Origin of Cultivated Plants

An hypothesis regarding a doubtful plant formerly mentioned by a poet can hardly serve as the basis of an argument upon facts of natural history. After all, Homer’s lotus plant perhaps existed only in the fabled garden of Hesperides. I return to more serious arguments, on which Bianca has said a few words.

The carob has two names in ancient languages – the one Greek, keraunia or kerateia;[1692 - Theophrastus, Hist. Plant., lib. i. cap. 11; Dioscorides, lib. i. cap. 155; Fraas, Syn. Fl. Class., p. 65.] the other Arabic, chirnub or charûb. The first alludes to the form of the pod, which is like a slightly curved horn; the other means merely pod, for we find in Ebn Baithar’s[1693 - Ebn Baithar, German trans., i. p. 354; Forskal, Fl. Ægypt., p. 77.] work that four other leguminous plants bear the same name, with a qualifying epithet. The Latins had no special name; they used the Greek word, or the expression siliqua, siliqua græca (Greek pod).[1694 - Columna, quoted by Lenz, Bot. der Alten, p. 73; Pliny, Hist., lib. xiii. cap. 8.] This dearth of names is the sign of a once restricted area, and of a culture which probably does not date from prehistoric time. The Greek name is still retained in Greece. The Arab name persists among the Kabyles, who call the fruit kharroub, the tree takharrout,[1695 - Dict. Franç. – Berbère, at the word Caroube.] and the Spaniards algarrobo. Curiously enough, the Italians also took the Arab name currabo, carubio, whence the French caroubier. It seems that it must have been introduced after the Roman epoch by the Arabs of the Middle Ages, when there was another name for it. These details are all in favour of Bianca’s theory of a more southern origin than Sicily. Pliny says the species belonged to Syria, Ionia, Cnidos, and Rhodes, but he does not say whether it was wild or cultivated in these places. Pliny also says that the carob tree did not exist in Egypt. Yet it has been recognized in monuments belonging to a much earlier epoch than that of Pliny, and Egyptologists even attribute two Egyptian names to it, kontrates or jiri.[1696 - Lexicon Oxon., quoted by Pickering, Chron. Hist. of Plants, p. 141.] Lepsius gives a drawing of a pod which appears to him to be certainly a carob, and the botanist Kotschy made certain by microscopic investigation that a stick taken from a sarcophagus was made from the wood of the carob tree.[1697 - The drawing is reproduced in Unger’s Pflanzen des Alten Ægyptens, fig. 22. The observation which he quotes from Kotschy needs confirmation by a special anatomist.] There is no known Hebrew name for the species, which is not mentioned in the Old Testament. The New Testament speaks of it by the Greek name in the parable of the prodigal son. It is a tradition of the Christians in the East that St. John Baptist fed upon the fruit of the carob in the desert, and hence came the names given to it in the Middle Ages —bread of St. John, and Johannis brodbaum.

Evidently this tree became important at the beginning of the Christian era, and it spread, especially through the agency of the Arabs, towards the West. If it had previously existed in Algeria, among the Berbers, and in Spain, older names would have persisted, and the species would probably have been introduced into the Canaries by the Phœnicians.

The information gained on the subject may be summed up as follows: —

The carob grew wild in the Levant, probably on the southern coast of Anatolia and in Syria, perhaps also in Cyrenaica. Its cultivation began within historic time. The Greeks diffused it in Greece and Italy; but it was afterwards more highly esteemed by the Arabs, who propagated it as far as Marocco and Spain. In all these countries the tree has become naturalized here and there in a less productive form, which it is needful to graft to obtain good fruit.

The carob has not been found in the tufa and quaternary deposits of Southern Europe. It is the only one of its kind in the genus Ceratonia, which is somewhat exceptional among the Leguminosæ, especially in Europe. Nothing shows that it existed in the ancient tertiary or quaternary flora of the south-west of Europe.

Common Haricot Kidney Bean—Phaseolus vulgaris, Savi.

