3. Hard Wheat—Triticum durum, Desfontaines.

Long cultivated in Barbary, in the south of Switzerland and elsewhere, it has never been found wild. In the different provinces of Spain it has no less than fifteen names,1814 and none are derived from the Arab name quemah used in Algeria1815 and Egypt.1816 The absence of names in several other countries, especially of original names, is very striking. This is a further indication of a derivation from the common wheat obtained in Spain and the north of Africa at an unknown epoch, perhaps within the Christian era.

4. Polish Wheat—Triticum polonicum, Linnæus.

This other hard wheat, with yet longer grain, cultivated chiefly in the east of Europe, has not been found wild. It has an original name in German, Gäner, Gommer, Gümmer,1817 and in other languages names which are connected only with persons or with countries whence the seed was obtained. It cannot be doubted that it is a form obtained by cultivation, probably in the east of Europe, at an unknown, perhaps recent epoch.

Conclusion as to the Specific Unity of the Principal Races of Wheat.

We have just shown that the history and the vernacular names of the great races of wheat are in favour of a derivation contemporary with man, probably not very ancient, from the common kind of wheat, perhaps from the small-grained wheat formerly cultivated by the Egyptians, and by the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy. Alefeld1818 arrived at the specific unity of T. vulgare, T. turgidum, and T. durum, by means of an attentive observation of the three cultivated together, under the same conditions. The experiments of Henri Vilmorin1819 on the artificial fertilization of these wheats lead to the same result. Although the author has not yet seen the product of several generations, he has ascertained that the most distinct principal forms can be crossed with ease and produce fertile hybrids. If fertilization be taken as a measure of the intimate degree of affinity which leads to the grouping of individuals into the same species, we cannot hesitate in the case in question, especially with the support of the historical considerations which I have given.

On the supposed Mummy Wheat.

Before concluding this article, I think it pertinent to say that no grain taken from an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus and sown by horticulturists has ever been known to germinate. It is not that the thing is impossible, for grains are all the better preserved that they are protected from the air and from variations of temperature or humidity, and certainly these conditions are fulfilled by Egyptian monuments; but, as a matter of fact, the attempts at raising wheat from these ancient seeds have not been successful. The experiment which has been most talked of is that of the Count of Sternberg, at Prague.1820 He had received the grains from a trustworthy traveller, who assured him they were taken from a sarcophagus. Two of these seeds germinated, it is said, but I have ascertained that in Germany well-informed persons believe there is some imposture, either on the part of the Arabs, who sometimes slip modern seeds into the tombs (even maize, an American plant), or on that of the employés of the Count of Sternberg. The grain known in commerce as mummy wheat has never had any proof of antiquity of origin.

Spelt and Allied Varieties or Species.1821

Louis Vilmorin,1822 in imitation of Seringe’s excellent work on cereals,1823 has grouped together those wheats whose seeds when ripe are closely contained in their envelope or husk, necessitating a special operation to free them from it, a character rather agricultural than botanical. He then enumerates the forms of these wheats under three names, which correspond to as many species of most botanists.

1. Spelt—Triticum spelta, Linnæus.

Spelt is now hardly cultivated out of south Germany and German-Switzerland. This was not the case formerly. The descriptions of cereals by Greek authors are so brief and insignificant that there is always room for hesitation as to the sense of the words they use. Yet, judging from the customs of which they speak, scholars think1824 that the Greeks first called spelt olyra, afterwards zeia, names which we find in Herodotus and Homer. Dioscorides1825 distinguishes two sorts of zeia, which apparently answer to Triticum spelta and T. monococcum. It is believed that spelt was the semen (corn, par excellence) and the far of Pliny, which he said was used as food by the Latins for 360 years before they knew how to make bread.1826 As spelt has not been found among the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy, and as the former cultivated the allied varieties called T. dicoccum and T. monococcum,1827 it is possible that the far of the Latins was rather one of these.

The existence of the true spelt in ancient Egypt and the neighbouring countries seems to me yet more doubtful. The olyra of the Egyptians, of which Herodotus speaks, was not the olyra of the Greeks; some authors have supposed it to be rice, oryza.1828 As to spelt, it is a plant which is not grown in such hot countries. Modern travellers from Rauwolf onwards have not seen it in Egyptian cultivation,1829 nor has it been found in the ancient monuments. This is what led me to suppose1830 that the Hebrew word kussemeth, which occurs three times in the Bible,1831 ought not to be attributed to spelt, as it is by Hebrew scholars.1832 I imagined it was perhaps the allied form, T. monococcum, but neither is this grown in Egypt.

Spelt has no name in Sanskrit, nor in any modern Indian languages, nor in Persian,1833 and therefore, of course, none in Chinese. European names, on the contrary, are numerous, and bear witness to an ancient cultivation, especially in the east of Europe. Spelta in Saxon, whence the English name, and the French, épeautre; Dinkel in modern German, orkiss in Polish, pobla in Russian,1834 are names which seem to come from very different roots. In the south of Europe the names are rarer. There is a Spanish one, however, of Asturia, escandia,1835 but I know of none in Basque.

History, and especially philology, point to an origin in eastern temperate Europe and the neighbouring countries of Asia. We have to discover whether the plant has been found wild.

