Beetroot—Beta vulgaris and B. maritima, Linnæus; Beta vulgaris, Moquin.

This plant is cultivated sometimes for its fleshy root (red beet), sometimes for its leaves, which are used as a vegetable (white beet), but botanists are generally agreed in not dividing the species. It is known from other examples that plants slender rooted by nature easily become fleshy rooted from the effects of soil or cultivation.

The slender-rooted variety grows wild in sandy soil, and especially near the sea in the Canary Isles, and all along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, and as far as the Caspian Sea, Persia, and Babylon,174 perhaps even as far as the west of India, whence a specimen was brought by Jaquemont, although it is not certain that it was growing wild. Roxburgh’s Indian flora, and Aitchison’s more recent flora of the Punjab and of the Sindh, only mention the plant as a cultivated species.

It has no Sanskrit name,175 whence it may be inferred that the Aryans had not brought it from western temperate Asia, where it exists. The nations of Aryan race who had previously migrated into Europe probably did not cultivate it, for I find no name common to the Indo-European languages. The ancient Greeks, who used the leaves and roots, called the species teutlion;176 the Romans, beta. Heldreich177 gives also the ancient Greek name sevkle, or sfekelie which resembles the Arab name selg, silq,178 among the Nabatheans. The Arab name has passed into the Portuguese selga. No Hebrew name is known. Everything shows that its cultivation does not date from more than three or four centuries before the Christian era.

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

Manioc—Manihot utilissima, Pohl; Jatropha manihot, Linnæus.

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

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

Botanists are divided in opinion whether the innumerable varieties of manioc should be regarded as forming one, two, or several different species. Pohl180 admitted several besides his Manihot utilissima, and Dr. Müller,181 in his monograph on the Euphorbiaceæ, places the variety aipi in an allied species, M. palmata, a plant cultivated with the others in Brazil, and of which the root is not poisonous. This last character is not so distinct as might be believed from certain books and even from the assertions of the natives. Dr. Sagot,182 who has compared a dozen varieties of manioc cultivated at Cayenne, says expressly, “There are maniocs more poisonous than others, but I doubt whether any are entirely free from noxious principles.”

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

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

The Abbé Raynal had formerly spread the erroneous opinion that the manioc was imported into America from Africa. Robert Brown184 denied this in 1818, but without giving reasons in support of his opinion; and Humboldt,185 Moreau de Jonnes,186 and Saint Hilaire187 insisted upon its American origin. It can hardly be doubted for the following reasons:—

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Manihot utilissima and the allied species or variety called aipi, which is also cultivated, have not been found in an undoubtedly wild state. Humboldt and Bonpland, indeed, found upon the banks of the Magdalena a plant of Manihot utilissima which they called almost wild,194 but Dr. Sagot assures me that it has not been found in Guiana, and that botanists who have explored the hot region in Brazil have not been more fortunate. We gather as much from the expressions of Pohl, who has carefully studied these plants, and who was acquainted with the collections of Martius, and had no doubt of their American origin. If he had observed a wild variety identical with those which are cultivated, he would not have suggested the hypothesis that the manioc is obtained from his Manihot pusilla195 of the province of Goyaz, a plant of small size, and considered as a true species or as a variety of Manihot palmata.196 Martius declared in 1867, that is after having received a quantity of information of a later date than his journey, that the plant was not known in a wild state.197 An early traveller, usually accurate, Piso,198 speaks of a wild mandihoca, of which the Tapuyeris, the natives of the coast to the north of Rio Janeiro, ate the roots. “It is,” he says, “very like the cultivated plant;” but the illustration he gives of it appears unsatisfactory to authors who have studied the maniocs. Pohl attributes it to his M. aipi, and Dr. Müller passes it over in silence. For my part, I am disposed to believe what Piso says, and his figure does not seem to me entirely unsatisfactory. It is better than that by Vellozo, of a wild manioc which is doubtfully attributed to M. aipi.199 If we do not accept the origin in eastern tropical Brazil, we must have recourse to two hypotheses: either the cultivated maniocs are obtained from one of the wild species modified by cultivation, or they are varieties which exist only by the agency of man after the disappearance of their fellows from modern wild vegetation.

Garlic—Allium sativum, Linnæus.

