Origin of Cultivated Plants

The species has been introduced into Mauritius, where it sows itself round cultivated places. Elsewhere it is little diffused. No Sanskrit name is known.

Chayote, or Choco—Sechium edule Swartz.

This plant, of the order Cucurbitaceæ, is cultivated in tropical America for its fruits, shaped like a pear, and tasting like a cucumber. They contain only one seed, so that the flesh is abundant.

The species alone constitutes the genus Sechium. There are specimens in every herbarium, but generally collectors do not indicate whether they are naturalized, or really wild, and apparently indigenous in the country. Without speaking of works in which this plant is said to come from the East Indies, which is entirely a mistake, several of the best give Jamaica[1347 - Grisebach, Flora of Brit. W. India Isl., p. 286.] as the original home. However, P. Browne,[1348 - Browne, Jamaica, p. 355.] in the middle of the last century, said positively that it was cultivated there, and Sloane does not mention it. Jacquin[1349 - Jacquin, Stirp. Amer. Hist., p. 259.] says that it “inhabits Cuba, and is cultivated there,” and Richard copies this phrase in the flora of R. de La Sagra without adding any proof. Naudin says,[1350 - Naudin, Ann. Sc. Nat., 4th series, vol. xviii. p. 205.] “a Mexican plant,” but he does not give his reasons for asserting this. Cogniaux,[1351 - In Monogr. Phanér., iii. p. 902.] in his recent monograph, mentions a great number of specimens gathered from Brazil to the West Indies without saying if he had seen any one of these given as wild. Seemann[1352 - Seemann, Bot. of Herald, p. 128.] saw the plant cultivated at Panama, and he adds a remark, important if correct, namely, that the name chayote, common in the isthmus, is the corruption of an Aztec word, chayotl. This is an indication of an ancient existence in Mexico, but I do not find the word in Hernandez, the classic author on the Mexican plants anterior to the Spanish conquest. The chayote was not cultivated in Cayenne ten years ago.[1353 - Sagot, Journal de la Soc. d’Hortic. de France, 1872.] Nothing indicates an ancient cultivation in Brazil. The species is not mentioned by early writers, such as Piso and Marcgraf, and the name chuchu, given as Brazilian,[1354 - Cogniaux, Fl. Brasil, fasc. 78.] seems to me to come from chocho, the Jamaica name, which is perhaps a corruption of the Mexican word.

The plant is probably a native of the south of Mexico and of Central America, and was transported into the West India Islands and to Brazil in the eighteenth century. The species was afterwards introduced into Mauritius and Algeria, where it is very successful.[1355 - Sagot, ibid.]

Indian Fig, or Prickly Pear—Opuntia ficus indica, Miller.

This fleshy plant of the Cactus family, which produces the fruit known in the south of Europe as the Indian fig, has no connection with the fig tree, nor has the fruit with the fig. Its origin is not Indian but American. Everything is erroneous and absurd in this common name. However, since Linnæus took his botanical name from it, Cactus ficus indica, afterwards connected with the genus Opuntia, it was necessary to retain the specific name to avoid changes which are a source of confusion, and to recall the popular denomination. The prickly forms, and those more or less free from spines, have been considered by some authors as distinct species, but an attentive examination leads us to regard them as one.[1356 - Webb and Berthelot, Phytog. Canar., sect. 1, p. 208.]

The species existed both wild and cultivated in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards. Hernandez[1357 - Hernandez, Theo. Novæ Hisp., p. 78.] describes nine varieties of it, which shows the antiquity of its cultivation. The cochineal insect appears to feed on one of these, almost without thorns, more than on the others, and it has been transported with the plant to the Canary Isles and elsewhere. It is not known how far its habitat extended in America before man transported pieces of the plant, shaped like a racket, and the fruits, which are two easy ways of propagating it. Perhaps the wild plants in Jamaica, and the other West India Islands mentioned by Sloane,[1358 - Sloane, Jamaica, ii. p. 150.] in 1725, were the result of its introduction by the Spaniards. Certainly the species has become naturalized in this direction as far as the climate permits; for instance, as far as Southern Florida.[1359 - Chapman, Flora of Southern States, p. 144.]

