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

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

Chickling Vetch—Lathyrus sativus, Linnæus.

An annual leguminous plant, cultivated in the South of Europe, from a very early age, as fodder, and also for the seeds. The Greeks called it lathyros515 and the Latins cicercula.516 It is also cultivated in the temperate regions of Western Asia, and even in the north of India;517 but it has no Hebrew518 nor Sanskrit name,519 which argues a not very ancient cultivation in these regions.

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

It is probable that this was not the case in Western Asia; for authors cite sufficiently wild localities, where agriculture plays a less considerable part than in Europe. Ledebour,521 for instance, mentions specimens gathered in the desert, near the Caspian Sea, and in the province of Lenkoran. Meyer522 confirms the assertion with respect to Lenkoran. Baker, in his flora of British India, after indicating the species as scattered here and there in the northern provinces, adds, “often cultivated,” whence it may be inferred that he considers it as indigenous, at least in the north. Boissier asserts nothing with regard to the localities in Persia which he mentions in his Oriental flora.523

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

Ochrus—Pisum ochrus, Linnæus; Lathyrus ochrus, de Candolle.

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

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

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

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

The cultivation of this annual leguminous plant was common in ancient Greece and Italy,531 either for spring forage, or for the medicinal properties of its seeds. Abandoned almost everywhere in Europe, and notably in Greece,532 it is maintained in the East and in India,533 where it is probably of very ancient date, and throughout the Nile Valley.534 The species is wild in the Punjab and in Kashmir,535 in the deserts of Mesopotamia and of Persia,536 and in Asia Minor,537 where, however, the localities cited do not appear sufficiently distinct from the cultivated ground. It is also indicated538 in several places in Southern Europe, such as Mount Hymettus and other localities in Greece, the hills above Bologna and Genoa, and a few waste places in Spain; but the further west we go the more we find mentioned such localities as fields, cultivated ground, etc.; and careful authors do not fail to note that the species has probably escaped from cultivation.539 I do not hesitate to say that if a plant of this nature were indigenous in Southern Europe, it would be far more common, and would not be wanting to the insular floras, such as those of Sicily, Ischia, and the Balearic Isles.540

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

Bird’s Foot—Ornithopus sativus, Brotero; O. isthmocarpus, Cosson.

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

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

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

Spergula, or Corn Spurry—Spergula arvensis, Linnæus.

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

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

No Greek or Latin name is known. Spergula, in Italian spergola, seems to be a common name long in use in Italy. Another Italian name, erba renaiola, indicates only its growth in the sand (rena). The French (spargoule), Spanish (esparcillas), Portuguese (espargata), and German (Spark), have all the same root. It seems that throughout the south of Europe the species was taken from country to country by the Romans, before the division of the Latin languages. In the north the case is very different. There is a Russian name, toritsa;552 several Danish names, humb or hum, girr or kirr;553 and Swedish, knutt, fryle, nägde, skorff.554 This great diversity shows that attention had long been drawn to this plant in this part of Europe, and argues an ancient cultivation. It was cultivated in the neighbourhood of Montbelliard in the sixteenth century,555 and it is not stated that it was then of recent introduction. Probably it arose in the south of Europe during the Roman occupation, and perhaps earlier in the north. In any case, its original home must have been Europe.

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

Guinea Grass—Panicum maximum, Jacquin.557

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

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

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

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

With respect to Africa, Sir William Hooker561 mentioned specimens brought from Sierra Leone, from Aguapim, from the banks of the Quorra, and from the Island of St. Thomas, in Western Africa. Nees562 indicates the species in several districts of Cape Colony, even in the bush and in mountainous country. Richard563 mentions places in Abyssinia, which also seem to be beyond the limits of cultivation, but he owns to being not very sure of the species. Anderson, on the contrary, positively asserts that Panicum maximum was brought from the banks of the Mozambique and of the Zambesi rivers by the traveller Peters.564

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

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

Article III.—Various Uses of the Stem and Leaves.

Tea—Thea sinensis, Linnæus.

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

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

The seeds of the tea-plant often sow themselves beyond the limits of cultivation, thereby inspiring doubt among botanists as to the wild nature of plants encountered here and there. Thunberg believed the species to be wild in Japan, but Franchet and Savatier571 absolutely deny this. Fortune,572 who has so carefully examined the cultivation of tea in China, does not speak of the wild plant. Fontanier573 says that the tea-plant grows wild abundantly in Mantschuria. It is probable that it exists in the mountainous districts of South-eastern China, where naturalists have not yet penetrated. Loureiro says that it is found both “cultivated and uncultivated” in Cochin-China.574 What is more certain is, that English travellers gathered specimens in Upper Assam575 and in the province of Cachar.576 So that the tea-plant must be wild in the mountainous region which separates the plains of India from those of China, but the use of the leaves was not formerly known in India.