Linnæus, in his Species Plantarum, indicates Sicily as the home of the common garlic; but in his Hortus Cliffortianus, where he is usually more accurate, he does not give its origin. The fact is that, according to all the most recent and complete floras of Sicily, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, and Algeria, garlic is not considered to be indigenous, although specimens have been gathered here and there which had more or less the appearance of being so. A plant so constantly cultivated and so easily propagated may spread from gardens and persist for a considerable time without being wild by nature. I do not know on what authority Kunth200 mentions that the species is found in Egypt. According to authors who are more accurate201 in their accounts of the plants of that country, it is only found there under cultivation. Boissier, whose herbarium is so rich in Eastern plants, possesses no wild specimens of it. The only country where garlic has been found in a wild state, with the certainty of its really being so, is the desert of the Kirghis of Sungari; bulbs were brought thence and cultivated at Dorpat,202 and specimens were afterwards seen by Regel.203 The latter author also says that he saw a specimen which Wallich had gathered as wild in British India; but Baker,204 who had access to the rich herbarium at Kew, does not speak of it in his review of the “Alliums of India, China, and Japan.”

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

Garlic has been long cultivated in China under the name of suan. It is written in Chinese by a single sign, which usually indicates a long known and even a wild species.205 The floras of Japan206 do not mention it, whence I gather that the species was not wild in Eastern Siberia and Dahuria, but that the Mongols brought it into China.

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

There is a Sanskrit name, mahoushouda,208 become loshoun in Bengali, and to which appears to be related the Hebrew name schoum or schumin,209 which has produced the Arab thoum or toum. The Basque name baratchouria is thought by de Charencey210 to be allied with Aryan names. In support of his hypothesis I may add that the Berber name, tiskert, is quite different, and that consequently the Iberians seem to have received the plant and its name rather from the Aryans than from their probable ancestors of Northern Africa. The Lettons call it kiplohks, the Esthonians krunslauk, whence probably the German Knoblauch. The ancient Greek name appears to have been scorodon, in modern Greek scordon. The names given by the Slavs of Illyria are bili and cesan. The Bretons say quinen,211 the Welsh craf, cenhinnen, or garlleg, whence the English garlic. The Latin allium has passed into the languages of Latin origin.212 This great diversity of names intimates a long acquaintance with the plant, and even an ancient cultivation in Western Asia and in Europe. On the other hand, if the species has existed only in the land of the Kirghis, where it is now found, the Aryans might have cultivated it and carried it into India and Europe; but this does not explain the existence of so many Keltic, Slav, Greek, and Latin names which differ from the Sanskrit. To explain this diversity, we must suppose that its original abode extended farther to the west than that known at the present day, an extension anterior to the migrations of the Aryans.

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

Onion—Allium Cepa, Linnæus.

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

The onion is one of the earliest of cultivated species. Its original country is, according to Kunth, unknown.215 Let us see if it is possible to discover it. The modern Greeks call Allium Cepa, which they cultivate in abundance, krommunda.216 This is a good reason for believing that the krommuon of Theophrastus217 is the same species, as sixteenth-century writers already supposed.218 Pliny219 translated the word by cœpa. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew several varieties, which they distinguished by the names of countries: Cyprium, Cretense, Samothraciae, etc. One variety cultivated in Egypt220 was held to be so excellent that it received divine honours, to the great amusement of the Romans.221 Modern Egyptians designate A. Cepa by the name of basal222 or bussul,223 whence it is probable that the bezalim of the Hebrews is the same species, as commentators have said.224 There are several distinct names—palandu, latarka, sakandaka,225 and a number of modern Indian names. The species is commonly cultivated in India, Cochin-China, China,226 and even in Japan.227 It was largely consumed by the ancient Egyptians. The drawings on their monuments often represent this species.228 Thus its cultivation in Southern Asia and the eastern region of the Mediterranean dates from a very early epoch. Moreover, the Chinese, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin names have no apparent connection. From this last fact we may deduce the hypothesis that its cultivation was begun after the separation of the Indo-European nations, the species being found ready to hand in different countries at once. This, however, is not the present state of things, for we hardly find even vague indications of the wild state of A. Cepa. I have not discovered it in European or Caucasian floras; but Hasselquist229 says, “It grows in the plains near the sea in the environs of Jericho.” Dr. Wallich mentioned in his list of Indian plants, No. 5072, specimens which he saw in districts of Bengal, without mentioning whether they were cultivated. This indication, however insufficient, together with the antiquity of the Sanskrit and Hebrew names, and the communication which is known to have existed between the peoples of India and of Egypt, lead me to suppose that this plant occupied a vast area in Western Asia, extending perhaps from Palestine to India. Allied species, sometimes mistaken for A. Cepa, exist in Siberia.230