It was one of the first plants which the Spaniards introduced to the old world, both in Europe and Asia. Its singular appearance was the more striking that no other species belonging to the family had before been seen.[1360 - The cactos of the Greeks was quite a different plant.] All sixteenth-century botanists mention it, and the plant became naturalized in the south of Europe and in Africa as its cultivation was introduced. It was in Spain that the prickly pear was first known under the American name tuna, and it was probably the Moors who took it into Barbary when they were expelled from the peninsula. They called it fig of the Christians.[1361 - Steinheil, in Boissier, Voyage Bot. en Espagne, i. p. 25.] The custom of using the plant for fences, and the nourishing property of the fruits, which contain a large proportion of sugar, have determined its extension round the Mediterranean, and in general in all countries near the tropics.

The cultivation of the cochineal, which was unfavourable to the production of the fruit,[1362 - Webb and Berthelot, Phytog. Canar., vol. iii. sect. 1, p. 208.] is dying out since the manufacture of colouring matters by chemical processes.

Gooseberry—Ribes grossularia and R. Vacrispa, Linnæus.

The fruit of the cultivated varieties is generally smooth, or provided with a few stiff hairs, while that of the wild varieties has soft and shorter hairs; but intermediate forms exist, and it has been shown by experiment that by sowing the seeds of the cultivated fruit, plants with either smooth or hairy fruit are obtained.[1363 - Robson, quoted in English Botany, pl. 2057] There is, therefore, but one species, which has produced under cultivation one principal variety and several sub-varieties as to the size, colour, or taste of the fruit.

The gooseberry grows wild throughout temperate Europe, from Southern Sweden to the mountainous regions of Central Spain, of Italy, and of Greece.[1364 - Nyman, Conspectus Fl. Europeæ, p. 266; Boissier, Fl. Or., ii. p. 815.] It is also mentioned in Northern Africa, but the last published catalogue of Algerian plants[1365 - Munby, Catal., edit. 2, p. 15.] indicates it only in the mountains of Aures, and Ball has found a variety in the Atlas of Marocco.[1366 - Ball, Spicilegium Fl. Maroc., p. 449.] It grows in the Caucasus,[1367 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 194; Boissier, ubi supra.] and under more or less different forms in the western Himalayas.[1368 - Clarke, in Hooker’s Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 410.]

The Greeks and Romans do not mention the species, which is rare in the South, and which is hardly worth planting where grapes will ripen. It is especially in Germany, Holland, and England that it has been cultivated from the sixteenth century,[1369 - Phillips, Account of Fruits, p. 174.] principally as a seasoning, whence the English name, and the French groseille à maquereaux (mackerel currant). A wine is also made from it.

The frequency of its cultivation in the British Isles and in other places where it is found wild, which are often near gardens, has suggested to some English botanists the idea of an accidental naturalization. This is likely enough in Ireland;[1370 - Moore and More, Contrib. to the Cybele Hybernica, p. 113.] but as it is an essentially European species, I do not see why it should not have existed in England, where the wild plant is more common, since the establishment of most of the species of the British flora; that is to say, since the end of the glacial period, before the separation of the island from the continent. Phillips quotes an old English name, feaberry or feabes, which supports the theory of an ancient existence, and two Welsh names,[1371 - Davies, Welsh Botanology, p. 24.] of which I cannot, however, certify the originality.

Red Currant—Ribes rubrum, Linnæus.

The common red currant is wild throughout Northern and Temperate Europe, and in Siberia[1372 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 199.] as far as Kamtschatka, and in America, from Canada and Vermont to the mouth of the river Mackenzie.[1373 - Torrey and Gray, Fl. N. Amer., i. p. 150.]

Like the preceding species, it was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and its cultivation was only introduced in the Middle Ages. The cultivated plant hardly differs from the wild one. That the plant was foreign to the south of Europe is shown by the name of groseillier d’outremer (currant from beyond the sea), given in France[1374 - Dodoneus, p. 748.] in the sixteenth century. In Geneva the currant is still commonly called raisin de mare, and in the canton of Soleure meertrübli. I do not know why the species was supposed, three centuries ago, to have come from beyond seas. Perhaps this should be understood to mean that it was brought by the Danes and the Northmen, and that these peoples from beyond the northern seas introduced its cultivation. I doubt it, however, for the Ribes rubrum is wild in almost the whole of Great Britain[1375 - Watson, Cybele Brit.] and in Normandy;[1376 - Brebisson, Flore de Normandie, p. 99.] the English, who were in constant communication with the Danes, did not cultivate it as late as 1557, from a list of the fruits of that epoch drawn up by Th. Tusser, and published by Phillips;[1377 - Phillips, Account of Fruits, p. 136.] and even in the time of Gerard, in 1597,[1378 - Gerard, Herbal, p. 1143.] its cultivation was rare, and the plant had no particular name.[1379 - That of currant is a later introduction, given from the resemblance to the grapes of Corinth (Phillips, ibid.).] Lastly, there are French and Breton names which indicate a cultivation anterior to the Normans in the west of France.

