Origin of Cultivated Plants

Lastly, I shall mention a sign of the ancient existence of the bean in the north of Africa. This is the Berber name ibiou, in the plural iabouen, used by the Kabyles of the province of Algiers.[1601 - Dict. Français-Berbère, published by the French government.] It has no resemblance to the Semitic name, and dates perhaps from a remote antiquity. The Berbers formerly inhabited Mauritania, where Pliny asserts that the species was wild. It is not known whether the Guanchos (the Berber people of the Canaries) knew the bean. I doubt whether the Iberians had it, for their supposed descendants, the Basques, use the name baba,[1602 - Note communicated to M. Clos by M. d’Abadie.] answering to the Roman faba.

We judge from these facts that the bean was cultivated in Europe in prehistoric terms. It was introduced into Europe probably by the western Aryans at the time of their earliest migrations (Pelasgians, Kelts, Slavs). It was taken to China later, a century before the Christian era, and still later into Japan, and quite recently into India.

Its wild habitat was probably twofold some thousands of years ago, one of the centres being to the south of the Caspian, the other in the north of Africa. This kind of area, which I have called disjunctive, and to which I formerly paid a good deal of attention,[1603 - A. de Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Rais., chap. x.] is rare in dicotyledons, but there are examples in those very countries of which I have just spoken.[1604 - Rhododendron ponticum now exists only in Asia Minor and in the south of the Spanish peninsula.] It is probable that the area of the bean has long been in process of diminution and of extinction. The nature of the plant is in favour of this hypothesis, for its seed has no means of dispersing itself, and rodents or other animals can easily make prey of it. Its area in Western Asia was probably less limited at one time, and that in Africa in Pliny’s day was more or less extensive. The struggle for existence which was going against this plant, as against maize, would have gradually isolated it and caused it to disappear, if man had not saved it by cultivation.

The plant which most nearly resembles the bean is Vicia narbonensis. Authors who do not admit the genus Faba, of which the characters are not very distinct from those of Vicia, place these two species in the same section. Now, Vicia narbonensis is wild in the Mediterranean basin and in the East as far as the Caucasus, in the north of Persia, and in Mesopotamia.[1605 - Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 577.] Its area is continuous, but this renders the hypothesis I mentioned above probable by analogy.

Lentil—Ervum lens, Linnæus; Lens esculenta, Mœnch.

The plants which most nearly resemble the lentil are classed by authors now in the genus Ervum, now in a distinct genus Lens, and sometimes in the genus Cicer; but the species of these ill-defined groups all belong to the Mediterranean basin or to Western Asia. This throws some light on the origin of the cultivated plant. Unfortunately, the lentil is no longer to be found in a wild state, at least with certainty. The floras of the south of Europe, of Northern Africa, of the East, and of India always mention it as cultivated, or as growing in fields after or with other cultivated species. A botanist[1606 - C. A. Meyer, Verzeichniss Fl. Caucas., p. 147.] saw it in the provinces to the south of the Caucasus, “cultivated and nearly wild here and there round villages.” Another[1607 - Georgi, in Ledebour, Fl. Ross.] indicates it vaguely in the south of Russia, but more recent floras fail to confirm this.

The history and names of this plant may give clearer indications of its origin. It has been cultivated in the East, in the Mediterranean basin and even in Switzerland, from prehistoric time. According to Herodotos, Theophrastus, etc., the ancient Egyptians used it largely. If their monuments give no proof of this, it was probably because the lentil was, like the bean, considered common and coarse. The Old Testament mentions it three times, by the name adaschum or adaschim, which must certainly mean lentil, for the Arabic name is ads,[1608 - Forskal, Fl. Ægypt.; Delile, Plant. Cult. en Égypte, p. 13.] or adas.[1609 - Ebn Baithar, ii. p. 134.] The red colour of Esau’s famous mess of pottage has not been understood by most authors. Reynier,[1610 - Reynier, Économie publique et rurale des Arabes et des Juifs, Genève, 1820, p. 429.] who had lived in Egypt, confirms the explanation given formerly by Josephus; the lentils were red because they were hulled. It is still the practice in Egypt, says Reynier, to remove the husk or outer skin from the lentil, and in this case they are a pale red. The Berbers have the Semitic name adès for the lentil.[1611 - Dict. Franç. – Berbère, in 8vo, 1844.]

