The names blé de Turquie, Turkish wheat (Indian corn), given to maize in almost all modern European languages no more prove an Eastern origin than the charter of Incisa. These names are as erroneous as that of coq d’Inde, in English turkey, given to an American bird. Maize is called in Lorraine and in the Vosges Roman corn; in Tuscany, Sicilian corn; in Sicily, Indian corn; in the Pyrenees, Spanish corn; in Provence, Barbary or Guinea corn. The Turks call it Egyptian corn, and the Egyptians, Syrian dourra. This last case proves at least that it is neither Egyptian nor Syrian. The widespread name of Turkish wheat dates from the sixteenth century. It sprang from an error as to the origin of the plant, which was fostered perhaps by the tufts which terminate the ears of maize, which were compared to the beard of the Turks, or by the vigour of the plant, which may have given rise to an expression similar to the French fort comme un turc. The first botanist who uses the name, Turkish wheat, is Ruellius, in 1536.1974 Bock or Tragus,1975 in 1552, after giving a drawing of the species which he calls Frumentum turcicum, Welschkorn, in Germany, having learnt by merchants that it came from India, conceived the unfortunate idea that it was a certain typha of Bactriana, to which ancient authors alluded in vague terms. Dodoens in 1583, Camerarius in 1588, and Matthiole1976 rectified these errors, and positively asserted the American origin. They adopted the name mays, which they knew to be American. We have seen (p. 363) that the zea of the Greeks was a spelt. Certainly the ancients did not know maize. The first travellers1977 who described the productions of the new world were surprised at it, a clear proof that they had not known it in Europe. Hernandez,1978 who left Europe in 1571, according to some authorities, in 1593 according to others,1979 did not know that from the year 1500 maize had been sent to Seville for cultivation. This fact, attested by Fée, who has seen the municipal records,1980 clearly shows the American origin, which caused Hernandez to think the name of Turkish wheat a very bad one.

It may perhaps be urged that maize, new to Europe in the sixteenth century, existed in some parts of Asia or Africa before the discovery of America. Let us see what truth there may be in this.

The famous orientalist D’Herbelot1981 had accumulated several errors pointed out by Bonafous and by me, on the subject of a passage in the Persian historian Mirkoud of the fifteenth century, about a cereal which Rous, son of Japhet, sowed upon the shores of the Caspian Sea, and which he takes to be the Indian corn of our day. It is hardly worth considering these assertions of a scholar to whom it had never occurred to consult the works of the botanists of his own day, or earlier. What is more important is the total silence on the subject of maize of the travellers who visited Asia and Africa before the discovery of America; also the absence of Hebrew and Sanskrit names for this plant; and lastly, that Egyptian monuments present no specimen or drawing of it.1982 Rifaud, it is true, found an ear of maize in a sarcophagus at Thebes, but it is believed to have been the trick of an Arab impostor. If maize had existed in ancient Egypt, it would be seen in all monuments, and would have been connected with religious ideas like all other remarkable plants. A species so easy of cultivation would have spread into all neighbouring countries. Its cultivation would not have been abandoned; and we find, on the contrary, that Prosper Alpin, visiting Egypt in 1592, does not speak of it, and that Forskal,1983 at the end of the eighteenth century, mentioned maize as still but little grown in Egypt, where it had no name distinct from the sorghums. Ebn Baithar, an Arab physician of the thirteenth century, who had travelled through the countries lying between Spain and Persia, indicates no plant which can be supposed to be maize.

J. Crawfurd,1984 having seen maize generally cultivated in the Malay Archipelago under a name jarung, which appears to be indigenous, believed that the species was a native of these islands. But then how is it Rumphius makes no mention of it. The silence of this author points to an introduction later than the seventeenth century. Maize was so little diffused on the continent of India in the last century, that Roxburgh1985 wrote in his flora, which was published long after it was drawn up, “Cultivated in different parts of India in gardens, and only as an ornament, but nowhere on the continent of India as an object of cultivation on a large scale.” We have seen that there is no Sanskrit name.

Maize is frequently cultivated in China in modern times, and particularly round Pekin for several generations,1986 although most travellers of the last century make no mention of it. Dr. Bretschneider, in his work published in 1870, does not hesitate to say that maize is not indigenous in China; but some words in his letter of 1881 make me think that he now attributes some importance to an ancient Chinese author, of whom Bonafous and afterwards Hance and Mayers have said a great deal. This is a work by Li-chi-tchin, entitled Phen-thsao-kang-mou, or Pên-tsao-kung-mu, a species of treatise on natural history, which Bretschneider1987 says was written at the end of the sixteenth century. Bonafous says it was concluded in 1578, and the edition which he had seen in the Huzard library was of 1637. It contains a drawing of maize with the Chinese character. This plate is copied in Bonafous’ work, at the beginning of the chapter on the original country of the maize. It is clear that it represents the plant. Dr. Hance1988 appears to have based his arguments upon the researches of Mayers, who says that early Chinese authors assert that maize was imported from Sifan (Lower Mongolia, to the west of China) long before the end of the fifteenth century, at an unknown date. The article contains a copy of the drawing in the Pên-tsao-kung-mu, to which he assigns the date 1597.