The old names in France are given in the dictionary by Ménage. According to him, red currants are called at Rouen gardes, at Caen grades, in Lower Normandy gradilles, and in Anjou castilles. Ménage derives all these names from rubius, rubicus, etc., by a series of imaginary transformations, from the word ruber, red. Legonidec[1380 - Legonidec, Diction. Celto-Breton.] tells us that red currants are also called Kastilez (l. liquid) in Brittany, and he derives this name from Castille, as if a fruit scarcely known in Spain and abundant in the north could come from Spain. These words, found both in Brittany and beyond its limits, appear to me to be of Celtic origin; and I may mention, in support of this theory, that in Legonidec’s dictionary gardis means rough, harsh, pungent, sour, etc., which gives a hint as to the etymology. The generic name Ribes has caused other errors. It was thought the plant might be one which was so called by the Arabs; but the word comes rather from a name for the currant very common in the north, ribs in Danish,[1381 - Moritzi, Dict. Inédit des Noms Vulgaires.]risp and resp in Swedish.[1382 - Linnæus, Flora Suecica, n. 197.] The Slav names are quite different and in considerable number.

Black Currant—Cassis; Ribes nigrum, Linnæus.

The black currant grows wild in the north of Europe, from Scotland and Lapland as far as the north of France and Italy; in Bosnia,[1383 - Watson, Compend. Cybele, i. p. 177; Fries, Summa Veg. Scand., p. 39; Nyman, Conspect. Fl. Europ., p. 266.] Armenia,[1384 - Boissier, Fl. Or., ii. p. 815.] throughout Siberia, in the basin of the river Amur, and in the western Himalayas;[1385 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., p. 200; Maximowicz, Primitiæ Fl. Amur., p. 119; Clarke, in Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 411.] it often becomes naturalized, as for instance, in the centre of France.[1386 - Boreau, Flore du Centre de la France, edit. 3, p. 262.]

This shrub was unknown in Greece and Italy, for it is proper to colder countries. From the variety of the names in all the languages, even in those anterior to the Aryans, of the north of Europe, it is clear that this fruit was very early sought after, and its cultivation was probably begun before the Middle Ages. J. Bauhin[1387 - Bauhin, Hist. Plant., ii. p. 99.] says it was planted in gardens in France and Italy, but most sixteenth-century authors do not mention it. In the Histoire de la Vie Privée des Français, by Le Grand d’Aussy, published in 1872, vol. i. p. 232, the following curious passage occurs: “The black currant has been cultivated hardly forty years, and it owes its reputation to a pamphlet entitled Culture du Cassis, in which the author attributed to this shrub all the virtues it is possible to imagine.” Further on (vol. iii. p. 80), the author mentions the frequent use, since the publication of the pamphlet in question, of a liqueur made from the black currant. Bosc, who is always accurate in his articles in the Dictionnaire d’Agriculture, mentions this fashion under the head Currant, but he is careful to add, “It has been very long in cultivation for its fruit, which has a peculiar odour agreeable to some, disagreeable to others, and which is held to be stomachic and diuretic.” It is also used in the manufacture of the liqueurs known as ratafia de Cassis.[1388 - This name Cassis is curious. Littré says that it seems to have been introduced late into the language, and that he does not know its origin. I have not met with it in botanical works earlier than the middle of the seventeenth century. My manuscript collection of common names, among more than forty names for this species in different languages or dialects has not one which resembles it. Buchoz, in his Dictionnaire des Plantes, 1770, i. p. 289, calls the plant the Cassis or Cassetier des Poitevins. The old French name was Poivrier or groseillier noir. Larousse’s dictionary says that good liqueurs were made at Cassis in Provence. Can this be the origin of the name?]