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

Flax—Linum usitatissimum, Linnæus.

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

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

The first important work on this subject was by Planchon, in 1848.580 He clearly showed the differences between Linum usitatissimum, L. humile, and L. angustifolium, which were little known. Afterwards Heer,581 when making profound researches into ancient cultivation, went again into the characters indicated, and by adding the study of two intermediate forms, as well as the comparison of a great number of specimens, he arrived at the conclusion that there was a single species, composed of several slightly different forms. I give a translation of his Latin summary of the characters, only adding a name for each distinct form, in accordance with the custom of botanical works.

Linum usitatissimum.

1. Annuum (annual). Root annual; stem single, upright; capsules 7 to 8 mm. long; seeds 4 to 6 mm., terminating in a point. α. Vulgare (common). Capsules 7 mm., not opening when ripe, and displaying glabrous partitions. German names, Schliesslein, Dreschlein. β. Humile (low). Capsules 8 mm., opening suddenly when ripe; the partitions hairy. Linum humile, Miller; L. crepitans, Böninghausen. German names, Klanglein, Springlein.

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

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

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

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

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

The common annual flax has not yet been discovered, with absolute certainty, in a wild state. I possess several specimens of it from India, and Planchon saw others in the herbarium at Kew; but Anglo-Indian botanists do not admit that the plant is indigenous in British India. The recent flora of Sir Joseph Hooker speaks of it as a species cultivated principally for the oil extracted from the seeds; and Mr. C. B. Clarke, formerly director of the botanical gardens in Calcutta, writes to me that the specimens must have been cultivated, its cultivation being very common in winter in the north of India. Boissier583 mentions L. humile, with narrow leaves, which Kotschy gathered “near Schiraz in Persia, at the foot of the mountain called Sabst Buchom.” This is, perhaps, a spot far removed from cultivation; but I cannot give satisfactory information on this head. Hohenacker found L. usitatissimum “half wild” in the province of Talysch, to the south of the Caucasus, towards the Caspian Sea.584 Steven is more positive with regard to Southern Russia.585 According to him, it “is found pretty often on the barren hills to the south of the Crimea, between Jalta and Nikita; and Nordmann found it on the eastern coast of the Black Sea.” Advancing westward in Southern Russia, or in the region of the Mediterranean, the species is but rarely mentioned, and only as escaped from cultivation, or half wild. In spite of doubts and of the scanty data which we possess, I think it very possible that the annual flax, in one or other of these two forms, may be wild in the district between the south of Persia and the Crimea, at least in a few localities.

The winter flax is only known under cultivation in a few provinces of Italy.586

The Linum ambiguum of Jordan grows on the coast of Provence and of Languedoc in dry places.587

Lastly, Linum angustifolium, which hardly differs from the preceding, has a well-defined and rather large area. It grows wild, especially on hills throughout the region of which the Mediterranean forms the centre; that is, in the Canaries and Madeira, in Marocco,588 Algeria,589 and as far as the Cyrenaic;590 from the south of Europe, as far as England,591 the Alps, and the Balkan Mountains; and lastly, in Asia from the south of the Caucasus592 to Lebanon and Palestine.593 I do not find it mentioned in the Crimea, nor beyond the Caspian Sea.

