Arabia under that of _cat_ or _gat_. Its leaves are chewed, when green, like those of the coca in America, and they have the same exciting and strengthening properties. Those of uncultivated plants have a stronger taste, and are even intoxicating. Botta saw that in Yemen as much importance is attributed to the cultivation of the _Catha_ as to that of coffee, and he mentions that a sheik, who is obliged to receive many visits of ceremony, bought as much as a hundred francs’ worth of leaves a day.[643] In Abyssinia an infusion is also made from the leaves.[644] In spite of the eagerness with which stimulants are sought, this species has not spread into the adjoining countries, such as Beluchistan, Southern India, etc., where it might succeed.

The _Catha_ is wild in Abyssinia,[645] but has not yet been found wild in Arabia. It is true that the interior of the country is nearly unknown to botanists. It cannot be ascertained from Botta’s account whether the wild plants he mentions are wild and indigenous, or escaped from cultivation and more or less naturalized. Perhaps the _Catha_ was introduced from Abyssinia with the coffee plant, which likewise has not been discovered wild in Arabia.

+Maté+—_Ilex paraguariensis_, Saint-Hilaire.

The inhabitants of Brazil and of Paraguay have employed from time immemorial the leaves of this shrub, as the Chinese have those of the tea plant. They gather them especially in the damp forests of the interior, between the degrees of 20 and 30 south latitude, and commerce transports them dried to great distances throughout the greater part of South America. These leaves contain, with aroma and tannin, a principle analogous to that of tea and coffee; they are not, however, much liked in the countries where Chinese tea is known. The plantations of maté are not yet as important as the product of the wild shrub, but they may increase as the population increases. Moreover, the preparation is simpler than that of tea, as the leaves are not rolled.

Illustrations and descriptions of the species, with a number of details about its use and properties, may be found in the works of Saint-Hilaire, of Sir William Hooker, and of Martius.[646]

+Coca.+—_Erythroxylon Coca_, Lamarck.

The natives of Peru and of the neighbouring provinces, at least in the hot moist regions, cultivate this shrub, of which they chew the leaves, as the natives of India chew the leaves of the betel. It is a very ancient custom, which has spread even into elevated regions, where the species cannot live. Now that it is known how to extract the essential part of the coca, and its virtues are recognized as a tonic, which gives strength to endure fatigue without having the drawbacks of alcoholic liquors, it is probable that an attempt will be made to extend its cultivation in America and elsewhere. In Guiana, for instance, the Malay Archipelago, or the valleys of Sikkim and Assam, or in Hindustan, since both moisture and heat are requisite. Frost is very injurious to the species. The best sites are the slopes of hills where water cannot lie. An attempt made in the neighbourhood of Lima failed, because of the infrequency of rain and perhaps because of insufficient heat.[647]

I shall not repeat here what may be found in several excellent treatises on the coca;[648] I need only say that the original home of the species in America is not yet clearly ascertained. Gosse has shown that early authors, such as Joseph de Jussieu, Lamarck, and Cavanilles, had only seen cultivated specimens. Mathews gathered it in Peru, in the ravine (_quebrada_) of Chinchao,[649] which appears to be a place beyond the limits of cultivation. Some specimens from Cuchero, collected by Poeppig,[650] are said to be wild; but the traveller himself was not convinced of their wild nature.[651] D’Orbigny thinks he saw the wild coca on a hill in the eastern part of Bolivia.[652] Lastly, M. André has had the courtesy to send me the specimens of _Erythroxylon_ in his herbarium, and I recognized the coca in several specimens from the valley of the river Cauca in New Granada, with the note “in abundance, wild or half-wild.” Triana, however, does not admit that the species is wild in his country, New Granada.[653] Its extreme importance in Peru at the time of the Incas, compared to the rarity of its use in New Granada, seems to show that it has escaped from cultivation in places where it occurs in the latter country, and that the species is indigenous only in the east of Peru and Bolivia, according to the indications of the travellers mentioned above.

+Dyer’s Indigo.+—_Indigofera tinctoria_, Linnæus.