Olive—Olea Europea, Linnæus.

The wild olive, called in botanical books the variety sylvestris or oleaster, is distinguished from the cultivated olive tree by a smaller fruit, of which the flesh is not so abundant. The best fruits are obtained by selecting the seeds, buds, or grafts from good varieties.

The oleaster now exists over a wide area east and west of Syria, from the Punjab and Beluchistan[1389 - Aitchison, Catalogue, p. 86.] as far as Portugal and even Madeira, the Canaries and even Marocco,[1390 - Lowe, Man. Fl. of Madeira, ii. p. 20; Webb and Berthelot, Hist. Nat. des Canaries, Géog. Bot., p. 48; Ball, Spicil. Fl. Maroc., p. 565.] and from the Atlas northwards as far as the south of France, the ancient Macedonia, the Crimea, and the Caucasus.[1391 - Cosson, Bull. Soc. Bot. France, iv. p. 107, and vii. p. 31; Grisebach, Spicil. Fl. Rumelicæ, ii. p. 71; Steven, Verzeich. der Taurisch. Halbins., p. 248; Ledebour, Fl. Ross., p. 38.] If we compare the accounts of travellers and of the authors of floras, it will be seen that towards the limits of this area there is often a doubt as to the wild and indigenous (that is to say ancient in the country) nature of the species. Sometimes it offers itself as a shrub which fruits little or not at all; and sometimes, as in the Crimea, the plants are rare as though they had escaped, as an exception, the destructive effects of winters too severe to allow of a definite establishment. As regards Algeria and the south of France, these doubts have been the subject of a discussion among competent men in the Botanical Society.[1392 - Bulletin, iv. p. 107.] They repose upon the uncontestable fact that birds often transport the seed of the olive into uncultivated and sterile places, where the wild form, the oleaster, is produced and naturalized.

The question is not clearly stated when we ask if such and such olive trees of a given locality are really wild. In a woody species which lives so long and shoots again from the same stock when cut off by accident, it is impossible to know the origin of the individuals observed. They may have been sown by man or birds at a very early epoch, for olive trees of more than a thousand years old are known. The effect of such sowing is a naturalization, which is equivalent to an extension of area. The point in question is, therefore, to discover what was the home of the species in very early prehistoric times, and how this area has grown larger by different modes of transport.

It is not by the study of living olive trees that this question can be answered. We must seek in what countries the cultivation began, and how it was propagated. The more ancient it is in any region, the more probable it is that the species has existed wild there from the time of those geological events which took place before the coming of prehistoric man.

The earliest Hebrew books mention the olive sait, or zeit,[1393 - Rosenmüller, Handbuch der Bibl. Alterth., vol. iv. p. 258; Hamilton, Bot. de la Bible, p. 80, where the passages are indicated.] both wild and cultivated. It was one of the trees promised in the land of Canaan. It is first mentioned in Genesis, where it is said that the dove sent out by Noah should bring back a branch of olive. If we take into account this tradition, which is accompanied by miraculous details, it may be added that the discoveries of modern erudition show that the Mount Ararat of the Bible must be to the east of the mountain in Armenia which now bears that name, and which was anciently called Masis. From a study of the text of the Book of Genesis, François Lenormand[1394 - Fr. Lenormand, Manuel de l’Hist. Auc. de l’Orient., 1869, vol. i. p. 31.] places the mountain in question in the Hindu Kush, and even near the sources of the Indus. This theory supposes it near to the land of the Aryans, yet the olive has no Sanskrit name, not even in that Sanskrit from which the Indian languages[1395 - Fick, Wörterbuch, Piddington, Index, only mentions one Hindu name, julpai.] are derived. If the olive had then, as now, existed in the Punjab, the eastern Aryans in their migrations towards the south would probably have given it a name, and if it had existed in the Mazanderan, to the south of the Caspian Sea, as at the present day, the western Aryans would perhaps have known it. To these negative indications, it can only be objected that the wild olive attracts no considerable attention, and that the idea of extracting oil from it perhaps arose late in this part of Asia.

Herodotus[1396 - Herodotus, Hist., bk. i. c. 193.] tells us that Babylonia grew no olive trees, and that its inhabitants made use of oil of sesame. It is certain that a country so subject to inundation was not at all favourable to the olive. The cold excludes the higher plateaux and the mountains of the north of Persia.