The importation through Mongolia is improbable to such a degree that it is hardly worth speaking of it, and as for the principal assertion of the Chinese author, the dates are uncertain and late. The work was finished in 1578 according to Bonafous, in 1597 according to Mayers. If this be true, and especially if the second of these dates is the true one, it may be admitted that maize was brought to China after the discovery of America. The Portuguese came to Java in 1496,1989 that is to say four years after the discovery of America, and to China in 1516.1990 Magellan’s voyage from South America to the Philippine Islands took place in 1520. During the fifty-eight or seventy-seven years between 1516 and the dates assigned to the Chinese work, seeds of maize may have been taken to China by navigators from America or from Europe. Dr. Bretschneider wrote to me recently that the Chinese did not know the new world earlier than the Europeans, and that the lands to the east of their country, to which there are some allusions in their ancient writings, are the islands of Japan. He had already quoted the opinion of a Chinese savant, that the introduction of maize in the neighbourhood of Pekin dates from the last years of the Ming dynasty, which ended in 1644. This date agrees with the other facts. The introduction into Japan was probably of later date, since Kæmpfer makes no mention of the species.1991

From all these facts, we conclude that maize is not a native of the old world. It became rapidly diffused in it after the discovery of America, and this very rapidity completes the proof that, had it existed anywhere in Asia or Africa, it would have played an important part in agriculture for thousands of years.

We shall see that the facts are quite contrary to these in America.

At the time of the discovery of the new continent, maize was one of the staples of its agriculture, from the La Plata valley to the United States. It had names in all the languages.1992 The natives planted it round their temporary dwellings where they did not form a fixed population. The burial-mounds of the natives of North America who preceded those of our day, the tombs of the Incas, the catacombs of Peru, contain ears or grains of maize, just as the monuments of ancient Egypt contain grains of barley and wheat and millet-seed. In Mexico, a goddess who bore a name derived from that of maize (Cinteutl, from Cintli) answered to the Ceres of the Greeks, for the first-fruits of the maize harvest were offered to her, as the first-fruits of our cereals to the Greek goddess. At Cusco the virgins of the sun offered sacrifices of bread made from Indian corn. Nothing is better calculated to show the antiquity and generality of the cultivation of a plant than this intimate connection with the religious rites of the ancient inhabitants. We must not, however, attribute to these indications the same importance in America as in the old world. The civilization of the Peruvians under the Incas, and that of the Toltecs and Aztecs in Mexico, has not the extraordinary antiquity of the civilizations of China, Chaldea, and Egypt. It dates at earliest from the beginning of the Christian era; but the cultivation of maize is more ancient than the monuments, to judge from the numerous varieties of the species found in them, and their dispersal into remote regions.

A yet more remarkable proof of antiquity has been discovered by Darwin. He found ears of Indian corn, and eighteen species of shells of our epoch, buried in the soil of the shore in Peru, now at least eighty-five feet above the level of the sea.1993 This maize was perhaps not cultivated, but in this case it would be yet more interesting, as an indication of the origin of the species.

Although America has been explored by a great number of botanists, none have found maize in the conditions of a wild plant.

Auguste de Saint-Hilaire1994 thought he recognized the wild type in a singular variety, of which each grain is enclosed within its sheath or bract. It is known at Buenos-Ayres under the name pinsigallo. It is Zea Mays tunicata of Saint-Hilaire, of which Bonafous gives an illustration, pl. 5, bis, under the name Zea cryptosperma. Lindley1995 also gives a description and a drawing from seeds brought, it is said, from the Rocky Mountains, but this is not confirmed by recent Californian floras. A young Guarany, born in Paraguay on its frontiers, had recognized this maize, and told Saint-Hilaire that it grew in the damp forests of his country. This is very insufficient proof that it is indigenous. No traveller to my knowledge has seen this plant wild in Paraguay or Brazil. But it is an interesting fact that it has been cultivated in Europe, and that it often passes into the ordinary state of maize. Lindley observed it when it had been only two or three years in cultivation, and Professor Radic obtained from one sowing 225 ears of the form tunicata, and 105 of the common form with naked grains.1996 Evidently this form, which might be believed a true species, but whose country is, however, doubtful, is hardly even a race. It is one of the innumerable varieties, more or less hereditary, of which botanists who are considered authorities make only a single species, because of their want of stability and the transitions which they frequently present.

On the condition of Zea Mays, and its habitation in America before it was cultivated, we have nothing but conjectural knowledge. I will state what I take to be the sum of this, because it leads to certain probable indications.

I remark first that maize is a plant singularly unprovided with means of dispersion and protection. The grains are hard to detach from the ear, which is itself enveloped. They have no tuft or wing to catch the wind, and when the ear is not gathered by man the grains fall still fixed in the receptacle, and then rodents and other animals must destroy them in quantities, and all the more that they are not sufficiently hard to pass intact through the digestive organs. Probably so unprotected a species was becoming more and more rare in some limited region, and was on the point of becoming extinct, when a wandering tribe of savages, having perceived its nutritious qualities, saved it from destruction by cultivating it. I am the more disposed to believe that its natural area was small that the species is unique; that is to say, that it constitutes what is called a single-typed genus. The genera which contain few species, and especially the monotypes, have as a rule more restricted areas than others. Palæontology will perhaps one day show whether there ever existed in America several species of Zea, or similar Graminæ, of which maize is the last survivor. Now, the genus Zea is not only a monotype, but stands almost alone in its family. A single genus, Euchlæna of Schrader, may be compared with it, of which there is one species in Mexico and another in Guatemala; but it is a quite distinct genus, and there are no intermediate forms between it and Zea.

Wittmack has made some curious researches in order to discover which variety of maize probably represents the form belonging to the epoch anterior to cultivation. For this purpose he has compared ears and grains taken from the mounds of North America with those from Peru. If these monuments offered only one form of maize, the result would be important, but several different varieties have been found in the mounds and in Peru. This is not very surprising; these monuments are not very ancient. The cemetery of Ancon in Peru, whence Wittmack obtained his best specimens, is nearly contemporary with the discovery of America.1997 Now, at that epoch the number of varieties was already considerable, which proves a much more ancient cultivation.

Experiments in sowing varieties of maize in uncultivated ground several years in succession would perhaps show a reversion to some common form which might then be considered as the original stock, but nothing of this kind has been attempted. The varieties have only been observed to lack stability in spite of their great diversity.