Olivier,1836 in a passage already quoted, says that he several times found it in Mesopotamia, in particular upon the right bank of the Euphrates, north of Anah, in places unfit for cultivation. Another botanist, André Michaux, saw it in 1783, near Hamadan, a town in the temperate region of Persia. Dureau de la Malle says that he sent some grains of it to Bosc, who sowed them at Paris and obtained the common spelt; but this seems to me doubtful, for Lamarck, in 1786,1837 and Bosc himself, in the Dictionnaire d’Agriculture, article Épeautre (spelt), published in 1809, says not a word of this. The herbariums of the Paris Museum contain no specimens of the cereals mentioned by Olivier.

There is, as we have seen, much uncertainty as to the origin of the species as a wild plant. This leads me to attribute more importance to the hypothesis that spelt is derived by cultivation from the common wheat, or from an intermediate form at some not very early prehistoric time. The experiments of H. Vilmorin1838 support this theory, for cross fertilizations of the spelt by the downy white wheat, and vice versâ, yield “hybrids whose fertility is complete, with a mixture of the characters of both parents, those of the spelt preponderating.”

2. Starch Wheat—Triticum dicoccum, Schrank; Triticum amyleum, Seringe.

This form (Emmer, or Aemer in German), cultivated for starch chiefly in Switzerland, resists a hard winter. It contains two grains in each little ear, like the true spelt.

Heer1839 attributes to a variety of T. dicoccum an ear found in a bad state of preservation in the lake-dwellings of Wangen, Switzerland. Messicommer has since found some at Robenhausen.

It has never been found wild; and the rarity of common names is remarkable. These two circumstances, and the slight value of the botanical characters which serve to distinguish it from Tr. spelta, lead to the conclusion that it is an ancient cultivated variety of the latter.

3. One-grained Wheat—Triticum monococcum, Linnæus.

The one-grained wheat, or little spelt, Einkorn in German, is distinguished from the two preceding by a single seed in the little ear, and by other characters which lead the majority of botanists to consider it as a really distinct species. The experiments of H. Vilmorin confirm this opinion so far, for he has not yet succeeded in crossing T. monococcum with other spelts or wheats. This may be due, as he says himself, to some detail in the manner of operating. He intends to renew his attempts, and may perhaps succeed. [In the Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France, 1883, p. 62, Mr. Vilmorin says that he has not met with better success in the third and fourth years in his attempts at crossing T. monococcum with other species. He intends to make the experiment with T. bœoticum, Boissier, wild in Servia, of which I sent him some seeds gathered by Pancic. As this species is supposed to be the original stock of T. monococcum, the experiment is an interesting one.—Author’s Note, 1884.] In the mean time let us see whether this form of spelt has been long in cultivation, and if it has anywhere been found growing wild.

The one-grained wheat thrives in the poorest and most stony soil. It is not very productive, but yields excellent meal. It is sown especially in mountainous districts, in Spain, France, and the east of Europe, but I do not find it mentioned in Barbary, Egypt, the East, or in India or China.

From some expressions it has been believed to be the tiphai of Theophrastus.1840 It is easier to invoke Dioscorides,1841 for he distinguishes two kinds of zeia, one with two seeds, another with only one. The latter would be the one-grained wheat. Nothing proves that it was commonly cultivated by the Greeks and Romans. Their modern descendants do not sow it.1842 There are no Sanskrit, Persian, or Arabic names. I suggested formerly that the Hebrew word kussemeth might apply to this species, but this hypothesis now seems to me difficult to maintain.

Marschall Bieberstein1843 mentions Triticum monococcum, or a variety of it, growing wild in the Crimea and the eastern Caucasus, but no botanist has confirmed this assertion. Steven,1844 who lived in the Crimea, declares that he never saw the species except cultivated by the Tartars. On the other hand, the plant which Balansa gathered in a wild state near Mount Sipylus, in Anatolia, is T. monococcum, according to J. Gay,1845 who takes with this form Triticum bœoticum, Boissier, which grows wild in the plains of Bœotia1846 and in Servia.1847

Admitting these facts, T. monococcum is a native of Servia, Greece, and Asia Minor, and as the attempts to cross it with other spelts or wheats have not been successful, it is rightly termed a species in the Linnæan sense.

The separation of wheat with free grains from spelt must have taken place before all history, perhaps before the beginning of agriculture. Wheat must have appeared first in Asia, and then spelt, probably in Eastern Europe and Anatolia. Lastly, among spelts T. monococcum seems to be the most ancient form, from which the others have gradually developed in several thousand years of cultivation and selection.

Two-rowed Barley—Hordeum distichon, Linnæus.

Barley is among the most ancient of cultivated plants. As all its forms resemble each other in nature and uses, we must not expect to find in ancient authors and in common names that precision which would enable us to recognize the species admitted by botanists. In many cases the name barley has been taken in a vague or generic sense. This is a difficulty which we must take into account. For instance, the expression of the Old Testament, of Berosus, of Moses of Chorene, Pausanias, Marco Polo, and more recently of Olivier, indicating “wild and cultivated barley” in a given country, prove nothing, because we do not know to which species they refer. There is the same obscurity in China. Dr. Bretschneider says1848 that, according to a work published in the year A.D. 100, the Chinese cultivated barley, but he does not specify the kind. At the extreme west of the old world the Guanchos also cultivated a barley, of which we know the name but not the species.