I do not know if there is a name in Zend, but the Semitic word sait must date from a remote antiquity, for it is found in modern Persian, seitun,[1397 - Boissier, Fl. Orient., iv. p. 36.] and in Arabic, zeitun, sjetun.[1398 - Ebn Baithar, Germ. trans., p. 569; Forskal, Plant. Egypt., p. 49.] It even exists in Turkish and among the Tartars of the Crimea, seitun,[1399 - Boissier, ibid.; Steven, ibid.] which may signify that it is of Turanian origin, or from the remote epoch when the Turanian and Semitic peoples intermixed.

The ancient Egyptians cultivated the olive tree, which they called tat.[1400 - Unger, Die Pflanz. der Alten. Ægypt, p. 45.] Several botanists have ascertained the presence of branches or leaves of the olive in the sarcophagi.[1401 - De Candolle, Physiol. Végét., p. 696; Pleyte, quoted by Braun and Ascherson, Sitzber. Naturfor. Ges., May 15, 1877.] Nothing is more certain, though Hehn[1402 - Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, edit. 3, p. 88, line 9.] has recently asserted the contrary, without giving any proof in support of his opinion. It would be interesting to know to what dynasty belong the most ancient mummy-cases in which olive branches have been found. The Egyptian name, quite different to the Semitic, shows an existence more ancient than the earliest dynasties. I shall mention presently another fact in support of this great antiquity.

Theophrastus says[1403 - Theophrastus, Hist. Plant., lib. iv. c. 3.] that the olive was much grown, and the harvest of oil considerable in Cyrenaica, but he does not say that the species was wild there, and the quantity of oil mentioned seems to point to a cultivated variety. The low-lying, very hot country between Egypt and the Atlas is little favourable to a naturalization of the olive outside the plantations. Kralik, a very accurate botanist, did not anywhere see on his journey to Tunis and into Egypt the olive growing wild,[1404 - Kralik, Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr., iv. p. 108.] although it is cultivated in the oases. In Egypt it is only cultivated, according to Schweinfurth and Ascherson,[1405 - Beitrage zur Fl. Æthiopiens, p. 281.] in their resumé of the Flora of the Nile Valley.

Its prehistoric area probably extended from Syria towards Greece, for the wild olive is very common along the southern coast of Asia Minor, where it forms regular woods.[1406 - Balansa, Bull. Soc. Bot. de Fr., iv. p. 107.] It is doubtless here and in the archipelago that the Greeks early knew the tree. If they had not known it on their own territory, had received it from the Semites, they would not have given it a special name, elaia, whence the Latin olea. The Iliad and the Odyssey mention the hardness of the olive wood and the practice of anointing the body with olive oil. The latter was in constant use for food and lighting. Mythology attributed to Minerva the planting of the olive in Attica, which probably signifies the introduction of cultivated varieties and suitable processes for extracting the oil. Aristæus introduced or perfected the manner of pressing the fruit.

The same mythical personage carried, it was said, the olive tree from the north of Greece into Sicily and Sardinia. It seems that this may have been early done by the Phœnicians, but in support of the idea that the species, or a perfected variety of it, was introduced by the Greeks, I may mention that the Semitic name seit has left no trace in the islands of the Mediterranean. We find the Græco-Latin name here as in Italy,[1407 - Moris, Fl. Sard., iii. p. 9; Bertoloni, Fl. Ital., i. p. 46.] while upon the neighbouring coast of Africa, and in Spain, the names are Egyptian or Arabic, as I shall explain directly.

The Romans knew the olive later than the Greeks. According to Pliny,[1408 - Pliny, Hist., lib. xv. cap. 1.] it was only at the time of Tarquin the Ancient, 627 B.C., but the species probably existed already in Great Greece, as in Greece and Sicily. Besides, Pliny was speaking of the cultivated olive.