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

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

Humboldt234 says that the Americans have always been acquainted with onions, in Mexican xonacatl. “Cortes,” he says, “speaking of the comestibles sold at the market of the ancient Tenochtillan, mentions onions, leeks, and garlic.” I cannot believe, however, that these names applied to the species cultivated in Europe. Sloane, in the seventeenth century, had only seen one Allium cultivated in Jamaica (A. Cepa), and that was in a garden with other European vegetables.235 The word xonacatl is not in Hernandez, and Acosta236 says distinctly that the onions and garlics of Peru are of European origin. The species of the genus Allium are rare in America.

Spring, or Welsh Onion—Allium fistulosum, Linnæus.

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

Shallot—Allium ascalonicum, Linnæus.

It was believed, according to Pliny,240 that this plant took its name from Ascalon, in Judæa; but Dr. Fournier241 thinks that the Latin author mistook the meaning of the word Askalônion of Theophrastus. However this may be, the word has been retained in modern languages under the form of échalote in French, chalote in Spanish, scalogno in Italian, Aschaluch or Eschlauch in German.

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

“According to Roxburgh,243 Allium ascalonicum is much cultivated in India. The Sanskrit name pulandu is attributed to it, a word nearly identical with palandu, attributed to A. Cepa.244 Evidently the distinction between the two species is not clear in Indian or Anglo-Indian works.

“Loureiro says he saw Allium ascalonicum cultivated in Cochin-China,245 but he does not mention China, and Thunberg does not indicate this species in Japan. Its cultivation, therefore, is not universal in the east of Asia. This fact, and the doubt about the Sanskrit name, lead me to think that it is not ancient in Southern Asia. Neither, in spite of the name of the species, am I convinced that it existed in Western Asia. Rauwolf, Forskal, and Delile do not mention it in Siberia, in Arabia, or in Egypt. Linnæus246 mentions Hasselquist as having found the species in Palestine. Unfortunately, he gives no details about the locality, nor about its wild condition. In the Travels of Hasselquist247 I find a Cepa montana mentioned as growing on Mount Tabor and on a neighbouring mountain, but there is nothing to prove that it was this species. In his article on the onions and garlics of the Hebrews he mentions only Allium Cepa, then A. porrum and A. sativum. Sibthorp did not find it in Greece,248 and Fraas249 does not mention it as now cultivated in that country. According to Koch,250 it is naturalized among the vines near Fiume. However, Viviani251 only speaks of it as a cultivated plant in Dalmatia.

“From all these facts I am led to believe that Allium ascalonicum is not a species. It is enough to render its primitive existence doubtful, to remark: (1) that Theophrastus and ancient writers in general have spoken of it as a form of the Allium Cepa, having the same importance as the varieties cultivated in Greece, Thrace, and elsewhere; (2) that its existence in a wild state cannot be proved; (3) that it is little cultivated, or not all, in the countries where it is supposed to have had its origin, as in Syria, Egypt, and Greece; (4) that it is commonly without flowers, whence the name of Cepa sterilis given by Bauhin, and the number of its bulbs is an allied fact; (5) when it does flower, the organs of the flower are similar to those of A. Cepa, or at least no difference has been hitherto discovered, and according to Koch252 the only difference in the whole plant is that the stalk and leaves are less swelled, although fistulous.”

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

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

Rocambole—Allium scorodoprasum, Linnæus.

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

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

Chives—Allium schœnoprasum, Linnæus.

This species occupies an extensive area in the northern hemisphere. It is found all over Europe, from Corsica and Greece to the south of Sweden, in Siberia as far as Kamtschatka, and also in North America, but only near the Lakes Huron and Superior and further north262—a remarkable circumstance, considering its European habitat. The variety found in the Alps is the nearest to the cultivated form.263

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

Colocasia—Arum esculentum, Linnæus; Colocasia antiquorum, Schott.264

This species is cultivated in the damp districts of the tropics, for the swelled lower portion of the stem, which forms an edible rhizome similar to the subterraneous part of the iris. The petioles and the young leaves are also utilized as a vegetable. Since the different forms of the species have been properly classed, and since we have possessed more certain information about the floras of the south of Asia, we cannot doubt that this plant is wild in India, as Roxburgh265 formerly, and Wight266 and others have more recently asserted; likewise in Ceylon,267 Sumatra,268 and several islands of the Malay Archipelago.269