The Greeks cultivated the species —fakos or fakai. Aristophanes mentions it as an article of food of the poor.[1612 - Hehn, Culturpflanzen, etc., edit. 3, vol. ii. p. 188.] The Latins called it lens, a name whose origin is unknown, which is evidently allied to the ancient Slav lesha, Illyrian lechja, Lithuanian lenszic.[1613 - Ad. Pictet, Origines Indo-Européennes, edit. 2, vol. i. p. 364; Hehn, ubi supra.] The difference between the Greek and Latin names shows that the species perhaps existed in Greece and Italy before it was cultivated. Another proof of ancient existence in Europe is the discovery of lentils in the lake-dwellings of St. Peter’s Island, Lake of Bienne,[1614 - Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten, p. 23, fig. 49.] which are of the age of bronze. The species may have been introduced from Italy.

According to Theophrastus,[1615 - Theophrastus, Hist., lib. iv. cap. 5.] the inhabitants of Bactriana (the modern Bokkara) did not know the fakos of the Greeks. Adolphe Pictet quotes a Persian name, mangu or margu, but he does not say whether it is an ancient name, existing, for instance, in the Zend Avesta. He admits several Sanskrit names for the lentil, masura, renuka, mangalya, etc., while Anglo-Indian botanists, Roxburgh and Piddington, knew none.[1616 - Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., edit. 1832, vol. iii. p. 324; Piddington, Index.] As these authors mention an analogous name in Hindustani and Bengali, mussour, we may suppose that masura signifies lentil, while mangu in Persian recalls the other name mangalya. As Roxburgh and Piddington give no name in other Indian languages, it may be supposed that the lentil was not known in this country before the invasion of the Sanskrit-speaking race. Ancient Chinese works do not mention the species; at least, Dr. Bretschneider says nothing of them in his work published in 1870, nor in the more detailed letters which he has since written to me.

The lentil appears to have existed in western temperate Asia, in Greece, and in Italy, where its cultivation was first undertaken in very early prehistoric time, when it was introduced into Egypt. Its cultivation appears to have been extended at a less remote epoch, but still hardly in historic time, both east and west, that is into Europe and India.

Chick-Pea—Cicer arietinum, Linnæus.

Fifteen species of the genus Cicer are known, all of Western Asia or Greece, except one, which is Abyssinian. It seems, therefore, most probable that the cultivated species comes from the tract of land lying between Greece and the Himalayas, vaguely termed the East. The species has not been found undoubtedly wild. All the floras of the south of Europe, of Egypt, and of Western Asia as far as the Caucasus and India, give it as a cultivated species, or growing in fields and cultivated grounds. It has sometimes[1617 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., i. p. 660, according to Pallas, Falk, and Koch.] been indicated in the Crimea, and to the north, and especially to the south of the Caucasus, as nearly wild; but well-informed modern authors do not think so.[1618 - Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 560; Steven, Verzeichniss des Taurischen Hablinseln, p. 134.] This quasi-wildness can only point to its origin in Armenia and the neighbouring countries. The cultivation and the names of the species may perhaps throw some light on the question.

The Greeks cultivated this species of pea as early as Homer’s time, under the name of erebinthos,[1619 - Iliad, bk. 13, verse 589; Theophrastus, Hist., lib. viii. c. 3.] and also of krios,[1620 - Dioscorides, lib. ii. c. 126.] from the resemblance of the pea to the head of a ram. The Latins called it cicer, which is the origin of all the modern names in the south of Europe. The name exists also among the Albanians, descendants of the Pelasgians, under the form kikere.[1621 - Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, p. 71.] The existence of such widely different names shows that the plant was very early known, and perhaps indigenous, in the south-east of Europe.