The Sanskrit name is _nili_.[654] The Latin name, _indicum_, shows that the Romans knew that the indigo was a substance brought from India. As to the wild nature of the plant, Roxburgh says, “Native place unknown, for, though it is now common in a wild state in most of the provinces of India, it is seldom found far from the districts where it is now cultivated, or has been cultivated formerly.” Wight and Royle, who have published illustrations of the species, tell us nothing on this head, and more recent Indian floras mention the plant as cultivated.[655] Several other indigoes are wild in India.

This species has been found in the sands of Senegal,[656] but it is not mentioned in other African localities, and as it is often cultivated in Senegal, it seems probable that it is naturalized. The existence of a Sanskrit name renders its Asiatic origin most probable.

+Silver Indigo+—_Indigofera argentea._

This species is certainly wild in Abyssinia, Nubia, Kordofan, and Senaar.[657] It is cultivated in Egypt and Arabia. Hence we might suppose that it was from this species that the ancient Egyptians extracted a blue dye;[658] but perhaps they imported their indigo from India, for its cultivation in Egypt is probably not of earlier date than the Middle Ages.[659]

A slightly different form, which Roxburgh gives as a separate species (_Indigofera cærulea_), and which appears rather to be a variety, is wild in the plains of the peninsula of Hindustan and of Beluchistan.

+American Indigoes.+

There are probably one or two indigoes indigenous in America, but ill defined, and often intermixed in cultivation with the species of the old world, and naturalized beyond the limits of cultivation. This interchange makes the matter too uncertain for me to venture upon any researches into their original habitat. Some authors have thought that _I. Anil_, Linnæus, was one of these species. Linnæus, however, says that his plant came from India (_Mantissa_, p. 273). The blue dye of the ancient Mexicans was extracted from a plant which, according to Hernandez’ account,[660] differs widely from the indigoes.

+Henna+—_Lawsonia alba_, Lamarck (_Lawsonia inermis_ and _L. spinosa_ of different authors).

The custom among Eastern women of staining their nails red with the juice of henna-leaves dates from a remote antiquity, as ancient Egyptian paintings and mummies show.

It is difficult to know when and in what country this species was first cultivated to fulfil the requirements of a fashion as absurd as it is persistent, but it may be from a very early epoch, since the inhabitants of Babylon, Nineveh, and the towns of Egypt had gardens. It may be left to scholars to show whether the practice of staining the nails began in Egypt under this or that dynasty, before or after certain relations were established with Eastern nations. It is enough for our purpose to know that _Lawsonia_, a shrub belonging to the order of the Lythraceæ, is more or less wild in the warm regions of Western Asia and of Africa to the north of the equator.

I have in my possession specimens from India, Java, Timor, even from China[661] and Nubia, which are not said to be taken from cultivated plants, and others from Guiana and the West Indies, which are doubtless furnished by the imported species. Stocks found it indigenous in Beluchistan.[662] Roxburgh also considered it to be wild on the Coromandel[663] coast, and Thwaites[664] mentions it in Ceylon in a manner which seems to show that it is wild there. Clarke[665] says, “very common, and cultivated in India, perhaps wild in the eastern part.” It is possible that it spread into India from its original home, as into Amboyna[666] in the seventeenth century, and perhaps more recently into the West Indies,[667] in the wake of cultivation; for the plant is valued for the scent of its flowers, as well as for the dye, and is easily propagated by seed. There is the same doubt as to whether it is indigenous in Persia, Arabia, and Egypt (an essentially cultivated country), in Nubia, and even in Guinea, where specimens have been gathered.[668] It is even possible that the area of this shrub extends from India to Nubia. Such a wide geographical distribution is, however, always somewhat rare. The common names may furnish some indication.

A Sanskrit name, _sakachera_,[669] is attributed to the species, but as it has left no trace in the different modern languages of India, I am inclined to doubt its reality. The Persian name _hanna_ is more widely diffused and retained than any other (_hina_ of the Hindus, _henneh_ and _alhenna_ of the Arabs, _kinna_ of the modern Greeks). That of _cypros_, used by the Syrians of the time of Dioscorides,[670] has not found so much favour. This fact supports the opinion that the species grew originally on the borders of Persia, and that its use as well as its cultivation spread from the East to the West, from Asia into Africa.