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

In the countries where the species is wild there are common names, sometimes very ancient, totally different from each other, which confirms their local origin. Thus the Sanskrit name is kuchoo, which persists in modern Hindu languages—in Bengali, for instance.273 In Ceylon the wild plant is styled gahala, the cultivated plant kandalla.274 The Malay names are kelady,275 tallus, tallas, tales, or taloes,276 from which perhaps comes the well-known name of the Otahitans and New Zealanders—tallo or tarro,277 dalo278 in the Fiji Islands. The Japanese have a totally distinct name, imo,279 which shows an existence of long duration either indigenous or cultivated.

European botanists first knew the colocasia in Egypt, where it has perhaps not been very long cultivated. The monuments of ancient Egypt furnish no indication of it, but Pliny280 spoke of it as the Arum Ægyptium. Prosper Alpin saw it in the sixteenth century, and speaks of it at length.281 He says that its name in its country is culcas, which Delile282 writes qolkas, and koulkas. It is clear that this Arab name of the Egyptian arum has some analogy with the Sanskrit kuchoo, which is a confirmation of the hypothesis, sufficiently probable, of an introduction from India or Ceylon. De l’Ecluse283 had seen the plant cultivated in Portugal, as introduced from Africa, under the name alcoleaz, evidently of Arab origin. In some parts of the south of Italy, where the plant has become naturalized, it is, according to Parlatore, called aro di Egitto.284

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

Apé, or Large-rooted Alocasia—Alocasia macrorrhiza, Schott; Arum macrorrhizum, Linnæus.

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

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

The plant appears to be wild, especially in Otahiti.289 It is also wild in Ceylon, according to Thwaites, who has studied botany for a long time in that island. It is mentioned also in India290 and in Australia,291 but its wild condition is not affirmed—a fact always difficult to establish in the case of a species cultivated on the banks of streams, and which is propagated by bulbs. Moreover, it is sometimes confounded with the Colocasia indica of Kunth, which grows in the same manner, and is found here and there in cultivated ground; and this species grows wild, or is naturalized in the ditches and streams of Southern Asia, although its history is not yet well known.

Konjak—Amorphophallus Konjak, Koch; Amorphophallus Rivieri, du Rieu, var. Konjak, Engler.292

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

Dr. Vidal gives no proof that the Japanese plant is wild in that country. He supposes it to be so from the meaning of the common name, which is, he says, konniyakou or yamagonniyakou, yama meaning “mountain.” Franchet and Savatier294 have only seen the plant in gardens. The Cochin-China variety, believed to belong to the same species, grows in gardens, and there is no proof of its being wild in the country.

Yams—Dioscorea sativa, D. batatas, D. japonica and D. alata.

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

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

Roxburgh enumerates several Dioscoreæ297 cultivated in India, but he found none of them wild, and neither he nor Piddington298 mentions Sanskrit names. This last point argues a recent cultivation, or one of originally small extent, in India, arising either from indigenous species as yet undefined, or from foreign species cultivated elsewhere. The Bengali and Hindu generic name is alu, preceded by a special name for each species or variety; kam alu, for instance, is Dioscorea alata. The absence of distinct names in each province also argues a recent cultivation. In Ceylon, Thwaites299 indicates six wild species, and he adds that D. sativa, L., D. alata, L., and D. purpurea, Roxb., are cultivated in gardens, but are not found wild.

The Chinese yam, Dioscorea batatas of Decaisne,300 extensively cultivated by the Chinese under the name of Sain-in, and introduced by M. de Montigny into European gardens, where it remains as a luxury, has not hitherto been found wild in China. Other less-known species are also cultivated by the Chinese, especially the chou-yu, tou-tchou, chan-yu, mentioned in their ancient works on agriculture, and which has spherical rhizomes (instead of the pyriform spindles of the D. batatas). The names mean, according to Stanislas Julien, mountain arum, whence we may conclude the plant is really a native of the country. Dr. Bretschneider301 gives three Dioscoreæ as cultivated in China (D. batatas, alata, sativa), adding, “The Dioscorea is indigenous in China, for it is mentioned in the oldest work on medicine, that of the Emperor Schen-nung.”