The chick-pea has not been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, and Italy. In the first-named locality its absence is not singular; the climate is not hot enough. A common name among the peoples of the south of the Caucasus and of the Caspian Sea is, in Georgian, nachuda; in Turkish and Armenian, nachius, nachunt; in Persian, nochot.[1622 - Nemnich, Polyglott. Lex., i. p. 1037; Bunge, in Goebels Reise, ii. p. 328.] Philologists can tell if this is a very ancient name, and if it has any connection with the Sanskrit chennuka.

The chick-pea is so frequently cultivated in Egypt from the earliest times of the Christian era,[1623 - Clément d’Alexandrie, Strom., lib. i., quoted from Reynier, Écon. des Égyp. et Carthag., p. 343.] that it is supposed to have been also known to the ancient Egyptians. There is no proof to be found in the drawings or stores of grain in their monuments, but it may be supposed that this pea, like the bean and the lentil, was considered common or unclean. Reynier[1624 - Reynier, Écon. des Arabes et Juifs, p. 430.] thought that the ketsech, mentioned by Isaiah in the Old Testament, was perhaps the chick-pea; but this name is generally attributed, though without certainty, to Nigella sativa or Vicia sativa.[1625 - Rosenmüller, Bibl. Alterth., i. p. 100; Hamilton, Bot. de la Bible, p. 180.] As the Arabs have a totally different name for the chick-pea, omnos, homos, which recurs in the Kabyl language as hammez,[1626 - Rauwolf, Fl. Orient., No. 220; Forskal, Fl. Ægypt., p. 81; Dict. Franç. – Berbère.] it is not likely that the ketsech of the Jews was the same plant. These details lead me to suspect that the species was unknown to the ancient Egyptians and to the Hebrews. It was perhaps introduced among them from Greece or Italy towards the beginning of our era.

It is of more ancient introduction into India, for there is a Sanskrit name, and several others, analogous or different, in modern Indian languages.[1627 - Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., iii. p. 324; Piddington, Index.] Bretschneider does not mention the species in China.

I do not know of any proof of antiquity of culture in Spain, yet the Castilian name garbanzo, used also by the Basques under the form garbantzua, and by the French as garvance, being neither Latin nor Arabic, may date from an epoch anterior to the Roman conquest.

Botanical, historical, and philological data agree in indicating a habitation anterior to cultivation in the countries to the south of the Caucasus and to the north of Persia. The western Aryans (Pelasgians, Hellenes) perhaps introduced the plant into Southern Europe, where, however, there is some probability that it was also indigenous. The western Aryans carried it into India. Its area perhaps extended from Persia to Greece, and the species now exists only in cultivated ground, where we do not know whether it springs from a stock originally wild or from cultivated plants.

Lupin—Lupinus albus, Linnæus.

The ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated this leguminous plant to bury it as a green manure, and also for the sake of the seeds, which are a good fodder for cattle, and which are also used by man. The expressions of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Cato, Varro, Pliny, etc., quoted by modern writers, refer to the culture or to the medical properties of the seeds, and do not show whether the species was the white lupin, L. albus, or the blue-flowered lupin, L. hirsutus, which grows wild in the south of Europe. Fraas says[1628 - See Fraas, Fl. Class., p. 51; Lenz., Bot. der Alten, p. 73.] that the latter is grown in the Morea at the present day; but Heldreich says[1629 - Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, p. 69.] that L. albus grows in Attica. As this is the species which has been long cultivated in Italy, it is probable that it is the lupin of the ancients. It was much grown in the eighteenth century, especially in Italy,[1630 - Olivier de Serres, Théâtre de l’Agric., edit. 1529, p. 88.] and de l’Ecluse settles the question of the species, as he calls it Lupinus sativus albo flore.[1631 - Clusius, Hist. Plant., ii. p. 228.] The antiquity of its cultivation in Spain is shown by the existence of four different common names, according to the province; but the plant is only found cultivated or nearly wild in fields and sandy places.[1632 - Willkomm and Lange, Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 466.] The species is indicated by Bertoloni in Italy, on the hills of Sarzana. Yet Caruel does not believe it to be wild here, any more than in other parts of the peninsula.[1633 - Caruel, Fl. Toscana, p. 136.] Gussone[1634 - Gussone, Fl. Siculæ Syn., edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 466.] is very positive for Sicily – “on barren and sandy hills, and in meadows (in herbidis)” Lastly, Grisebach[1635 - Grisebach, Spicil. Fl. Rumel., p. 11.] found it in Turkey in Europe, near Ruskoï, and d’Urville[1636 - D’Urville, Enum., p. 86.] saw it in abundance, in a wood near Constantinople. Castagne confirms this in a manuscript catalogue in my possession. Boissier does not mention any locality in the East; the species does not exist in India, but Russian botanists have found it to the south of the Caucasus, though we do not know with certainty if it was really wild.[1637 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., i. p. 510.] Other localities will perhaps be found between Sicily, Macedonia, and the Caucasus.