The common variety of the two-rowed barley, in which the husk remains attached to the ripened grain, has been found wild in Western Asia, in Arabia Petrea,1849 near Mount Sinai,1850 in the ruins of Persepolis,1851 near the Caspian Sea,1852 between Lenkoran and Baku, in the desert of Chirvan and Awhasia, to the south of the Caucasus,1853 and in Turcomania.1854 No author mentions it in Greece, Egypt, or to the east of Persia. Willdenow1855 indicates it at Samara, in the south-east of Russia; but more recent authors do not confirm this. Its modern area is, therefore, from the Red Sea to the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea.

Hence this barley should be one of the forms cultivated by Semitic and Turanian peoples. Yet it has not been found in Egyptian monuments. It seems that the Aryans must have known it, but I find no proof in vernacular names or in history.

Theophrastus1856 speaks of the two-rowed barley. The lake-dwellers of Eastern Switzerland cultivated it before they possessed metals,1857 but the six-rowed barley was more common among them.

The variety in which the grain is bare at maturity (H. distichon nudum, Linnæus), which in France has all sorts of absurd names, orge à café, orge du Pérou (coffee barley, Peruvian barley), has never been found wild.

The fan-shaped barley (Hordeum Zeocriton, Linnæus) seems to me to be a cultivated form of the two-rowed barley. It is not known in a wild state, nor has it been found in Egyptian monuments, nor the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, and Italy.

Common Barley—Hordeum vulgare, Linnæus.

The common barley with four rows of grain is mentioned by Theophrastus,1858 but it seems to have been less cultivated in antiquity than that with two rows, and considerably less than that with six rows. It has not been found in Egyptian monuments, nor in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, and Italy.

Willdenow1859 says that it grows in Sicily and in the south-east of Russia, at Samara, but the modern floras of these two countries do not confirm this. We do not know what species of barley it was that Olivier saw growing wild in Mesopotamia; consequently the common barley has not yet been found certainly wild.

The multitude of common names which are attributed to it prove nothing as to its origin, for in most cases it is impossible to know if they are names of barley in general, or of a particular kind of barley cultivated in a given country.

Six-rowed Barley—Hordeum hexastichon, Linnæus.

This was the species most commonly cultivated in antiquity. Not only is it mentioned by Greek authors, but it has also been found in the earliest Egyptian monuments,1860 and in the remains of the lake-dwellings of Switzerland (age of stone), of Italy, and of Savoy (age of bronze).1861 Heer has even distinguished two varieties of the species formerly cultivated in Switzerland. One of them answers to the six-rowed barley represented on the medals of Metapontis, a town in the south of Italy, six centuries before Christ.

According to Roxburgh,1862 it was the only kind of barley grown in India at the end of the last century. He attributes to it the Sanskrit name yuva, which has become juba in Bengali. Adolphe Pictet1863 has carefully studied the names in Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages which answer to the generic name barley, but he has not been able to go into the details of each species.

The six-rowed barley has not been seen in the conditions of a wild plant, of which the species has been determined by a botanist. I have not found it in Boissier’s herbarium, which is so rich in Eastern plants. It is possible that the wild barleys mentioned by ancient authors and by Olivier were Hordeum hexastichon, but there is no proof of this.

On Barleys in general.

We have seen that the only form which is now found wild is the simplest, the least productive, Hordeum distichon, which was, like H. hexastichon, cultivated in prehistoric time. Perhaps H. vulgare has not been so long in cultivation as the two others.

Two hypotheses may be drawn from these facts: 1. That the barleys with four and six rows were, in prehistoric agriculture anterior to that of the ancient Egyptians who built the monuments, derived from H. distichon. 2. The barleys with six and four ranks were species formerly wild, extinct since the historical epoch. It would be strange in this case that no trace of them has remained in the floras of the vast region comprised between India, the Black Sea, and Abyssinia, where we are nearly sure of their cultivation, at least of that of the six-ranked barley.

Rye—Secale cereale, Linnæus.

Rye has not been very long in cultivation, unless, perhaps, in Russia and Thrace. It has not been found in Egyptian monuments, and has no name in Semitic languages, even in the modern ones, nor in Sanskrit and the modern Indian languages derived from Sanskrit. These facts agree with the circumstance that rye thrives better in northern than in southern countries, where it is not usually cultivated in modern times. Dr. Bretschneider1864 thinks it is unknown to Chinese agriculture. He doubts the contrary assertion of a modern writer, and remarks that the name of a cereal mentioned in the memoirs of the Emperor Kanghi, which may be supposed to be this species, signifies Russian wheat. Now rye, he says, is much cultivated in Siberia. There is no mention of it in Japanese floras.

The ancient Greeks did not know it. The first author who mentions it in the Roman empire is Pliny,1865 who speaks of the secale cultivated at Turin at the foot of the Alps, under the name of Asia. Galen,1866 born in A.D. 131, had seen it cultivated in Thrace and Macedonia under the name briza. Its cultivation does not seem ancient, at least in Italy, for no trace of rye has been found in the remains of the lake-dwellings of the north of that country, or of Switzerland and Savoy, even of the age of bronze. Jetteles found remains of rye near Olmutz, together with instruments of bronze, and Heer,1867 who saw the specimens, mentions others of the Roman epoch in Switzerland.