Dioscorea japonica, Thunberg, cultivated in Japan, has also been found in clearings in various localities, but Franchet and Savatier302 say that it is not positively known to what degree it is wild or has strayed from cultivation. Another species, more often cultivated in Japan, grows here and there in the country according to the same authors. They assign it to Dioscorea sativa of Linnæus; but it is known that the famous Swede had confounded several Asiatic and American species under that name, which must either be abandoned or restricted to one of the species of the Indian Archipelago. If we choose the latter course, the true D. sativa would be the plant cultivated in Ceylon with which Linnæus was acquainted, and which Thwaites calls the D. sativa of Linnæus. Various authors admitted the identity of the Ceylon plant with others cultivated on the Malabar coast, in Sumatra, Java, the Philippine Isles, etc. Blume303 asserts that D. sativa, L., to which he attributes pl. 51 in Rheede’s Hortus Malabaricus, vol. viii., grows in damp places in the mountains of Java and of Malabar. In order to put faith in these assertions, it would be necessary to have carefully studied the question of species from authentic specimens.

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

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

He says that the word yam means “to eat,” in several negro dialects on the coast of Guinea. It is true that two travellers nearer to the date of the discovery of America, whom Humboldt quotes,306 heard the word igname pronounced on the American continent: Vespucci in 1497, on the coast of Paria; Cabral in 1500, in Brazil. According to the latter, the name was given to a root of which bread was made, which would better apply to the manioc, and leads me to think there must be some mistake, more especially since a passage from Vespucci, quoted elsewhere by Humboldt,307 shows the confusion he made between the manioc and the yam. D. Cliffortiana, Lam., grows wild in Peru308 and in Brazil,309 but it is not proved to be cultivated. Presl says verosimiliter colitur, and the Flora Brasiliensis does not mention cultivation.

The species chiefly cultivated in French Guiana, according to Sagot,310 is Dioscoreæ triloba, Lam., called Indian yam, which is also common in Brazil and the West India Islands. The common name argues a native origin, whereas another species, D. cayennensis, Kunth, also cultivated in Guiana, but under the name of negro-country yam, was most likely brought from Africa, an opinion the more probable that Sir W. Hooker likens a yam cultivated in Africa on the banks of the Nun and the Quorra,311 to D. cayennensis. Lastly, the free yam of Guiana is, according to Dr. Sagot, D. alata introduced from the Malay Archipelago and Polynesia.

In Africa there are fewer indigenous Dioscoreæ than in Asia and America, and the culture of yams is less widely spread. On the west coast, according to Thonning,312 only one or two species are cultivated; Lockhardt313 only saw one in Congo, and that only in one locality. Bojer314 mentions four cultivated species in Mauritius, which are, he says, of Asiatic origin, and one, D. bulbifera, Lam., from India, if the name be correct. He asserts that it came from Madagascar, and has spread into the woods beyond the plantations. In Mauritius it bears the name Cambare marron. Now, cambare is something like the Hindu name kam, and marron (marroon) indicates a plant escaped from cultivation. The ancient Egyptians cultivated no yams, which argues a cultivation less ancient in India than that of the colocasia. Forskal and Delile mention no yams cultivated in Egypt at the present day.

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

Arrowroot—Maranta arundinacea, Linnæus. A plant of the family of the Scitamineæ, allied to the genus Canna, of which the underground suckers315 produce the excellent fecula called arrowroot. It is cultivated in the West India Islands and in several tropical countries of continental America. It has also been introduced into the old world—on the coast of Guinea, for instance.316

Maranta arundinacea is certainly American. According to Sloane,317 it was brought from Dominica to Barbados, and thence to Jamaica, which leads us to suppose that it was not indigenous in the West Indies. Körnicke, the last author who studied the genus Maranta,318 saw several specimens which were gathered in Guadaloupe, in St. Thomas, in Mexico, in Central America, in Guiana, and in Brazil; but he did not concern himself to discover whether they were taken from wild, cultivated, or naturalized plants. Collectors hardly ever indicate this; and for the study of the American continent (excepting the United States) we are unprovided with local floras, and especially with floras made by botanists residing in the country. In published works I find the species mentioned as cultivated319 or growing in plantations,320 or without any explanation. A locality in Brazil, in the thinly peopled province of Matto Grosso, mentioned by Körnicke, supposes an absence of cultivation. Seemann321 mentions that the species is found in sunny spots near Panama.

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

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