Egyptian Lupin—Lupinus termis, Forskal.

This species of lupin, so nearly allied to L. albus that it has sometimes been proposed to unite them,[1638 - Caruel, Fl. Tosc., p. 136.] is largely cultivated in Egypt and even in Crete. The most obvious difference is that the upper part of the flowers of L. termis is blue. The stem is taller than that of L. albus. The seeds are used like those of the common lupin, after they have been steeped to get rid of their bitterness.

L. termis is wild in sandy soil and mountainous districts, in Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica;[1639 - Gussone, Fl. Sic. Syn., ii. p. 267; Moris, Fl. Sardoa, i. p. 596.] in Syria and Egypt, according to Boissier;[1640 - Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 29.] but Schweinfurth and Ascherson[1641 - Aufzählung, etc., p. 257.] say that it is only cultivated in Egypt. Hartmann saw it wild in Upper Egypt.[1642 - Schweinfurth, Plantæ Nilot. a Hartman Coll., p. 6.] Unger[1643 - Unger, Pflanzen d. Alt. Ægyp., p. 65.] mentions it among the cultivated specimens of the ancient Egyptians, but he gives neither specimen nor drawing. Wilkinson[1644 - Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, ii. p. 403.] says only that it has been found in the tombs.

No lupin is grown in India, nor is there any Sanskrit name; its seeds are sold in bazaars under the name tourmus (Royle, Ill., p. 194).

The Arabic name, termis or termus, is also that of the Greek lupin, termos. It may be inferred that the Greeks had it from the Egyptians. As the species was known to the ancient Egyptians, it seems strange that it has no Hebrew name;[1645 - Rosenmüller, Bibl. Alterth., vol. i.] but it may have been introduced into Egypt after the departure of the Israelites.

Field-Pea—Pisum arvense, Linnæus.

This pea is grown on a large scale for the seed, and also sometimes for fodder. Although its appearance and botanical characters allow of its being easily distinguished from the garden-pea, Greek and Roman authors confounded them, or are not explicit about them. Their writings do not prove that it was cultivated in their time. It has not been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, France, and Italy. Bobbio has a legend (A.D. 930), in which it is said that the Italian peasants called a certain seed herbilia, whence it has been supposed to be the modern rubiglia or the Pisum sativum of botanists.[1646 - Muratori, Antich. Ital., i. p. 347; Diss., 24, quoted by Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 31.] The species is cultivated in the East, and as far as the north of India.[1647 - Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 623; Royle, Ill. Himal., p. 200.] It is of recent cultivation in the latter country, for there is no Sanskrit name, and Piddington gives only one name in one of the modern languages.

Whatever may be the date of the introduction of its culture, the species is undoubtedly wild in Italy, not only in hedges and near cultivated ground, but also in forests and wild mountainous districts.[1648 - Bertoloni, Fl. Ital., vii. p. 419; Caruel, Fl. Tosc., p. 184; Gussone, Fl. Sic. Synopsis, ii. p. 279; Moris, Fl. Sardoa, i. p. 577.] I find no positive indication in the floras that it grows in like manner in Spain, Algeria, Greece, and the East. The plant is said to be indigenous in the south of Russia, but sometimes its wild character is doubtful, and sometimes the species itself is not certain, from a confusion with Pisum sativum and P. elatius. Of all Anglo-Indian botanists, only Royle admits it to be indigenous in the north of India.