+Tobacco+—_Nicotiana Tabacum_, Linnæus; and other species of _Nicotiana_.

At the time of the discovery of America, the custom of smoking, of snuff-taking, or of chewing tobacco was diffused over the greater part of this vast continent. The accounts of the earliest travellers, of which the famous anatomist Tiedemann[671] has made a very complete collection, show that the inhabitants of South America did not smoke, but chewed tobacco or took snuff, except in the district of La Plata, Uruguay, and Paraguay, where no form of tobacco was used. In North America, from the Isthmus of Panama and the West Indies as far as Canada and California, the custom of smoking was universal, and circumstances show that it was also very ancient. Pipes, in great numbers and of wonderful workmanship, have been discovered in the tombs of the Aztecs in Mexico[672] and in the mounds of the United States; some of them represent animals foreign to North America.[673]

As the tobacco plant is an annual which gives a great quantity of seeds, it was easy to sow and to cultivate or naturalize them more or less in the neighbourhood of dwellings, but it must be noted that different species of the genus Nicotiana were employed in different parts of America, which shows that they had not all the same origin. _Nicotiana Tabacum_, commonly cultivated, was the most widely diffused, and sometimes the only one in use in South America and the West Indies. The use of tobacco was introduced into La Plata, Paraguay,[674] and Uruguay by the Spaniards, consequently we must look further to the north for the origin of the plant. De Martius does not think it was indigenous in Brazil,[675] and he adds that the ancient Brazilians smoked the leaves of a species belonging to their country known to botanists as _Nicotiana Langsdorfii_. When I went into the question in 1855,[676] I had not been able to discover any wild specimens of _Nicotiana Tabacum_ except those sent by Blanchet from the province of Bahia, numbered 3223, _a_. No author, either before or since that time, has been more fortunate, and I see that Messrs. Flückiger and Hanbury, in their excellent work on vegetable drugs,[677] say positively, “The common tobacco is a native of the new world, though not now known in a wild state.” I venture to gainsay this assertion, although the wild nature of a plant may always be disputed in the case of a plant which spreads so easily from cultivation.

We find in herbaria a number of specimens gathered in Peru without indication that they were cultivated or that they grew near plantations. Boissier’s herbarium contains two specimens collected by Pavon, from different localities.[678] Pavon says in his flora that the species grows in the moist warm forests of the Peruvian Andes, and that it is cultivated. But—and this is more significant—Edouard André gathered specimens in the republic of Ecquador at Saint Nicholas, on the western slope of the volcano of Corazon in a virgin forest. These he was kind enough to send me. They are evidently the tall variety (four to six feet) of _N. Tabacum_, with the upper leaves narrow and acuminate, as they are represented in the plates of Hayne and Miller.[679] The lower leaves are wanting. The flower, which gives the true characters of the species, is certainly that of _N. Tabacum_, and it is well known that the height of this plant and the breadth of the leaves vary in cultivation.[680] It is very possible that its original country extended north as far as Mexico, as far south as Bolivia, and eastward to Venezuela.

_Nicotiana rustica_, Linnæus, a species with yellow flowers, very different from _Tabacum_,[681] and which yields a coarse kind of tobacco, was more often cultivated by the Mexicans and the native tribes north of Mexico. I have a specimen brought from California by Douglas in 1837, a time when colonists were still few; but American authorities do not admit that the plant is wild, and Dr. Asa Gray says that it sows itself in waste places.[682] This was perhaps the case with the specimens in Boissier’s herbarium, gathered in Peru by Pavon, and which he does not mention in the Peruvian flora. The species grows in abundance about Cordova in the Argentine Republic,[683] but from what epoch is unknown. From the ancient use of the plant and the home of the most analogous species, the probabilities are in favour of a Mexican, Texan, or Californian origin.