Failing archæological proofs, European languages show an early knowledge of rye in German, Keltic, and Slavonic countries. The principal names, according to Adolphe Pictet,1868 belong to the peoples of the north of Europe: Anglo-Saxon, ryge, rig; Scandinavian, rûgr; Old High German, roggo; Ancient Slav, ruji, roji; Polish, rez; Illyrian, raz, etc. The origin of this name must date, he says, from an epoch previous to the separation of the Teutons from the Lithuano-Slavs. The word secale of the Latins recurs in a similar form among the Bretons, segal, and the Basques, cekela, zekhalea; but it is not known whether the Latins borrowed it from the Gauls and Iberians, or whether, conversely, the latter took the name from the Romans. This second hypothesis appears to be the more probable of the two, since the Cisalpine Gauls of Pliny’s time had quite a different name. I also find mentioned a Tartar name, aresch,1869 and an Ossete name, syl, sil,1870 which points to an ancient cultivation to the east of Europe.

Thus historical and philological data show that the species probably had its origin in the countries north of the Danube, and that its cultivation is hardly earlier than the Christian era in the Roman empire, but perhaps more ancient in Russia and Tartary.

The indication of wild rye given by several authors should scarcely ever be accepted, for it has often happened that Secale cereale has been confounded with perennial species, or with others of which the ear is easily broken, which modern botanists have rightly distinguished.1871 Many mistakes which thus arose have been cleared up by an examination of original specimens. Others may be suspected. Thus I do not know what to think of the assertions of L. Ross, who said he had found rye growing wild in several parts of Anatolia,1872 and of the Russian traveller Ssaewerzoff, who said he saw it in Turkestan.1873 The latter fact is probable enough, but it is not said that any botanist verified the species. Kunth1874 had previously mentioned it in “the desert between the Black Sea and the Caspian,” but he does not say on what authority of traveller or of specimens. Boissier’s herbarium has shown me no wild Secale cereale, but it has persuaded me that another species of rye might easily be mistaken for this one, and that assertions require to be carefully verified.

Failing satisfactory proofs of wild plants, I formerly urged, in my Géographie Botanique Raisonnée, an argument of some value. Secale cereale sows itself from cultivation, and becomes almost wild in parts of the Austrian empire,1875 which is seldom seen elsewhere.1876 Thus in the east of Europe, where history points to an ancient cultivation, rye finds at the present day the most favourable conditions for living without the aid of man. It can hardly be doubted, from these facts, that its original area was in the region comprised between the Austrian Alps and the north of the Caspian Sea. This seems the more probable that the five or six known species of the genus Secale inhabit western temperate Asia or the south-east of Europe.

Admitting this origin, the Aryan natives would not have known the species, as philology already shows us; but in their migrations westward they must have met with it under different names, which they transported here and there.

Common Oats and Eastern Oats—Avena sativa, Linnæus; Avena orientalis, Schreber.

The ancient Egyptians and the Hebrews did not cultivate oats, but they are now grown in Egypt.1877 There is no Sanskrit name, nor any in modern Indian languages. They are only now and then planted by the English in India for their horses.1878 The earliest mention of oats in China is in an historical work on the period 618 to 907 A.D.; it refers to the variety known to botanists as Avena sativa nuda.1879 The ancient Greeks knew the genus very well; they called it bromos,1880 as the Latins called it avena; but these names were commonly applied to species which are not cultivated, and which are weeds mixed with cereals. There is no proof that they cultivated the common oats. Pliny’s remark1881 that the Germans lived on oatmeal, implies that the species was not cultivated by the Romans.

The cultivation of oats was, therefore, practised anciently to the north of Italy and of Greece. It was diffused later and partially in the south of the Roman empire. It is possible that it was more ancient in Asia Minor, for Galen1882 says that oats were abundant in Mysia, above Pergamus; that they were given to horses, and that men used them for food in years of scarcity. A colony of Gauls had formerly penetrated into Asia Minor. Oats have been found among the remains of the Swiss lake-dwellings of the age of bronze,1883 and in Germany, near Wittenburg, in several tombs of the first centuries of the Christian era, or a little earlier.1884 Hitherto none have been found in the lake-dwellings of the north of Italy, which confirms the belief that oats were not cultivated in Italy in the time of the Roman republic.

The vernacular names also prove an ancient existence north and west of the Alps, and on the borders of Europe towards Tartary and the Caucasus. The most widely diffused of these names is indicated by the Latin avena, Ancient Slav ovisu, ovesu, ovsa, Russian ovesu, Lithuanian awiza, Lettonian ausas, Ostias abis.1885 The English word oats comes, according to A. Pictet, from the Anglo-Saxon ata or ate. The Basque name, olba or oloa,1886 argues a very ancient Iberian cultivation.

The Keltic names are quite different:1887 Irish coirce, cuirce, corca, Armorican kerch. Tartar sulu, Georgian kari, Hungarian zab, Croat zob, Esthonian kaer, and others are mentioned by Nemnich1888 as applying to the generic name oats, but it is not likely that names so varied do not belong to a cultivated species. It is strange that there should be an independent Berber name zekkoum,1889 as there is nothing to show that the species was anciently cultivated in Africa.