As to the habitation of the unknown primitive form, the following considerations may enable us to guess it. Settled populations can only have been formed where nutritious species existed naturally in soil easy of cultivation. The potato, the sweet potato, and maize doubtless fulfilled these conditions in America, and as the great populations of this part of the world existed first in the high grounds of Chili and Mexico, it is there probably that wild maize existed. We must not look for it in the low-lying regions such as Paraguay and the banks of the Amazon, or the hot districts of Guiana, Panama, and Mexico, since their inhabitants were formerly less numerous. Besides, forests are unfavourable to annuals, and maize does not thrive in the warm damp climates where manioc is grown.1998 On the other hand, its transmission from one tribe to another is easier to comprehend if we suppose the point of departure in the centre, than if we place it at one of the limits of the area over which the species was cultivated at the time of the Incas and the Toltecs, or rather of the Mayas, Nahuas, and Chibehas, who preceded these. The migrations of peoples have not always followed a fixed course from north to south, or from south to north. They have taken different directions according to the epoch and the country.1999 The ancient Peruvians scarcely knew the Mexicans, and vice versâ, as the total difference of their beliefs and customs shows. As they both early cultivated maize, we must suppose an intermediate point of departure. New Granada seems to me to fulfil these conditions. The nation called Chibcha which occupied the table-land of Bogota at the time of the Spanish conquest, and considered itself aboriginal, was an agricultural people. It enjoyed a certain degree of civilization, as the monuments recently investigated show. Perhaps this tribe first possessed and cultivated maize. It marched with Peru, then but little civilized, on the one hand, and with the Mayas on the other, who occupied Central America and Yucatan. These were often at war with the Nahuas, predecessors of the Toltecs and the Aztecs in Mexico. There is a tradition that Nahualt, chief of the Nahuas, taught the cultivation of maize.2000

I dare not hope that maize will be found wild, although its habitation before it was cultivated was probably so small that botanists have perhaps not yet come across it. The species is so distinct from all others, and so striking, that natives or unscientific colonists would have noticed and spoken of it. The certainty as to its origin will probably come rather from archæological discoveries. If a great number of monuments in all parts of America are studied, if the hieroglyphical inscriptions of some of these are deciphered, and if dates of migrations and economical events are discovered, our hypothesis will be justified, modified, or rejected.

Article II.—Seeds used for Different Purposes.

Poppy—Papaver somniferum, Linnæus.

The poppy is usually cultivated for the oil contained in the seed, and sometimes, especially in Asia, for the sap, extracted by making incisions in the capsules, and from which opium is obtained.

The variety which has been cultivated for centuries escapes readily from cultivation, or becomes almost naturalized in certain localities of the south of Europe.2001 It cannot be said to exist in a really wild state, but botanists are agreed in regarding it as a modification of the poppy called Papaver setigerum, which is wild on the shores of the Mediterranean, notably in Spain, Algeria, Corsica, Sicily, Greece, and the island of Cyprus. It has not been met with in Eastern Asia,2002 consequently this is really the original of the cultivated form. Its cultivation must have begun in Europe or in the north of Africa. In support of this theory we find that the Swiss lake-dwellers of the stone age cultivated a poppy which is nearer to P. setigerum than to P. somniferum. Heer2003 has not been able to find any of the leaves, but the capsule is surmounted by eight stigmas, as in P. setigerum, and not by ten or twelve, as in the cultivated poppy. This latter form, unknown in nature, seems therefore to have been developed within historic times. P. setigerum is still cultivated in the north of France, together with P. somniferum, for the sake of its oil.2004

The ancient Greeks were well acquainted with the cultivated poppy. Homer, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides mention it. They were aware of the somniferous properties of the sap, and Dioscorides2005 mentions the variety with white seeds. The Romans cultivated the poppy before the republic, as we see by the anecdote of Tarquin and the poppy-heads. They mixed its seeds with their flour in making bread.

The Egyptians of Pliny’s time2006 used the juice of the poppy as a medicament, but we have no proof that this plant was cultivated in Egypt in more ancient times.2007 In the Middle Ages2008 and in our own day it is one of the principal objects of cultivation in that country, especially for the manufacture of opium. Hebrew writings do not mention the species. On the other hand, there are one or two Sanskrit names. Piddington gives chosa, and Adolphe Pictet khaskhasa, which recurs, he says, in the Persian chashchâsh, the Armenian chashchash,2009 and in Arabic. Another Persian name is kouknar.2010 These names, and others I could quote, very different from the maikôn (Μήκων) of the Greeks, are an indication of an ancient cultivation in Europe and Western Asia. If the species was first cultivated in prehistoric time in Greece, as appears probable, it may have spread eastward before the Aryan invasion of India, but it is strange that there should be no proof of its extension into Palestine and Egypt before the Roman epoch. It is also possible that in Europe the variety called Papaver setigerum, employed by the Swiss lake-dwellers, was first cultivated, and that the variety now grown came from Asia Minor, where the species has been cultivated for at least three thousand years. This theory is supported by the existence of the Greek name maikôn, in Dorian makon, in several Slav languages, and in those of the peoples to the south of the Caucasus, under the form mack.2011

The cultivation of the poppy in India has been recently extended, because of the importation of opium into China; but the Chinese will soon cease to vex the English by buying this poison of them, for they are beginning eagerly to produce it themselves. The poppy is now grown over more than half of their territory.2012 The species is never wild in the east of Asia, and even as regards China its cultivation is recent.2013

The name opium given to the drug extracted from the juice of the capsule is derived from the Greek. Dioscorides wrote opos (Οπος). The Arabs converted it into afiun,2014 and spread it eastwards even to China.

Flückiger and Hanbury2015 give a detailed and interesting account of the extraction, trade, and use of opium in all countries, particularly in China. Yet I imagine my readers may like to read the following extracts from Dr. Bretschneider’s letters, dated from Pekin, Aug. 23, 1881, Jan. 28, and June 18, 1882. They give the most certain information which can be derived from accurately translated Chinese works.