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

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

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

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

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

The name lin, llin, linu, linon, linum, lein, lan, exists in all the European languages of Aryan origin of the centre and south of Europe, Keltic, Slavonic, Greek, or Latin. This name is, however, not common to the Aryan languages of India; consequently, as Pictet605 justly says, the cultivation must have been begun by the western Aryans, and before their arrival in Europe. Another idea occurred to me which led me into further researches, but they were unproductive. I thought that, since this flax was cultivated by the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy before the arrival of the Aryan peoples, it was probably also grown by the Iberians, who then occupied Spain and Gaul; and perhaps some special name for it has remained among the Basques, the supposed descendants of the Iberians. Now, according to several dictionaries of their language,606 liho, lino, or li, according to the dialects, signifies flax, which agrees with the name diffused throughout Southern Europe. The Basques seem, therefore, to have received flax from peoples of Aryan origin, or perhaps they have lost the ancient name and substituted that of the Kelts and Romans. The name flachs or flax of the Teutonic languages comes from the Old German flahs. There are also special names in the north-west of Europe—pellawa, aiwina, in Finnish;607 hor, härr, hor, in Danish;608 hor and tone in ancient Gothic.609 Haar exists in the German of Salzburg.610 This word may be in the ordinary sense of the German for thread or hair, as the name li may be connected with the same root as ligare, to bind, and as hör, in the plural hörvar, is connected by philologists611 with harva, the German root for Flachs; but it is, nevertheless, a fact that in Scandinavian countries and in Finland terms have been used which differ from those employed throughout the south of Europe. This variety shows the antiquity of the cultivation, and agrees with the fact that the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy cultivated a species of flax before the first invasion of the Aryans. It is possible, I might even say probable, that the latter imported the name li rather than the plant or its cultivation; but as there is no wild flax in the north of Europe, an ancient people, the Finns, of Turanian origin, introduced the flax into the north before the Aryans. In this case they must have cultivated the annual flax, for the perennial variety will not bear the severity of the northern winters; while we know how favourable the climate of Riga is in summer to the cultivation of the annual flax. Its first introduction into Gaul, Switzerland, and Italy may have been from the south, by the Iberians, and in Finland by the Finns; and the Aryans may have afterwards diffused those names which were commonest among themselves—that of linum in the south, and of flahs in the north. Perhaps the Aryans and Finns had brought the annual flax from Asia, which would soon have been substituted for the perennial variety, which is less productive and less adapted to cold countries. It is not known precisely at what epoch the cultivation of the annual flax in Italy took the place of that of the perennial linum angustifolium, but it must have been before the Christian era; for Latin authors speak of a well-established cultivation, and Pliny says that the flax was sown in spring and rooted up in the summer.612 Metal implements were not then wanting, and therefore the flax would have been cut if it had been perennial. Moreover, the latter, if sown in spring, would not have ripened till autumn.

For the same reasons the flax cultivated by the ancient Egyptians must have been an annual. Hitherto neither entire plants nor a great number of capsules have been found in the catacombs of a nature to furnish direct and incontestable proof. Unger613 alone was able to examine a capsule taken from the bricks of a monument, which Leipsius attributes to the thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ, and he found it more like those of L. usitatissimum than of L. angustifolium. Out of three seeds which Braun614 saw in the Berlin Museum, mixed with those of other cultivated plants, one appeared to him to belong to L. angustifolium, and the other to L. humile; but it must be owned that a single seed without plant or capsule is not sufficient proof. Ancient Egyptian paintings show that flax was not reaped with a sickle like cereals, but uprooted.615 In Egypt flax is cultivated in the winter, for the summer drought would no more allow of a perennial variety, than the cold of northern countries, where it is sown in spring, to be gathered in in summer. It may be added that the annual flax of the variety called humile is the only one now grown in Abyssinia, and also the only one that modern collectors have seen in Egypt.616

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jute—Corchorus capsularis and Corchorus olitorius, Linnæus.

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

C. capsularis has a nearly spherical fruit, flattened at the top, and surrounded by longitudinal ridges. There is a good coloured illustration of it in the work of the younger Jacquin, Eclogæ, pl. 119. C. olitorius, on the contrary, has a long fruit, like the pod of a Crucifer. It is figured in the Botanical Magazine, fig. 2810, and in Lamarck, fig. 478.

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to several authors634 this species of Corchorus is wild in several provinces of British India. Thwaites says it is common in the hot districts of Ceylon; but in Java, Blume only mentions it as growing among rubbish (in ruderatis). I cannot find it mentioned in Cochin-China or Japan. Boissier saw specimens from Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, Syria, and Anatolia, but gives as a general indication, “culta, et in ruderatis subspontanea.” No Sanskrit name for the two cultivated species of Corchorus is known.635

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

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

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

Sumach.—Rhus coriaria.

This tree is cultivated in Spain and Italy638 for the young shoots and leaves, which are dried and made into a powder for tanning. I recently saw a plantation in Sicily, of which the product was exported to America. As oak-bark becomes more rare and substances for tanning are more in demand, it is probable that this cultivation will spread; all the more that it is suitable to sandy, sterile regions. In Algeria, Australia, at the Cape, and in the Argentine Republic, it might be introduced with advantage.639 Ancient peoples used the slightly acid fruits as a seasoning, and the custom has lingered here and there; but I find no proof that they cultivated the species.

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

Sumach is the Persian and Tartar name;641 rous, rhus, the ancient name among the Greeks and Romans.642 A proof of the persistence of certain common names is found in the French “Currier’s roux or roure.”

Khât, or Arab Tea—Catha edulis, Forskal; Celastrus edulis, Vahl.

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

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

Maté—Ilex paraguariensis, Saint-Hilaire.

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

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

Coca.—Erythroxylon Coca, Lamarck.

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

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

Dyer’s Indigo.—Indigofera tinctoria, Linnæus.

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

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

Silver Indigo—Indigofera argentea.

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

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

American Indigoes.

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

Henna—Lawsonia alba, Lamarck (Lawsonia inermis and L. spinosa of different authors).

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

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