Garden-Pea—Pisum sativum, Linnæus.

The pea of our kitchen gardens is more delicate than the field-pea, and suffers from frost and drought. Its natural area, previous to cultivation, was probably more to the south and more restricted. It has not hitherto been found wild, either in Europe or in the west of Asia, whence it is supposed to have come. Bieberstein’s indication of the species in the Crimea is not correct, according to Steven, who was a resident in the country.[1649 - Steven, Verzeichniss, p. 134.] Perhaps botanists have overlooked its habitation; perhaps the plant has disappeared from its original dwelling; perhaps also it is a mere modification, effected by culture, of Pisum arvense. Alefeld held the latter opinion,[1650 - Alefeld, Bot. Zeitung., 1860, p. 204.] but he has published too little on the subject for us to be able to conclude anything from it. He only says that, having cultivated a great number of varieties both of the field and garden pea, he concludes that they belong to the same species. Darwin[1651 - Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, p. 326.] learnt through a third person that Andrew Knight had crossed the field-pea with a garden variety known as the Prussian pea, and that the product was fertile. This would certainly be a proof of specific unity, but further observation and experiment is required. In the mean time, in the search for geographic origin, etc., I am obliged to consider the two forms separately.

Botanists who distinguish many species in the genus Pisum, admit eight, all European or Asiatic. Pisum sativum was cultivated by the Greeks in the time of Theophrastus.[1652 - Theophrastus, Hist., lib. viii. c. 3 and 5.] They called it pisos, or pison. The Albanians, descendants of the Pelasgians, call it pizelle.[1653 - Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, p. 71.] The Latins had pisum.[1654 - Pliny, Hist., lib. xviii. c. 7 and 12. This is certainly P. sativum, for the author says it cannot bear the cold.] This uniformity of nomenclature seems to show that the Aryans knew the plant when they arrived in Greece and Italy, and perhaps brought it with them. Other Aryan languages have several names for the generic sense of pea; but it is evident, from Adolphe Pictet’s learned discussion on the subject,[1655 - Ad. Pictet, Origines Indo-Européennes, edit. 2, vol. i. p. 359.] that none of these names can be applied to Pisum sativum in particular. Even when one of the modern languages, Slav or Breton, limits the sense to the garden-pea, it is very probable that formerly the word signified field-pea, lentil, or any other leguminous plant.

The garden-pea[1656 - Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlbaüten, xxiii. fig. 48; Perrin, Études Préhistoriques sur la Savoie, p. 22.] has been found among the remains in the lake-dwellings of the age of bronze, in Switzerland and Savoy. The seed is spherical, wherein it differs from Pisum arvense. It is smaller than our modern pea. Heer says he found it also among relics of the stone age, at Moosseedorf; but he is less positive, and only gives figures of the less ancient pea of St. Peter’s Island. If the species dates from the stone age in Switzerland, it would be anterior to the immigration of the Aryans.

There is no indication of the culture of Pisum sativum in ancient Egypt or in India. On the other hand, it has long been cultivated in the north of India, if it had, as Piddington says, a Sanskrit name, harenso, and if it has several names very different to this in modern Indian languages.[1657 - Piddington, Index. Roxburgh does not give a Sanskrit name.] It has been introduced into China from Western Asia. The Pent-sao, drawn up at the end of the sixteenth century, calls it the Mahometan pea.[1658 - Bretschneider, Study and Value, etc., p. 16.] In conclusion: the species seems to have existed in Western Asia, perhaps from the south of the Caucasus to Persia, before it was cultivated. The Aryans introduced it into Europe, but it perhaps existed in Northern India before the arrival of the eastern Aryans. It no longer exists in a wild state, and when it occurs in fields, half-wild, it is not said to have a modified form so as to approach some other species.

Soy—Dolichos soja, Linnæus; Glycine soja, Bentham.