“The author of the Pent-sao-kang-mou, who wrote in 1552 and 1578, gives some details concerning the a-fou-yong (that is afioun, opiun), a foreign drug produced by a species of ying-sou with red flowers in the country of Tien-fang (Arabia), and recently used as a medicament in China. In the time of the preceding dynasty there had been much talk of the a-fou-yong. The Chinese author gives some details relative to the extraction of opium in his native country, but he does not say that it is also produced in China, nor does he allude to the practice of smoking it. In the Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands, by Crawfurd, p. 312, I find the following passage: ‘The earliest account we have of the use of opium, not only from the Archipelago, but also from India and China, is by the faithful, intelligent Barbosa.2016 He rates it among the articles brought by the Moorish and Gentile merchants of Western India, to exchange for the cargoes of Chinese junks.’”

“It is difficult to fix the exact date at which the Chinese began to smoke opium and to cultivate the poppy which produces it. As I have said, there is much confusion on this head, and not only European authors, but also the modern Chinese, apply the name ying-sou to P. somniferum as well as to P. rhæas. P. somniferum is now extensively cultivated in all the provinces of the Chinese empire, and also in Mantchuria and Mongolia. Williamson (Journeys in North China, Mantchuria, Mongolia, 1868, ii. p. 55) saw it cultivated everywhere in Mantchuria. He was told that the cultivation of the poppy was twice as profitable as that of cereals. Potanin, a Russian traveller, who visited Northern Mongolia in 1876, saw immense plantations of the poppy in the valley of Kiran (between lat. 47° and 48°), This alarms the Chinese government, and still more the English, who dread the competition of native opium.”

“You are probably aware that opium is eaten, not smoked, in India and Persia. The practice of smoking this drug appears to be a Chinese invention, and modern. Nothing proves that the Chinese smoked opium before the middle of the last century. The Jesuit missionaries to China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries do not mention it; Father d’Incarville alone says in 1750 that the sale of opium is forbidden because it was used by suicides. Two edicts forbidding the smoking of opium date from before 1730, and another in 1796 speaks of the progress made by the vice in question. Don Sinibaldo di Mas, who in 1858 published a very good book on China, where he had lived many years as Spanish ambassador, says that the Chinese took the practice from the people of Assam, where the custom had long existed.”

So bad a habit, like the use of tobacco or absinth, is sure to spread. It is becoming gradually introduced into the countries which have frequent relations with China. It is to be hoped that it will not attack so large a proportion of the peoples of other countries as in Amoy, where the proportion of opium-smokers are as fifteen to twenty of the adult population.2017

Arnotto, or Anatto—Bisca orellana, Linnæus.

The dye, called rocou in French, arnotto in English, is extracted from the pulp which encases the seed. The inhabitants of the West India Islands, of the Isthmus of Darien, and of Brazil, used it at the time of the discovery of America to stain their bodies red, and the Mexicans in painting.2018 The arnotto, a small tree of the order Bixaceæ, grows wild in the West Indies,2019 and over a great part of the continent of America between the tropics. Herbaria and floras abound in indications of locality, but do not generally specify whether the species is cultivated, wild, or naturalized. I note, however, that it is said to be indigenous by Seemann on the north-west coast of Mexico and Panama, by Triana in New Granada, by Meyer in Dutch Guiana, and by Piso and Claussen in Brazil.2020 With such a vast area, it is not surprising that the species has many names in American languages; that of the Brazilians, urucu, is the origin of rocou.

It was not very necessary to plant this tree in order to obtain its product; nevertheless Piso relates that the Brazilians, in the sixteenth century, were not content with the wild plant, and in Jamaica, in the seventeenth century, the plantations of Bixa were common. It was one of the first species transported from America to the south of Asia and to Africa. It has become so entirely naturalized, that Roxburgh2021 believed it to be indigenous in India.

Cotton—Gossypium herbaceum, Linnæus.

When, in 1855, I sought the origin of the cultivated cottons,2022 there was still great uncertainty as to the distinction of the species. Since then two excellent works have appeared in Italy, upon which we can rely; one by Parlatore,2023 formerly director of the botanical gardens at Florence, the other by Todaro,2024 of Palermo. These two works are illustrated with magnificent coloured plates. Nothing better can be desired for the cultivated cottons. On the other hand, our knowledge of the true species, I mean of those which exist naturally in a wild state, has not increased as much as it might. However, the definition of species seems fairly accurate in the works of Dr. Masters,2025 whom I shall therefore follow. This author agrees with Parlatore in admitting seven well-known species and two doubtful, while Todaro counts fifty-four, of which only two are doubtful, reckoning as species forms with some distinguishing character, but which originated and are preserved by cultivation.

The common names of the cottons give no assistance; they are even calculated to lead us completely astray as to the origin of the species. A cotton called Siamese comes from America; another is called Brazilian or Ava cotton, according to the fancy or the error of cultivators.

We will first consider Gossypium herbaceum, an ancient species in Asiatic plantations, and now the commonest in Europe and in the United States. In the hot countries whence it came, its stem lasts several years, but out of the tropics it becomes annual from the effect of the winter’s cold. The flower is generally yellow, with a red centre; the cotton yellow or white, according to the variety. Parlatore examined in herbaria several wild specimens, and cultivated others derived from wild plants of the Indian Peninsula. He also admits it to be indigenous in Burmah and in the Indian Archipelago, from the specimens of collectors, who have not perhaps been sufficiently careful to verify its wild character.