All these facts show how erroneous is the opinion which reigned in the last century,1890 that oats were brought originally from the island of Juan Fernandez, a belief which came apparently from an assertion of the navigator Anson.1891 It is evidently not in the Austral hemisphere that we must seek for the home of the species, but in those countries of the northern hemisphere where it was anciently cultivated.

Oats sow themselves on rubbish-heaps, by the wayside, and near cultivated ground more easily than other cereals, and sometimes persist in such a way as to appear wild. This has been observed in widely separate places, as Algeria and Japan, Paris and the north of China.1892 Instances of this nature render us sceptical as to the wild nature of the oats which Bové said he found in the desert of Sinai. It has also been said1893 that the traveller Olivier saw oats wild in Persia, but he does not mention the fact in his work. Besides, several annual species nearly resembling oats may deceive the traveller. I cannot discover either in books or herbaria the existence of really wild oats either in Europe or Asia, and Bentham has assured me that there are no such specimens in the herbarium at Kew; but certainly the half-wild or naturalized condition is more frequent in the Austrian states from Dalmatia to Transylvania1894 than elsewhere. This is an indication of origin which may be added to the historical and philological arguments in favour of eastern temperate Europe.

Avena strigosa, Schreber, appears to be a variety of the common oats, judging from the experiments in cultivation mentioned by Bentham, who adds, it is true, that these need confirmation.1895 There is a good drawing of the variety in Host, Icones Graminum Austriacorum, ii. pl. 56, which may be compared with A. sativa, pl. 59. For the rest, Avena strigosa has not been found wild. It exists in Europe in deserted fields, which confirms the hypothesis that it is a form derived by cultivation.

Avena orientalis, Schreber, of which the spikelets lean all to one side, has also been grown in Europe from the end of the eighteenth century. It is not known in a wild state. Often mixed with common oats, it is not to be distinguished from them at a glance. The names it bears in Germany, Turkish or Hungarian oats, points to a modern introduction from the East. Host gives a good drawing of it (Gram. Austr., i. pl. 44).

As all the varieties of oats are cultivated, and none have been discovered in a truly wild state, it is very probable that they are all derived from a single prehistoric form, a native of eastern temperate Europe and of Tartary.

Common Millet—Panicum miliaceum, Linnæus.

The cultivation of this plant is prehistoric in the south of Europe, in Egypt, and in Asia. The Greeks knew it by the name kegchros, and the Latins by that of milium.1896 The Swiss lake-dwellers of the age of stone made great use of millet,1897 and it has also been found in the remains of the lake-dwellings of Varese in Italy.1898 As we do not elsewhere find specimens of these early times, it is impossible to know what was the panicum or the sorghum mentioned by Latin authors which was used as food by the inhabitants of Gaul, Panonia, and other countries. Unger1899 counts P. miliaceum among the species of ancient Egypt, but it does not appear that he had positive proof of this, for he has mentioned no monument, drawing, or seed found in the tombs. Nor is there any material proof of ancient cultivation in Mesopotamia, India, and China. For the last-named country it is a question whether the shu, one of the five cereals sown by the emperors in the great yearly ceremony, is Panicum miliaceum, an allied species, or sorghum; but it appears that the sense of the word shu has changed, and that formerly it was perhaps sorghum which was sown.1900

Anglo-Indian botanists1901 attribute two Sanskrit names to the modern species, ûnû and vreehib-heda, although the modern Hindu and Bengali name cheena and the Telinga name worga are quite different. If the Sanskrit names are genuine, they indicate an ancient cultivation in India. No Hebrew nor Berber name is known,1902 but there are Arab names, dokhn, used in Egypt, and kosjæjb in Arabia.1903 There are various European names. Besides the Greek and Latin words, there is an ancient Slav name, proso,1904 retained in Russia and Poland, an old German word hirsi, and a Lithuanian name sora.1905[P2 Corrected type at P1] The absence of Keltic names is remarkable. It appears that the species was cultivated especially in Eastern Europe, and spread westward towards the end of the Gallic dominion.

With regard to its wild existence, Linnæus says1906 that it inhabits India, and most authors repeat this; but Anglo-Indian botanists1907 always give it as cultivated. It is not found in Japanese floras. In the north of China de Bunge only saw it cultivated,1908 and Maximowicz near the Ussuri, on the borders of fields and in places near Chinese dwellings.1909 Ledebour says1910 it is nearly wild in Altaic Siberia and Central Russia, and wild south of the Caucasus and in the country of Talysch. He quotes Hohenacker for the last-named locality, who, however, says only “nearly wild.”1911 In the Crimea, where it furnishes bread for the Tartars, it is found here and there nearly wild,1912 which is also the case in the south of France, in Italy, and in Austria.1913 It is not wild in Greece,1914 and no one has found it in Persia or in Syria. Forskal and Delile indicated it in Egypt, but Ascherson does not admit this;1915 and Forskal gives it in Arabia.1916 The species may have become naturalized in these regions, as the result of frequent cultivation from the time of the ancient Egyptians. However, its wild nature is so doubtful elsewhere, that its Egypto-Arabian origin is very probable.

Italian Millet—Panicum Italicum, Linnæus; Setaria Italica, Beauvois.

The cultivation of this species was very common in the temperate parts of the old world in prehistoric times. Its seeds served as food for man, though now they are chiefly given to birds.