This leguminous annual has been cultivated in China and Japan from remote antiquity. This might be gathered from the many uses of the soy bean and from the immense number of varieties. But it is also supposed to be one of the farinaceous substances called shu in Chinese writings of Confucius’ time, though the modern name of the plant is ta-tou.[1659 - Ibid., p. 9.] The bean is nourishing, and contains a large proportion of oil, and preparations similar to butter, oil, and cheese are extracted from it and used in Chinese and Japanese cooking.[1660 - See Pailleux, in Bull. de la Soc. d’Acclim., Sept. and Oct., 1880.] Soy is also grown in the Malay Archipelago, but at the end of the eighteenth century it was still rare in Amboyna,[1661 - Rumphius, Amb., vol. v. p. 388.] and Forster did not see it in the Pacific Isles at the time of Cook’s voyages. It is of modern introduction in India, for Roxburgh had only seen the plant in the botanical gardens at Calcutta, where it was brought from the Moluccas.[1662 - Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., iii. p. 314.] There are no common Indian names.[1663 - Piddington, Index.] Besides, if its cultivation had been ancient in India, it would have spread westward into Syria and Egypt, which is not the case.

Kæmpfer[1664 - Kaempfer, Amer. Exot., p. 837, pl. 838.] formerly published an excellent illustration of the soy bean, and it had existed for a century in European botanical gardens, when more extensive information about China and Japan excited about ten years ago a lively desire to introduce it into our countries. In Austria, Hungary, and France especially, attempts have been made on a large scale, of which the results have been summed up in works worthy of consultation.[1665 - Haberlandt, Die Sojabohne, in 8vo, Vienna, 1878, quoted by Pailleux, ubi supra.] It is to be hoped these efforts may be successful; but we must not digress from the aim of our researches, the probable origin of the species.

Linnæus says, in his Species, “habitat in India,” and refers to Kæmpfer, who speaks of the plant in Japan, and to his own flora of Ceylon, where he gives the plant as cultivated. Thwaites’s modern flora of Ceylon makes no mention of it. We must evidently go further east to find the origin both of the species and of its cultivation. Loureiro says that it grows in Cochin-China and that it is often cultivated in China.[1666 - Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., ii. p. 538.] I find no proof that it is wild in the latter country, but it may perhaps be discovered, as its culture is so ancient. Russian botanists[1667 - Bunge, Enum. Plant. Chin., p. 118; Maximowicz, Primit. Fl. Amur., p. 87.] have only found it cultivated in the north of China and in the basin of the river Amur. It is certainly wild in Japan.[1668 - Miquel, Prolusio, in Ann. Mus. Lugd. Bat., iii. p. 52; Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Plant. Jap., i. p. 108.] Junghuhn[1669 - Junghuhn, Plantæ Jungh., p. 255.] found it in Java on Mount Gunung-Gamping, and a plant sent also from Java by Zollinger is supposed to belong to this species, but it is not certain that the specimen was wild.[1670 - Soja angustifolia, Miquel; see Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 184.] A Malay name, kadelee,[1671 - Rumphius, Amb., vol. v. p. 388.] a quite different to the Japanese and Chinese common names, is in favour of its indigenous character in Java.

Known facts and historical and philological probabilities tend to show that the species was wild from Cochin-China to the south of Japan and to Java when the ancient inhabitants of this region began to cultivate it at a very remote period, to use it for food in various ways, and to obtain from it varieties of which the number is remarkable, especially in Japan.

Pigeon-Pea—Cajanus indicus, Sprengel; Cytisus Cajan, Linnæus.

This leguminous plant, often grown in tropical countries, is a shrub, but it fruits in the first year, and in some countries it is grown as an annual. Its seed is an important article of the food of the negroes and natives, but the European colonists do not care for it unless cooked green like our garden-pea. The plant is easily naturalized in poor soil round cultivated plots, even in the West India Islands, where it is not indigenous.[1672 - Tussac, Flore des Antilles, vol. iv. p. 94, pl. 32; Grisebach, Fl. of Brit. W. Indies, i. p. 191.]