Masters regards as undoubtedly wild in Sindh a form which he calls Gossypium Stocksii, which he says is probably the wild condition of Gossypium herbaceum, and of other cottons cultivated in India for a long time. Todaro, who is not given to uniting many forms in a single species, nevertheless admits the identity of this variety with the common G. herbaceum. The yellow colour of the cotton is then the natural condition of the species. The seed has not the short down which exists between the longer hairs in the cultivated G. herbaceum.

Cultivation has probably extended the area of the species beyond the limits of the primitive habitation. This is, I imagine, the case in the Sunda Islands and the Malay Peninsula, where certain individuals appear more or less wild. Kurz,2026 in his Burmese flora, mentions G. herbaceum, with yellow or white cotton, as cultivated and also as wild in desert places and waste ground.

The herbaceous cotton is called kapase in Bengali, kapas in Hindustani, which shows that the Sanskrit word karpassi undoubtedly refers to this species.2027 It was early cultivated in Bactriana, where the Greeks had noticed it at the time of the expedition of Alexander. Theophrastus speaks of it2028 in such a manner as to leave no doubt. The tree-cotton of the Isle of Tylos, in the Persian Gulf, of which he makes mention further on,2029 was probably also G. herbaceum; for Tylos is not far from India, and in such a hot climate the herbaceous cotton becomes a shrub. The introduction of a cotton plant into China took place only in the ninth or tenth century of our era, which shows that probably the area of G. herbaceum was originally limited to the south and east of India. The knowledge and perhaps the cultivation of the Asiatic cotton was propagated in the Græco-Roman world after the expedition of Alexander, but before the first centuries of the Christian era.2030 If the byssos of the Greeks was the cotton plant, as most scholars think, it was cultivated at Elis, according to Pausanias and Pliny;2031 but Curtius and C. Ritter2032 consider the word byssos as a general term for threads, and that it was probably applied in this case to fine linen. It is evident that the cotton was never, or very rarely, cultivated by the ancients. It is so useful that it would have become common if it had been introduced into a single locality—in Greece, for instance. It was afterwards propagated on the shores of the Mediterranean by the Arabs, as we see from the name qutn or kutn,2033 which has passed into the modern languages of the south of Europe as cotone, coton, algodon. Eben el Awan, of Seville, who lived in the twelfth century, describes its cultivation as it was practised in his time in Sicily, Spain, and the East.2034

Gossypium herbaceum is the species most cultivated in the United States.2035 It was probably introduced there from Europe. It was a new cultivation a hundred years ago, for a bale of North American cotton was confiscated at Liverpool in 1774, on the plea that the cotton-plant did not grow there.2036 The silky cotton (sea island) is another species, American, of which I shall presently speak.

Tree-Cotton—Gossypium arboreum, Linnæus.

This species is taller and of longer duration than the herbaceous cotton; the lobes of the leaf are narrower, the bracts less divided or entire. The flower is usually pink, with a red centre. The cotton is always white.

According to Anglo-Indian botanists, this is not, as it was supposed, an Indian species, and is even rarely cultivated in India. It is a native of tropical Africa. It has been seen wild in Upper Guinea, in Abyssinia, Sennaar, and Upper Egypt.2037 So great a number of collectors have brought it from these countries, that there is no room for doubt; but cultivation has so diffused and mixed this species with others that it has been described under several names in works on Southern Asia.

Parlatore attributed to G. arboreum some Asiatic specimens of G. herbaceum, and a plant but little known which Forskal found in Arabia. He suspected from this that the ancients had known G. arboreum as well as G. herbaceum. Now that the two species are better distinguished, and that the origin of both is known, this does not seem probable. They knew the herbaceous cotton through India and Persia, while the tree-cotton can only have come to them through Egypt. Parlatore himself has given a most interesting proof of this. Until his work appeared in 1866, it was not certain to what species belonged some seeds of the cotton plant which Rosellini found in a vase among the monuments of ancient Thebes.2038 These seeds are in the Florence museum. Parlatore examined them carefully, and declares them to belong to Gossypium arboreum.2039 Rosellini is certain he was not imposed upon, as he was the first to open both the tomb and the vase. No archæologist has since seen or read signs of the cotton plant in the ancient times of Egyptian civilization. How is it that a plant so striking, remarkable for its flowers and seed, was not described nor preserved habitually in the tombs if it were cultivated? How is it that Herodotus, Dioscorides, and Theophrastus made no mention of it when writing of Egypt? The cloths in which all the mummies are wrapt, and which were formerly supposed to be cotton, are always linen according to Thompson and many other observers who are familiar with the use of the microscope. Hence I conclude that if the seeds found by Rosellini were really ancient they were a rarity, an exception to the common custom, perhaps the product of a tree cultivated in a garden, or perhaps they came from Upper Egypt, a country where we know the tree-cotton to be wild. Pliny2040 does not say that cotton was cultivated in Lower Egypt; but here is a translation of his very remarkable passage, which is often quoted. “The upper part of Egypt, towards Arabia, produces a shrub which some call gossipion and others xylon, whence the name xylina given to the threads obtained from it. It is low-growing, and bears a fruit like that of the bearded nut, and from the interior of this is taken a wool for weaving. None is comparable to this in softness and whiteness.” Pliny adds, “The cloth made from it is used by preference for the dress of the Egyptian priests.” Perhaps the cotton destined to this purpose was sent from Upper Egypt, or perhaps the author, who had not seen the fabrication, and did not possess a microscope, was mistaken in the nature of the sacerdotal raiment, as were our contemporaries who handled the grave-cloths of hundreds of mummies before suspecting that they were not cotton. Among the Jews, the priestly robes were commanded to be of linen, and it is not likely that their custom was different to that of the Egyptians.