In China it is one of the five plants which the emperor sows each year in a public ceremony, according to the command issued by Chin-nong 2700 B.C.1917 The common name is siao mi (little seed), the more ancient name being ku; but the latter seems to be applied also to a very different species.1918 Pickering says he recognized it in two ancient Egyptian drawings, and that it is now cultivated in Egypt1919 under the name dokhn; but that is the name of Panicum miliaceum. It is, therefore, very doubtful that the ancient Egyptians cultivated it. It has been found among the remains of the Swiss lake-dwellings of the stone epoch, and therefore à fortiori among the lake-dwellers of the subsequent epoch in Savoy.1920

The ancient Greeks and Latins did not mention it, or at least it has not been possible to certify it from what they say of several panicums and millets. In our own day the species is rarely cultivated in the south of Europe, not at all in Greece,1921 for instance, and I do not find it indicated in Egypt, but it is common in Southern Asia.1922

The Sanskrit names kungû and priyungû, of which the first is retained in Bengali,1923 are attributed to this species. Piddington mentions several other names in Indian languages in his Index. Ainslie1924 gives a Persian name, arzun, and an Arabic name; but the latter is commonly attributed to Panicum miliaceum. There is no Hebrew name, and the plant is not mentioned in botanical works upon Egypt and Arabia. The European names have no historical value. They are not original, and commonly refer to the transmission of the species or to its cultivation in a given country. The specific name, italicum, is an absurd example, the plant being rarely cultivated and never wild in Italy.

Rumphius says it is wild in the Sunda Isles, but not very positively.1925 Linnæus probably started from this basis to exaggerate and even promulgate an error, saying, “inhabits the Indies.”1926 It certainly does not come from the West Indies; and further, Roxburgh asserts that he never saw it wild in India. The Graminæ have not yet appeared in Sir Joseph Hookers flora; but Aitchison1927 gives the species as only cultivated in the northwest of India. The Australian plant which Robert Brown said belonged to this species belongs to another.1928 P. italicum appears to be wild in Japan, at least in the form called germanica by different authors,1929 and the Chinese consider the five cereals of the annual ceremony to be natives of their country. Yet Bunge, in the north of China, and Maximowicz in the basin of the river Amur, only saw the species cultivated on a large scale, in the form of the germanica variety.1930 In Persia,1931 the Caucasus Mountains, and Europe, I only find in floras the plant indicated as cultivated, or escaped sometimes from cultivation on rubbish-heaps, waysides, waste ground, etc.1932

The sum of the historical, philological, and botanical data make me think that the species existed before all cultivation, thousands of years ago in China, Japan, and in the Indian Archipelago. Its cultivation must have early spread towards the West, since we know of Sanskrit names, but it does not seem to have been known in Syria, Arabia, and Greece, and it is probably through Russia and Austria that it early arrived among the lake-dwellers of the stone age in Switzerland.

Common Sorghum—Holcus sorghum, Linnæus; Andropogon sorghum, Brotero; Sorghum vulgare, Persoon.

Botanists are not agreed as to the distinction of several of the species of sorghum, and even as to the genera into which this group of the Graminæ should be divided. A good monograph on the sorghums is needed, as in the case of the panicums. In the mean time I will give some information on the principal species, because of their immense importance as food for man, rearing of poultry, and as fodder for cattle.

We may take as a typical species the sorghum cultivated in Europe, as it is figured by Host in his Graminœ Austriacœ (iv. pi. 2). It is one of the plants most commonly cultivated by the modern Egyptians, under the name of dourra, and also in equatorial Africa, India, and China.1933 It is so productive in hot countries that it is a staple food of immense populations in the old world.

Linnæus and all authors, even our contemporaries, say that it is of Indian origin; but in the first edition of Roxburgh’s flora, published in 1820, this botanist, who should have been consulted, asserts that he had only seen it cultivated. He makes the same remark for the allied forms (bicolor, saccharatus, etc.), which are often regarded as mere varieties. Aitchison also had only seen the sorghum cultivated. The absence of a Sanskrit name also renders the Indian origin very doubtful. Bretschneider, on the other hand, says the sorghum is indigenous in China, although he says that ancient Chinese authors have not spoken of it. It is true that he quotes a name, common at Pekin, kao-liang (tall millet), which also applies to Holcus saccharatus, and to which it is better suited.

The sorghum has not been found among the remains of the lake-dwellings of Switzerland and Italy. The Greeks never spoke of it. Pliny’s phrase1934 about a milium introduced into Italy from India in his time has been supposed to refer to the sorghum; but it was a taller plant, perhaps Holcus saccharatus. The sorghum has not been found in a natural state in the tombs of ancient Egypt. Dr. Hannerd thought he recognized it in some crushed seeds brought by Rosellini from Thebes;1935 but Mr. Birch, the keeper of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum, has more recently declared that the species has not been found in the ancient tombs.1936 Pickering says he recognized its leaves mixed with those of the papyrus. He says he also saw paintings of it; and Leipsius has copies of drawings which he, as well as Unger and Wilkinson, takes to be the dourra of modern cultivation.1937 The height and the form of the ear are undoubtedly those of the sorghum. It is possible that this species is the dochan, once mentioned in the Old Testament1938 as a cereal from which bread was made; yet the modern Arabic word dokhn refers to the sweet sorghum.