In Mauritius it is called ambrevade; in the English colonies, doll, pigeon-pea; and in the French Antilles, pois d’Angola, pois de Congo, pois pigeon.

It is remarkable that, though the species is diffused in three continents, the varieties are not numerous. Two are cited, based only upon the yellow or reddish colour of the flower, which were formerly regarded as distinct species; but a more attentive examination has resulted in their being classed as one, in accordance with Linnæus’ opinion.[1673 - See Wight and Arnott, Prod. Fl. Penins. Ind., p. 256; Klotzsch, in Peters, Reise nach Mozambique, i. p. 36. The yellow variety is figured in Tussac, that with the red flowers in the Botanical Register, 1845, pl. 31.] The small number of variations obtained even in the organ for which the species is cultivated is a sign of no very ancient culture. Its habitation previous to culture is uncertain. The best botanists have sometimes supposed it to be a native of India, sometimes of tropical Africa. Bentham, who has made a careful study of the leguminous plants, believed in 1861 in the African origin; in 1865 he inclined rather to Asia.[1674 - Bentham, Flora Hongkongensis, p. 89; Flora Brasil., vol. xv. p. 199; Bentham and Hooker, i. p. 541.] The problem is, therefore, an interesting one. There is no question of an American origin. The cajan was introduced into the West Indies from the coast of Africa by the slave trade, as the common names quoted above show,[1675 - Tussac, Flore des Antilles; Jacquin, Obs., p. 1.] and the unanimous opinion of authors or American floras. It has also been taken to Brazil, Guiana, and into all the warm parts of the American continent.

The facility with which the species is naturalized would alone prevent attaching great importance to the statements of collectors, who have found it more or less wild in Asia or in Africa; and besides, these assertions are not precise, but are usually doubtful. Most writers on the flora of continental India have only seen the plant cultivated,[1676 - Rheede, Roxburgh, Kurz, Burm. Fl., etc.] and none, to my knowledge, affirms that it exists wild. For the island of Ceylon Thwaites says,[1677 - Thwaites, Enum. Pl Ceylan.] “It is said not to be really wild, and the country names seem to confirm this.” Sir Joseph Hooker, in his Flora of British India, says, “Wild (?) and cultivated to the height of six thousand feet in the Himalayas.” Loureiro[1678 - Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 565.] gives it as cultivated and non-cultivated in China and Cochin-China. Chinese authors do not appear to have spoken of it, for the species is not named by Bretschneider in his work On the Study, etc. In the Sunda Isles it is mentioned as cultivated, and that rarely, at Amboyna at the end of the eighteenth century, according to Rumphius.[1679 - Rumphius, Amb., vol. v. t. 135.] Forster had not seen it in the Pacific Isles at the time of Cook’s voyages, but Seemann says that it has been recently introduced by missionaries into the Fiji Isles.[1680 - Seemann, Fl. Vitiensis, p. 74.] All this argues no very ancient extension of cultivation to the east and south of the continent of Asia. Besides the quotation from Loureiro, I find the species indicated on the mountain of Magelang, Java;[1681 - Junghuhn, Plantæ Jungh., fasc. i. p. 241.] but, supposing this to be a true and ancient wild growth in both cases, it would be very extraordinary not to find the species in many other Asiatic localities.

The abundance of Indian and Malay names[1682 - Piddington, Index; Rheede, Malab., vi. p. 23, etc.] shows a somewhat ancient cultivation. Piddington even gives a Sanskrit name, arhuku, which was not known to Roxburgh, but he gives no proof in support of his assertion. The name may have been merely supposed from the Hindu and Bengali names urur and orol. No Semitic name is known.

In Africa the cajan is often found from Zanzibar to the coast of Guinea.[1683 - Pickering, Chron. Arrang. of Plants, p. 442; Peters, Reise, p. 36; R. Brown, Bot. of Congo, p. 53; Oliver, Fl. of Trop. Afr., ii. p. 216.] Authors say it is cultivated, or else make no statement on this head, which would seem to show that the specimens are sometimes wild. In Egypt this cultivation is quite modern, of the nineteenth century.[1684 - Bulletin de la Société d’Acclimation, 1871, p. 663.]