Pollux,2041 born in Egypt a century later than Pliny, expresses himself clearly about the cotton plant, of which the thread was used by his countrymen; but he does not say whence the shrub came, and we cannot tell whether it was Gossypium arboreum or G. herbaceum. It does not even appear whether the plant was cultivated in Lower Egypt, or if the cotton came from the more southern region. In spite of these doubts, it may be suspected that a cotton plant, probably that of Upper Egypt, had recently been introduced into the Delta. The species which Prosper Alpin had seen cultivated in Egypt in the sixteenth century was the tree-cotton. The Arabs, and afterwards Europeans, preferred and transported into different countries the herbaceous cotton rather than the tree-cotton, which yields a poorer product and requires more heat.

Regarding the two cottons of the old world, I have made as little use as possible of arguments based upon Greek names, such as βυσσος, σινδον, ξυλον, Οθων etc., or Sanskrit names, and their derivatives, as carbasa, carpas, or Hebrew names, schesch, buz, which are doubtfully attributed to the cotton tree. This has been a fruitful subject of discussion,2042 but the clearer distinction of species and the discovery of their origin greatly diminishes the importance of these questions—to naturalists, at least, who prefer facts to words. Moreover, Reynier, and after him C. Ritter, arrived in their researches at a conclusion which we must not forget: that these same names were often applied by ancient peoples to different plants and tissues—to linen and cotton, for example. In this case as in others, modern botany explains ancient words where words and the commentaries of philologists may mislead.

Barbados Cotton—Gossypium barbadense, Linnæus.

At the time of the discovery of America, the Spaniards found the cultivation and use of cotton established from the West India Islands to Peru, and from Mexico to Brazil. The fact is proved by all the historians of the epoch. But it is still very difficult to tell what were the species of these American cottons and in what countries they were indigenous. The botanical distinction of the American species or varieties is in the last degree confused. Authors, even those who have seen large collections of growing cotton plants, are not agreed as to the characters. They are also embarrassed by the difficulty of deciding which of the specific names of Linnæus should be retained, for the original definitions are insufficient. The introduction of American seed into African and Asiatic plantations has given rise to further complications, as botanists in Java, Calcutta, Bourbon, etc., have often described American forms as species under different names. Todaro admits ten American species; Parlatore reduced them to three, which answer, he says, to Gossypium hirsutum, G. barbadense, and G. religiosum of Linnæus; lastly, Dr. Masters unites all the American forms into a single species which he calls G. barbadense, giving as the chief character that the seed bears only long hairs, whereas the species of the old world have a short down underneath the longer hairs.2043 The flower is yellow, with a red centre. The cotton is white or yellow. Parlatore strove to include fifty or sixty of the cultivated forms under one or other of the three heads he admits, from the study of plants in gardens or herbaria. Dr. Masters mentions but few synonyms, and it is possible that certain forms with which he is not acquainted do not come under the definition of his single species.

Where there is such confusion it would be the best course for botanists to seek with care the Gossypia, which are wild in America, to constitute the one or more species solely upon these, leaving to the cultivated species their strange and often absurd and misleading names. I state this opinion because with regard to no other genus of cultivated plants have I felt so strongly that natural history should be based upon natural facts, and not upon the artificial products of cultivation. If we start from this point of view, which has the merit of being a truly scientific method, we find unfortunately that our knowledge of the cottons indigenous in America is still in a very elementary state. At most we can name only one or two collectors who have found Gossypia really identical with or very similar to certain cultivated forms.

We can seldom trust early botanists and travellers on this head. The cotton plant grows sometimes in the neighbourhood of plantations, and becomes more or less naturalized, as the down on the seeds facilitates accidental transport. The usual expression of early writers—such a cotton plant grows in such a country—often means a cultivated plant. Linnæus himself in the eighteenth century often says of a cultivated species, “habitat,” and he even says it sometimes without good ground.2044 Hernandez, one of the most accurate among sixteenth-century authors, is quoted as having described and figured a wild Gossypium in Mexico, but the text suggests some doubts as to the wild condition of this plant,2045 which Parlatore believes to be G. hirsutum, Linnæus. Hemsley,2046 in his catalogue of Mexican plants, merely says of a Gossypium which he calls barbadense, “wild and cultivated.” He gives no proof of the former condition. Macfadyen2047 mentions three forms wild and cultivated in Jamaica. He attributes specific names to them, and adds that they possibly all may be included in Linnæus’ G. hirsutum. Grisebach2048 admits that one species, G. barbadense, is wild in the West Indies. As to the specific distinctions, he declares himself unable to establish them with certainty.

With regard to New Grenada, Triana2049 describes a Gossypium which he calls G. barbadense, Linnæus, and which he says is “cultivated and half wild along the Rio Seco, in the province of Bogota, and in the valley of the Cauca near Cali;” and he adds a variety, hirsutum, growing (he does not say whether spontaneously or no) along the Rio Seco. I cannot discover any similar assertion for Peru, Guiana, and Brazil;2050 but the flora of Chili, published by Cl. Gay,2051 mentions a Gossypium, “almost wild in the province of Copiapo,” which the writer attributes to the variety G. peruvianum, Cavanilles. Now, this author does not say the plant is wild, and Parlatore classes it with G. religiosum, Linnæus.

An important variety of cultivation is that of the cotton with long silky down, called by Anglo-Americans sea island, or long staple cotton, which Parlatore ranks with G. barbadense, Linnæus. It is considered to be of American origin, but no one has seen it wild.

In conclusion, if historical records are positive in all that concerns the use of cotton in America from a time far earlier than the arrival of Europeans, the natural wild habitation of the plant or plants which yield this product is yet but little known. We become aware on this occasion of the absence of floras of tropical America, similar to those of the Dutch and English colonies of Asia and Africa.

Mandubi, Pea-nut, Monkey-nut—Arachis hypogæa, Linnæus.

Nothing is more curious than the manner in which this leguminous plant matures its fruits. It is cultivated in all hot countries, either for the seed, or for the oil contained in the cotyledons.2052 Bentham has given, in his Flora of Brazil, in folio, vol. xv. pl. 23, complete details of the plant, in which may be seen how the flower-stalk bends downwards and plunges the pod into the earth to ripen.