Common names tell us nothing, either from their lack of meaning, or because in many cases the same name has been applied to the different kinds of panicum and sorghum. I can find none which is certain in the ancient languages of India or Western Asia, which argues an introduction of but few centuries before the Christian era.

No botanist mentions the dourra as wild in Egypt or in Arabia. An analogous form is wild in equatorial Africa, but R. Brown has not been able to identify it,1939 and the flora of tropical Africa in course of publication at Kew has not yet reached the order Graminæ. There remains, therefore, the single assertion of Dr. Bretschneider, that the tall sorghum is indigenous in China. If it is really the species in question, it spread westward very late. But it was known to the ancient Egyptians, and how could they have received it from China while it remained unknown to the intermediate peoples? It is easier to understand that it is indigenous in tropical Africa, and was introduced into Egypt in prehistoric time, afterwards into India, and finally into China, where its cultivation does not seem to be very ancient, for the first work which mentions it belongs to the fourth century of our era.

In support of the theory of African origin, I may quote the observation of Schmidt,1940 that the species abounds in the island of San Antonio, in the Cape Verde group, in rocky places. He believes it to be “completely naturalized,” which perhaps conceals a true origin.

Sweet Sorghum—Holcus saccharatus, Linnæus; Andropogon saccharatus, Roxburgh; Sorghum saccharatum, Persoon.

This species, taller than the common sorghum and with a loose panicle,1941 is cultivated in tropical countries for the seed—which, however, is not so good as that of the common sorghum—and in less hot countries as fodder, or even for the sugar which the stem contains in considerable quantities. The Chinese extract a spirit from it, but not sugar.

The opinion of botanists and of the public in general is that it comes from India; but Roxburgh says that it is only cultivated in that country. It is the same in the Sunda Isles, where the battari is certainly this species. It is the kao-liang, or great millet of the Chinese. It is not said to be indigenous in China, nor is it mentioned by Chinese authors who lived before the Christian era.1942 From these facts, and the absence of any Sanskrit name, the Asiatic origin seems to me a delusion.

The plant is now cultivated in Egypt less than the common sorghum, and in Arabia under the name dokhna or dokhn.1943 No botanist has seen it wild in these countries. There is no proof that the ancient Egyptians cultivated it. Herodotus1944 spoke of a “tree-millet” in the plains of Assyria. It might be the species in question, but it is not possible to prove it.

The Greeks and Romans were not acquainted with it, not at least before the Roman empire, but it is possible that this was the millet, seven feet high, which Pliny mentions1945 as having been introduced from India in his lifetime.

We must probably seek its origin in tropical Africa, where the species is generally cultivated. Sir William Hooker1946 mentions specimens from the banks of the river Nun, which were perhaps wild. The approaching publication of the Graminæ in the flora of tropical Africa will probably throw some light on this question. The spread of its cultivation from the interior of Africa to Egypt after the Pharaohs, to Arabia, the Indian Archipelago, and, after the epoch of Sanskrit, to India, lastly to China, towards the beginning of our era, tallies with historical data, and is not difficult to admit. The inverse hypothesis of a transmission from east to west presents a number of objections.

Several varieties of sorghum are cultivated in Asia and in Africa; for instance, cernuus with drooping panicles, mentioned by Roxburgh, and which Prosper Alpin had seen in Egypt; bicolor, which in height resembles the saccharatus; and niger and rubens, which also seem to be varieties of cultivation. None of these has been found wild, and it is probable that a monograph would connect them with one or other of the above-mentioned species.

Coracan—Eleusine coracana, Gærtner.

This annual grass, which resembles the millets, is cultivated especially in India and the Malay Archipelago. It is also grown in Egypt1947 and in Abyssinia;1948 but the silence of many botanists, who have mentioned the plants of the interior and west of Africa, shows that its cultivation is not widely spread on that continent. In Japan1949 it sometimes escapes from cultivation. The seeds will ripen in the south of Europe, but the plant is valueless there except as fodder.1950

No author mentions having found it in a wild state in Asia or in Africa. Roxburgh,1951 who is attentive to such matters, after speaking of its cultivation, adds, “I never saw it wild.” He distinguishes under the name Eleusine stricta a form even more commonly cultivated in India, which appears to be simply a variety of E. coracana, and which also he has not found uncultivated.

We shall discover its country by other means.

In the first place, the species of the genus Eleusine are more numerous in the south of Asia than in other tropical regions. Besides the cultivated plant, Royle1952 mentions other species, of which the poorer natives of India gather the seeds in the plains. According to Piddington’s Index, there is a Sanskrit name, rajika, and several other names in the modern languages of India. That of coracana comes from an old name used in Ceylon, kourakhan.1953 In the Malay Archipelago the names appear less numerous and less original.

In Egypt the cultivation of this species is perhaps not very ancient. The monuments of antiquity bear no trace of it. Græco-Roman authors who knew the country did not speak of it, nor later Prosper Alpin, Forskal, and Delile. We must refer to a modern work, that of Schweinfurth and Ascherson, to find mention of the species, and I cannot even discover an Arab name.1954 Thus botany, history, and philology point to an Indian origin. The flora of British India, in which the Graminæ have not yet appeared, will perhaps tell us the plant has been found wild in recent explorations.