A remarkable fact, and one which has not been noted or discussed by philologists, is that the Berber name for the olive, both tree and fruit, has the root taz or tas, similar to the tat of the ancient Egyptians. The Kabyles of the district of Algiers, according to the French-Berber dictionary, published by the French Government, calls the wild olive tazebboujt, tesettha, ou’ zebbouj, and the grafted olive tazemmourt, tasettha, ou’ zemmour. The Touaregs, another Berber nation, call it tamahinet.[1409 - Duveyrier, Les Touaregs du Nord (1864), p. 179.] These are strong indications of the antiquity of the olive in Africa. The Arabs having conquered this country and driven back the Berbers into the mountains and the desert, having likewise subjected Spain excepting the Basque country, the names derived from the Semitic zeit have prevailed even in Spanish. The Arabs of Algiers say zenboudje for the wild, zitoun for the cultivated olive,[1410 - Munby, Flore de l’Algerie, p. 2; Debeaux, Catal. Boghar, p. 68.]zit for olive oil. The Andalusians call the wild olive azebuche, and the cultivated aceytuno.[1411 - Boissier, Voyage Bot. en Espagne, edit. I, vol. ii. p. 407.] In other provinces we find the name of Latin origin, olivio, side by side with the Arabic words.[1412 - Willkomm and Lange, Prod. Fl. Hispan., ii. p. 672.] The oil is in Spanish aceyte, which is almost the Hebrew name; but the holy oils are called oleos santos, because they belong to Rome. The Basques use the Latin name for the olive tree.

Early voyagers to the Canaries, Bontier for instance, in 1403, mention the olive tree in these islands, where modern botanists regard it as indigenous.[1413 - Webb and Berthelot, Hist. Nat. des Canaries, Géog. Bot., pp. 47, 48.] It may have been introduced by the Phœnicians, if it did not previously exist there. We do not know if the Guanchos had names for the olive and its oil. Webb and Berthelot do not give any in their learned chapter on the language of the aborigines,[1414 - Webb and Berthelot, ibid., Ethnographie, p. 188.] so the question is open to conjecture. It seems to me that the oil would have played an important part among the Guanchos if they had possessed the olive, and that some traces of it would have remained in the actual speech of the people. From this point of view the naturalization in the Canaries is perhaps not more ancient than the Phœnician voyages.

No leaf of the olive has hitherto been found in the tufa of the south of France, of Tuscany, and Sicily, where the laurel, the myrtle, and other shrubs now existing have been discovered. This is an indication, until the contrary is proved, of a subsequent naturalization.

The olive thrives in dry climates like that of Syria and Assyria. It succeeds at the Cape, in parts of America, in Australia, and doubtless it will become wild in these places when it has been more generally planted. Its slow growth, the necessity of grafting or of choosing the shoots of good varieties, and especially the concurrence of other oil-producing species, have hitherto impeded its extension; but a tree which produces in an ungrateful soil should not be indefinitely neglected. Even in the old world, where it has existed for so many thousands of years, its productiveness might be doubled by taking the trouble to graft on wild trees, as the French have done in Algeria.

Star Apple—Chrysophyllum Caïnito, Linnæus.

The star apple belongs to the family of the Sapotaceæ. It yields a fruit valued in tropical America, though Europeans do not care much for it. I do not find that any pains have been taken to introduce it into the colonies of Asia or Africa. Tussac gives a good illustration of it in his Flore des Antilles, vol. ii. pl. 9.

Seemann[1415 - Seemann, Bot. of the Herald., p. 166.] saw the star apple wild in several places in the Isthmus of Panama. De Tussac, a San Domingo colonist, considered it wild in the forests of the West India Islands, and Grisebach[1416 - Grisebach, Flora of Brit. W. Ind. Isl., p. 398.] says it is both wild and cultivated in Jamaica, San Domingo, Antigua, and Trinidad. Sloane considered it had escaped from cultivation in Jamaica, and Jacquin says vaguely, “Inhabits Martinique and San Domingo.”[1417 - Sloane, Jamaica, ii. p. 170; Jacquin, Amer., p. 52.]

Caïmito, or Abi—Lucuma Caïnito, Alph. de Candolle.

This Peruvian Caïmito must not be confounded with the Chrysophyllum Caïnito of the West Indies. Both belong to the family Sapotaceæ, but the flowers and seeds are different. There is a figure of this one in Ruiz and Pavon, Flora Peruviana, vol. iii. pl. 240. It has been transported from Peru, where it is cultivated, to Ega on the Amazon River, and to Para, where it is commonly called abi or abiu.[1418 - Flora Brasil., vol. vii. p. 88.] Ruiz and Pavon say it is wild in the warm regions of Peru, and at the foot of the Andes.

Marmalade Plum, or Mammee Sapota—Lucuma mammosa, Gærtner.