The origin of the species was disputed for a century, even by those botanists who employ the best means to discover it. It is worth while to show how the truth was arrived at, as it may serve as a guide in similar cases. I will quote, therefore, what I wrote in 1855,2053 giving in conclusion new proofs which allow no possibility of further doubt.

“Linnæus2054 said of the Arachis, ‘it inhabits Surinam Brazil, and Peru.’ As usual with him, he does not specify whether the species was wild or cultivated in these countries. In 1818, R. Brown2055 writes: ‘It was probably introduced from China into the continent of India, Ceylon, and into the Malay Archipelago, where, in spite of its now general cultivation, it is thought not to be indigenous, particularly from the names given to it. I consider it not improbable that it was brought from Africa into different parts of equatorial America, although, however, it is mentioned in some of the earliest writings on this continent, particularly on Peru and Brazil. According to Sprengel, it is mentioned by Theophrastus as cultivated in Egypt, but it is not at all evident that the Arachis is the plant to which Theophrastus alludes in the quoted passage. If it had been formerly cultivated in Egypt it would probably still exist in that country, whereas it does not occur in Forskal’s catalogue nor in Delile’s more extended flora. There is nothing very unlikely,’ continues Brown, ‘in the hypothesis that the Arachis is indigenous both in Africa and America; but if it is considered as existing originally in one of these continents only, it is more probable that it was brought from China through India to Africa, than that it took the contrary direction.’ My father in 1825, in the Prodromus (ii. p. 474), returned to Linnæus’ opinion, and admitted without hesitation the American origin. “Let us reconsider the question” (I said in 1855) “with the aid of the discoveries of modern science.

“Arachis hypogœa was the only species of this singular genus known. Six other species, all Brazilian, have since been discovered.2056 Thus, applying the rule of probability of which Brown first made great use, we incline à priori to the idea of an American origin. We must remember that Maregraf2057 and Piso2058 describe and figure the plant as used in Brazil, under the name mandubi, which seems to be indigenous. They quote Monardes, a writer of the end of the sixteenth century, as having indicated it in Peru under a different name, anchic. Joseph Acosta2059 merely mentions an American name, mani, and speaks of it with other species which are not of foreign origin in America. The Arachis was not ancient in Guiana, in the West Indies, and in Mexico. Aublet2060 mentions it as a cultivated plant, not in Guiana, but in the Isle of France. Hernandez does not speak of it. Sloane2061 had seen it only in a garden, grown from seeds brought from Guinea. He says that the slave-dealers feed the negroes with it on their passage from Africa, which indicates a then very general cultivation in Africa. Pison, in his second edition (1638, p. 256), not in that of 1648, gives a figure of a similar fruit imported from Africa into Brazil under the name mandobi, very near to the name of the Arachis, mandubi. From the three leaflets of the plant it would seem to be the Voandzeia, so often cultivated; but the fruit seems to me to be longer than in this genus, and it has two or three seeds instead of one or two. However this may be, the distinction drawn by Piso between these two subterranean seeds, the one Brazilian, the other African, tends to show that the Arachis is Brazilian.

“The antiquity and the generality of its cultivation in Africa is, however, an argument of some force, which compensates to a certain degree its antiquity in Brazil, and the presence of six other Arachis in the same country. I would admit its great value if the Arachis had been known to the ancient Egyptians and to the Arabs; but the silence of Greek, Latin, and Arab authors, and the absence of the species in Egypt in Forskal’s time, lead me to think that its cultivation in Guinea, Senegal,2062 and the east coast of Africa2063 is not of very ancient date. Neither has it the marks of a great antiquity in Asia. No Sanskrit name for it is known,2064 but only a Hindustani one. Rumphius2065 says that it was imported from Japan into several islands of the Indian Archipelago. It would in that case have borne only foreign names, like the Chinese name, for instance, which signifies only ‘earth-bean.’ At the end of the last century it was generally cultivated in China and Cochin-China. Yet, in spite of Rumphius’s theory of an introduction into the islands from China or Japan, I see that Thunberg does not speak of it in his Japanese Flora. Now, Japan has had dealings with China for sixteen centuries, and cultivated plants, natives of one of the two countries, were commonly early introduced into the other. It is not mentioned by Forster among the plants employed in the small islands of the Pacific. All these facts point to an American, I might even say a Brazilian, origin. None of the authors I have consulted mentions having seen the plant wild, either in the old or the new world. Those who indicate it in Africa or Asia are careful to say the plant is cultivated. Marcgraf does not say so, writing of Brazil, but Piso says the species is planted.”

Seeds of Arachis have been found in the Peruvian tombs at Ancon,2066 which shows some antiquity of existence in America, and supports the opinion I expressed in 1855. Dr. Bretschneider’s study of Chinese works2067 oversets Brown’s hypothesis. The Arachis is not mentioned in the ancient works of this country, nor even in the Pent-sao, published in the sixteenth century. He adds that he believes the plant was only introduced in the last century.

All the recent floras of Asia and Africa mention the species as a cultivated one, and most authors believe it to be of American origin. Bentham, after satisfying himself that it had not been found wild in America or elsewhere, adds that it is perhaps a form derived from one of the six other species wild in Brazil, but he does not say which. This is probable enough, for a plant provided with an efficacious and very peculiar manner of germinating does not seem of a nature to become extinct. It would have been found wild in Brazil in the same condition as the cultivated plant, if the latter were not a product of cultivation. Works on Guiana and other parts of America mention the species as a cultivated one; Grisebach2068 says, moreover, that in several of the West India islands it becomes naturalized from cultivation.