A nearly allied species is grown in Abyssinia, Eleusine Tocussa, Fresenius,1955 a plant very little known, which is perhaps a native of Africa.

Rice—Oryza sativa, Linnæus.

In the ceremony instituted by the Chinese Emperor Chin-nong, 2800 years B.C., rice plays the principal part. The reigning emperor must himself sow it, whereas the four other species are or may be sown by the princes of his family.1956 The five species are considered by the Chinese as indigenous, and it must be admitted that this is probably the case with rice, which is in general use, and has been so for a long time; in a country intersected by canals and rivers, and hence peculiarly favourable to aquatic plants. Botanists have not sufficiently studied Chinese plants for us to know whether rice is often found outside cultivated ground; but Loureiro1957 had seen it in marshes in Cochin-China.

Rumphius and modern writers upon the Malay Archipelago give it only as a cultivated plant. The multitude of names and varieties points to a very ancient cultivation. In British India it dates at least from the Aryan invasion, for rice has Sanskrit names, vrihi, arunya1958 whence come, probably, several names in modern Indian languages, and oruza or oruzon of the ancient Greeks, rouz or arous of the Arabs. Theophrastus1959 mentioned rice as cultivated in India. The Greeks became acquainted with it through Alexander’s expedition. “According to Aristobulus,” says Strabo,1960 “rice grows in Bactriana, Babylonia, Susida;” and he adds, “we may also add in Lower Syria.” Further on he notes that the Indians use it for food, and extract a spirit from it. These assertions, doubtful perhaps for Bactriana, show that this cultivation was firmly established, at least, from the time of Alexander (400 B.C.), in the Euphrates valley, and from the beginning of our era in the hot and irrigated districts of Syria. The Old Testament does not mention rice, but a careful and judicious writer, Reynier,1961 has remarked several passages in the Talmud which relate to its cultivation. These facts lead us to suppose that the Indians employed rice after the Chinese, and that it spread still later towards the Euphrates—earlier, however, than the Aryan invasion into India. A thousand years elapsed between the existence of this cultivation in Babylonia and its transportation into Syria, whence its introduction into Egypt after an interval of probably two or three centuries. There is no trace of rice among the grains or paintings of ancient Egypt.1962 Strabo, who had visited this country as well as Syria, does not say that rice was cultivated in Egypt in his time, but that the Garamantes1963 grew it, and this people is believed to have inhabited an oasis to the south of Carthage. It is possible that they received it from Syria. At all events, Egypt could not long fail to possess a crop so well suited to its peculiar conditions of irrigation. The Arabs introduced the species into Spain, as we see from the Spanish name arroz. Rice was first cultivated in Italy in 1468, near Pisa.1964 It is of recent introduction into Louisiana.

When I said that the cultivation of rice in India was probably more recent than in China, I did not mean that the plant was not wild there. It belongs to a family of which the species cover wide areas, and, besides, aquatic plants have commonly more extensive habitations than others. Rice existed, perhaps, before all cultivation in Southern Asia from China to Bengal, as is shown by the variety of names in the monosyllabic languages of the races between India and China.1965 It has been found outside cultivation in several Indian localities, according to Roxburgh.1966 He says that wild rice, called newaree by the Telingas, grows in abundance on the shores of lakes in the country of the Circars. Its grain is prized by rich Hindus, but it is not planted because it is not very productive. Roxburgh has no doubt that this is the original plant. Thomson1967 found wild rice at Moradabad, in the province of Delhi. Historical reasons support the idea that these specimens are indigenous. Otherwise they might be supposed to be the result of the habitual cultivation of the species, all the more that there are examples of the facility with which rice sows itself and becomes naturalized in warm, damp climates.1968 In any case historical evidence and botanical probability tend to the belief that rice existed in India before cultivation.1969

Maize—Zea mays, Linnæus.

“Maize is of American origin, and has only been introduced into the old world since the discovery of the new. I consider these two assertions as positive, in spite of the contrary opinion of some authors, and the doubts of the celebrated agriculturist Bonafous, to whom we are indebted for the most complete treatise upon maize.”1970 I used these words in 1855, after having already contested the opinion of Bonafous at the time of the publication of his work.1971 The proofs of an American origin have been since reinforced. Yet attempts have been made to prove the contrary, and as the French name, blé de Turquie, gives currency to an error, it is as well to resume the discussion with new data.

No one denies that maize was unknown in Europe at the time of the Roman empire, but it has been said that it was brought from the East in the Middle Ages. The principal argument is based upon a charter of the thirteenth century, published by Molinari,1972 according to which two crusaders, companions in arms of Boniface III., Marquis of Monferrat, gave in 1204 to the town of Incisa a piece of the true cross ... and a purse containing a kind of seed of a golden colour and partly white, unknown in the country and brought from Anatolia, where it was called meliga. etc. The historian of the crusades, Michaux, and later Daru and Sismondi, said a great deal about this charter; but the botanist Delile, as well as Targionitozzetti and Bonafous himself, thought that the seed in question might belong to some sorghum and not to maize. These old discussions have been rendered absurd by the Comte de Riant’s discovery1973 that the charter of Incisa is the fabrication of a modern impostor. I quote this instance to show how scholars who are not naturalists may make mistakes in the interpretation of the names of plants, and also how dangerous it is to rely upon an isolated proof in historical questions.