Briefly, then, I doubt that the species is really wild in Asia, and that it has been grown there for more than three thousand years. If more ancient peoples had known it, it would have come to the knowledge of the Arabs and Egyptians before our time. In tropical Africa, on the contrary, it is possible that it has existed wild or cultivated for a very long time, and that it was introduced into Asia by ancient travellers trading between Zanzibar and India or Ceylon.

The genus Cajanus has only one species, so that no analogy of geographical distribution leads us to believe it to be rather of Asiatic than African origin, or vice versâ.

Carob Tree[1685 - The species is given here in order not to separate it from the other leguminous plants cultivated for the seeds alone.]—Ceratonia siliqua, Linnæus.

The seeds and pods of the carob are highly prized in the hotter parts of the Mediterranean basin, as food for animals and even for man. De Gasparin[1686 - De Gasparin, Cours. d’Agric., iv. p. 328.] has given interesting details about the raising, uses, and habitation of the species as a cultivated tree. He notes that it does not pass the northern limit beyond which the orange cannot be grown without shelter. This fine evergreen tree does not thrive either in very hot countries, especially where there is much humidity. It likes the neighbourhood of the sea and rocky places. Its original country, according to Gasparin, is “probably the centre of Africa. Denham and Clapperton found it in Burnou.” This proof seems to me insufficient, for in all the Nile Valley and in Abyssinia the carob is not wild nor even cultivated.[1687 - Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Aufzählung, p. 255; Richard, Tentamen Fl. Abyss.] R. Brown does not mention it in his account of Denham and Clapperton’s journey. Travellers have seen it in the forests of Cyrenaica between the high-lands and the littoral; but the able botanists who have drawn up the catalogue of the plants of this country are careful to say,[1688 - Ascherson, etc., in Rohls, Kufra, 1 vol. in 8vo, 1881, p. 519.] “perhaps indigenous.” Most botanists merely mention the species in the centre and south of the Mediterranean basin, from Spain and Marocco to Syria and Anatolia, without inquiring closely whether it is indigenous or cultivated, and without entering upon the question of its true country previous to cultivation. Usually they indicate the carob tree, as “cultivated and subspontaneous, or nearly wild.” However, it is stated to be wild in Greece by Heldreich, in Sicily by Gussone and Bianca, in Algeria by Munby;[1689 - Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, p. 73; Die Pflanzen der Attischen Ebene, p. 477; Gussone, Syn. Fl. Sic., p. 646; Bianca, Il Carrubo, in the Giornale d’Agricoltura Italiana, 1881; Munby, Catal. Pl. in Alg. Spont., p. 13.] and these authors have each lived long enough in the country for which each is quoted to form an enlightened opinion.

Bianca remarks, however, that the carob tree is not always healthy and productive in those restricted localities where it exists in Sicily, in the small adjacent islands, and on the coast of Italy. He puts forward the opinion, moreover, based upon the similarity of the Italian name carrubo with the Arabic word, that the species was anciently introduced into the south of Europe, the species being of Syrian or north African origin. He maintains as probable the theory of Hœfer and Bonné,[1690 - Hœfer, Hist. Bot. Minér. et Géol., 1 vol. in 12mo., p. 20; Bonné, Le Caroubier, ou l’Arbre des Lotophages, Algiers, 1869 (quoted by Hœfer). See above, the article on the jujube tree.] that the lotus of the lotophagi was the carob tree, of which the flower is sweet and the fruit has a taste of honey, which agrees with the expressions of Homer. The lotus-eaters dwelt in Cyrenaica, so that the carob must have been abundant in their country. If we admit this hypothesis we must suppose that Pliny and Herodotus did not know Homer’s plant, for the one describes the lotus as bearing a fruit like a mastic berry (Pistacia lentiscus), the other as a deciduous tree.[1691 - Pliny, Hist., lib. i. cap. 30.]