Several botanists, even Americans, have believed that the species came from the old world. This is certainly a mistake, although the plant has spread here and there even into our forests, and sometimes in abundance,[684] having escaped from cultivation. Authors of the sixteenth century spoke of it as a foreign plant introduced into gardens and sometimes spreading from them.[685] It occurs in some herbaria under the names of _N. tartarica_, _turcica_, or _sibirica_; but these are garden-grown specimens, and no botanist has found the species in Asia, or on the borders of Asia, with any appearance of wildness.

This leads me to refute a widespread and more persistent error, in spite of what I proved in 1855, namely, that of regarding some species ill described from cultivated specimens as natives of the old world, of Asia in particular. The proofs of an American origin are so numerous and consistent that, without entering much into detail, I may sum them up as follows:—

_A._ Out of fifty species of the genus Nicotiana found in a wild state, two only are foreign to America; namely, _N. suavolens_ of New Holland, with which is joined _N. rotundifolia_ of the same country, and that which Ventinat had wrongly styled _N. undulata_; and _N. fragans_, Hooker, of the Isle of Pines, near New Caledonia, which differs very little from the preceding.

_B._ Though the Asiatic people are great lovers of tobacco, and have from a very early epoch sought the smoke of certain narcotic plants, none of them made use of tobacco before the discovery of America. Tiedemann has distinctly proved this fact by thorough researches into the writings of travellers in the Middle Ages.[686] He even quotes for a later epoch, not long after the discovery of America, between 1540 and 1603, the fact that several travellers, some of whom were botanists, such as Belon and Rauwolf, who travelled through the Turkish and Persian empires, observing their customs with much attention, have not once mentioned tobacco. It was evidently introduced into Turkey at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the Persians soon received it from the Turks. The first European who mentions the smoking of tobacco in Persia is Thomas Herbert, in 1626. No later travellers have omitted to notice the use of the hookah as well established. Olearius describes this apparatus, which he saw in 1633. The first mention of tobacco in India is in 1605,[687] and it is probable that it was of European introduction. It was first introduced at Arracan and Pegu, in 1619, according to the traveller Methold.[688] There are doubts about Java, because Rumphius, a very accurate observer, who wrote in the second half of the seventeenth century, says[689] that, according to the tradition of some old people, tobacco had been employed as a medicine before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1496, and that only the practice of smoking it had been communicated by the Europeans. Rumphius adds, it is true, that the name _tabaco_ or _tambuco_, which is in use in all these places, is of foreign origin. Sir Stamford Raffles,[690] in his numerous historical researches on Java, gives, on the other hand, the year 1601 as the date of the introduction of tobacco into Java. The Portuguese had certainly discovered the coasts of Brazil between 1500 and 1504, but Vasco di Gama and his successors went to Asia round the Cape, or through the Red Sea, so that they could hardly have established frequent or direct communications between America and Java. Nicot had seen the plant in Portugal in 1560, so that the Portuguese probably introduced it into Asia in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Thunberg affirms[691] that the use of tobacco was introduced into Japan by the Portuguese, and according to early travellers quoted by Tiedemann, this was at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Lastly, the Chinese have no original and ancient sign for tobacco; their paintings on china in the Dresden collection often present, from the year 1700 and never before that date, details relating to tobacco,[692] and Chinese students are agreed that Chinese works do not mention the plant before the end of the sixteenth century.[693] If it be remembered with what rapidity the use of tobacco has spread wherever it has been introduced, these data about Asia have an incontestable force.

_C_. The common names of tobacco confirm its American origin. If there had been any indigenous species in the old world there would be a great number of different names; but, on the contrary, the Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Indian, Persian, etc., names are derived from the American names, _petum_, or _tabak_, _tabok_, _tamboc_, slightly modified. It is true that Piddington gives Sanskrit names, _dhumrapatra_ and _tamrakouta_,[694] but Adolphe Pictet informs me that the first of these names, which is not in Wilson’s dictionary, means only leaf for smoking, and appears to be of modern composition; while the second is probably no older, and seems to be a modern modification of the American names. The Arabic word _docchan_ simply means smoke.[695]