A genus of which all the well-known species are thus placed in a single region of America can scarcely have a species common to both hemispheres; it would be too great an exception to the law of geographical botany. But then how did the species (or cultivated variety) pass from the American continent to the old world? This is hard to guess, but I am inclined to believe that the first slave-ships carried it from Brazil to Guinea, and the Portuguese from Brazil into the islands to the south of Asia, in the end of the fifteenth century.

Coffee—Coffea arabica, Linnæus.

This shrub, belonging to the family of the Rubiaceæ, is wild in Abyssinia,2069 in the Soudan,2070 and on the coasts of Guinea and Mozambique.2071 Perhaps in these latter localities, so far removed from the centre, it may be naturalized from cultivation. No one has yet found it in Arabia, but this may be explained by the difficulty of penetrating into the interior of the country. If it is discovered there it will be hard to prove it wild, for the seeds, which soon lose their faculty of germinating, often spring up round the plantations and naturalize the species. This has occurred in Brazil and the West India Islands,2072 where it is certain that the coffee plant was never indigenous.

The use of coffee seems to be very ancient in Abyssinia. Shehabeddin Ben, author of an Arab manuscript of the fifteenth century (No. 944 of the Paris Library), quoted in John Ellis’s excellent work,2073 says that coffee had been used in Abyssinia from time immemorial. Its use, even as a drug, had not spread into the neighbouring countries, for the crusaders did not know it, and the celebrated physician Ebn Baithar, born at Malaga, who had travelled over the north of Africa and Syria at the beginning of the thirteenth century of the Christian era, does not mention coffee.2074 In 1596 Bellus sent to de l’Ecluse some seeds from which the Egyptians extracted the drink cavé.2075 Nearly at the same time Prosper Alpin became acquainted with coffee in Egypt itself. He speaks of the plant as the “arbor bon, cum fructu suo buna.” The name bon recurs also in early authors under the forms bunnu, buncho, bunca.2076 The names cahue, cahua, chaubé,2077 cavé,2078 refer rather in Egypt and Syria to the prepared drink, whence the French word café. The name bunnu, or something similar, is certainly the primitive name of the plant which the Abyssinians still call boun.2079

If the use of coffee is more ancient in Abyssinia than elsewhere, that is no proof that its cultivation is very ancient. It is very possible that for centuries the berries were sought in the forests, where they were doubtless very common. According to the Arabian author quoted above, it was a mufti of Aden, nearly his contemporary, who, having seen coffee drunk in Persia, introduced the practice at Aden, whence it spread to Mocha, into Egypt, etc. He says that the coffee plant grew in Arabia.2080 Other fables or traditions exist, according to which it was always an Arabian priest or a monk who invented the drink,2081 but they all leave us in uncertainty as to the date of the first cultivation of the plant. However this may be, the use of coffee having been spread first in the east, afterwards in the west, in spite of a number of prohibitions and absurd conflicts,2082 its production became important to the colonies. Boerhave tells us that the Burgermeister of Amsterdam, Nicholas Witsen, director of the East India Company, urged the Governor of Batavia, Van Hoorn, to import coffee berries from Arabia to Batavia. This was done, and in 1690 Van Hoorn sent some living plants to Witsen. These were placed in the Botanical Gardens of Amsterdam, founded by Witsen, where they bore fruit. In 1714, the magistrates of the town sent a flourishing plant covered with fruit to Louis XIV., who placed it in his garden at Marly. Coffee was also grown in the hothouses of the king’s garden in Paris. One of the professors of this establishment, Antoine de Jussieu, had already published in 1713, in the Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences, an interesting description of the plant from one which Pancras, director of the Botanical Garden at Amsterdam, had sent to him.

The first coffee plants grown in America were introduced into Surinam by the Dutch in 1718. The Governor of Cayenne, de la Motte-Aigron, having been at Surinam, obtained some plants in secret and multiplied them in 1725.2083 The coffee plant was introduced into Martinique by de Clieu,2084 a naval officer, in 1720, according to Deleuze;2085 in 1723, according to the Notices Statistiques sur les Colonies Françaises.2086 Thence it was introduced into the other French islands, into Guadaloupe, for instance, in 1730.2087 Sir Nicholas Lawes first grew it in Jamaica.2088 From 1718 the French East India Company had sent plants of Mocha coffee to Bourbon;2089 others say2090 that it was even in 1717 that a certain Dufougerais-Grenier had coffee plants brought from Mocha into this island. It is known how the cultivation of this shrub has been extended in Java, Ceylon, the West Indies, and Brazil. Nothing prevents it from spreading in nearly all tropical countries, especially as the coffee plant thrives on sloping ground and in poor soils where other crops cannot flourish. It corresponds in tropical agriculture to the vine in Europe and tea in China.

Further details may be found in the volume published by H. Welter2091 on the economical and commercial history of coffee. The author adds an interesting chapter on the various fair or very bad substitutes used for a commodity which it is impossible to overrate in its natural condition.

Liberian Coffee—Coffea liberica, Hiern.2092

Plants of this species have for some years been sent from the Botanical Gardens at Kew into the English colonies. It grows wild in Liberia, Angola, Golungo Alto,2093 and probably in several other parts of western tropical Africa.

It is of stronger growth than the common coffee, and the berries, which are larger, yield an excellent product. The official reports of Kew Gardens by the learned director, Sir Joseph Hooker, show the progress of this introduction, which is very favourably received, especially in Dominica.

Madia—Madia sativa, Molina.

The inhabitants of Chili before the discovery of America cultivated this annual species of the Composite family, for the sake of the oil contained in the seed. Since the olive has been extensively planted, the madia is despised by the Chilians, who only complain of the plant as a weed which chokes their gardens.2094 The Europeans began to cultivate it with indifferent success, owing to its bad smell.

The madia is indigenous in Chili and also in California.2095 There are other examples of this disjunction of habitation between the two countries.2096