This fruit tree, of the order Sapotaceæ and a native of tropical America, has been the subject of several mistakes in works on botany.[1419 - See the synonyms in the Flora Brasiliensis, vol. vii. p. 66.] There exists no satisfactory and complete illustration of it as yet, because colonists and travellers think it is too well known to send selected specimens of it, such as may be described in herbaria. This neglect is common enough in the case of cultivated plants. The mammee is cultivated in the West Indies and in some warm regions of America. Sagot tells us it is grown in Venezuela, but not in Cayenne.[1420 - Sagot, Journ. Soc. d’Hortic. de France, 1872, p. 347.] I do not find that it has been transported into Africa and Asia, the Philippines[1421 - Blanco, Fl. de Filipinas, under the name Achras lucuma.] excepted. This is probably due to the insipid taste of the fruit. Humboldt and Bonpland found it wild in the forests on the banks of the Orinoco.[1422 - Nova Genera, iii. p. 240.] All authors mention it in the West Indies, but as cultivated or without asserting that it is wild. In Brazil it is only a garden species.

Sapodilla—Sapota achras, Miller.

The sapodilla is the most esteemed of the order Sapotaceæ, and one of the best of tropical fruits. “An over-ripe sapodilla,” says Descourtilz, in his Flore des Antilles, “is melting, and has the sweet perfumes of honey, jasmin, and lily of the valley.” There is a very good illustration in the Botanical Magazine, pls. 3111 and 3112, and in Tussac, Flore des Antilles, i. pl. 5. It has been introduced into gardens in Mauritius, the Malay Archipelago, and India, from the time of Rheede and Rumphius, but no one disputes its American origin. Several botanists have seen it wild in the forests of the Isthmus of Panama, of Campeachy,[1423 - Dampier and Lussan, in Sloane’s Jamaica, ii. p. 172; Seemann, Botany of the Herald., p. 166.] of Venezuela,[1424 - Jacquin, Amer., p. 59; Humboldt and Bonpland, Nova Genera, iii. p. 239.] and perhaps of Trinidad.[1425 - Grisebach, Flora of Brit. W. Ind., p. 399.] In Jamaica, in the time of Sloane, it existed only in gardens.[1426 - Sloane, ubi supra.] It is very doubtful that it is wild in the other West India Islands, although perhaps the seeds, scattered here and there, may have naturalized it to a certain degree. Tussac says that the young plants are not easy to rear in the plantations.

Aubergine—Solanum melongena, Linnæus; Solanum esculentum, Dunal.

The aubergine has a Sanskrit name, vartta, and several names, which Piddington in his Index considers as both Sanskrit and Bengali, such as bong, bartakon, mahoti, hingoli. Wallich, in his edition of Roxburgh’s Indian Flora, gives vartta, varttakou, varttaka bunguna, whence the Hindustani bungan. Hence it cannot be doubted that the species has been known in India from a very remote epoch. Rumphius had seen it in gardens in the Sunda Islands, and Loureiro in those of Cochin-China. Thunberg does not mention it in Japan, though several varieties are now cultivated in that country. The Greeks and Romans did not know the species, and no botanist mentions it in Europe before the beginning of the seventeenth century,[1427 - Dunal, Hist. des Solanum, p. 209.] but its cultivation must have spread towards Africa before the Middle Ages. The Arab physician, Ebn Baithar,[1428 - Ebn Baithar, Germ. trans., i. p. 116.] who wrote in the thirteenth century, speaks of it, and he quotes Rhasis, who lived in the ninth century. Rauwolf[1429 - Rauwolf, Flora Orient., ed. Groningue, p. 26.] had seen the plant in the gardens of Aleppo at the end of the sixteenth century. It was called melanzana and bedengiam. This Arabic name, which Forskal writes badinjan, is the same as the Hindustani badanjan, which Piddington gives. A sign of antiquity in Northern Africa is the existence of a name, tabendjalts, among the Berbers or Kabyles of the province of Algiers,[1430 - Dict. Fr. – Berbère, published by the French Government.] which differs considerably from the Arab word. Modern travellers have found the aubergine cultivated in the whole of the Nile Valley and on the coast of Guinea.[1431 - Thonning, under the name S. edule; Hooker, Niger Flora, p. 473.] It has been transported into America.