When, in 1855, I wished to investigate the origin of the genera Phaseolus and Dolichos,[1698 - A. de Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Rais., p. 961.] the distinction of species was so little defined, and the floras of tropical countries so rare, that I was obliged to leave several questions on one side. Now, thanks to the works of Bentham and Georg von Martens,[1699 - Bentham, in Ann. Wiener Museum, vol. ii.; Martens, Die Gartenbohnen, in 4to, Stuttgart, 1860, edit. 2, 1869.] completing the previous labours of Savi,[1700 - Savi, Osserv. sopra Phaseolus e Dolichos, 1, 2, 3.] the Leguminæ of hot countries are better known; lastly, the seeds discovered quite recently in the Peruvian tombs of Ancon, examined by Wittmack, have completely modified the question of origin.

I will speak first of the common haricot bean, afterwards of some other species, without, however, enumerating all those which are cultivated, for several of these are still ill defined.

Botanists held for a long time that the common haricot was of Indian origin. No one had found it wild, nor has it yet been found, but it was supposed to be of Indian origin, although the species was also cultivated in Africa and America, in temperate and hot regions, at least in those where the heat and humidity are not excessive. I called attention to the fact that there is no Sanskrit name, and that sixteenth-century gardeners often called the species Turkish bean. Convinced, moreover, that the Greeks cultivated this plant under the names fasiolos and dolichos, I suggested that it came originally from Western Asia, and not from India. Georg von Martens adopted this hypothesis.

However, the meaning of the words dolichos of Theophrastus, fasiolos of Dioscorides, faseolus and phaseolus of the Romans,[1701 - Theophrastus, Hist., lib. viii. cap. 3; Dioscorides, lib. ii. cap. 130; Pliny, Hist., lib. xviii. cap. 7, 12, interpreted by Fraas, Syn. Fl. Class., p. 52; Lenz, Bot. der Alten, p. 731; Martens, Die Gartenbohnen, p. 1.] is far from being sufficiently defined to allow them to be attributed with certainty to Phaseolus vulgaris. Several cultivated Leguminosæ are supported by the trellises mentioned by authors, and have pods and seeds of a similar kind. The best argument for translating these names by Phaseolus vulgaris is that the modern Greeks and Italians have names derived from fasiolus for the common haricot. In modern Greek it is fasoulia, Albanian (Pelasgic?) fasulé, in Italian fagiolo. It is possible, however, that the name has been transferred from a species of pea or vetch, or from a haricot formerly cultivated, to our modern haricot. It is rather bold to determine a species of Phaseolus from one or two epithets in an ancient author, when we see how difficult is the distinction of species to modern botanists with the plants under their eyes. Nevertheless, the dolichos of Theophrastus has been definitely referred to the scarlet runner, and the fasiolos to the dwarf haricot of our gardens, which are the two principal modern varieties of the common haricot, with an immense number of sub-varieties in the form of the pods and seed. I can only say it may be so.

If the common haricot was formerly known in Greece, it was not one of the earliest introductions, for the faseolos did not exist at Rome in Cato’s time, and it is only at the beginning of the empire that Latin authors speak of it. Virchow brought from the excavations at Troy the seeds of several leguminæ, which Wittmack[1702 - Wittmack, Bot. Vereins Brandenburg, Dec. 19, 1879.] has ascertained to belong to the following species: broad bean (Faba vulgaris), garden-pea (Pisum sativum), ervilla (Ervum ervilia), and perhaps the flat-podded vetchling (Lathyrus Cicera), but no haricot. Nor has the species been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, Austria, and Italy.

There are no proofs or signs of its existence in ancient Egypt. No Hebrew name is known answering to the Phaseolus or Dolichos of botanists. A less ancient name, for it is Arabic, loubia, exists in Egypt for Dolichos lubia, and in Hindustani as loba for Phaseolus vulgaris.[1703 - Delile, Plantes Cultivées en Égypte, p. 14; Piddington, Index.] As regards the latter species, Piddington only gives two names in modern languages, and those both Hindustani, loba and bakla. This, together with the absence of a Sanskrit name, points to a recent introduction into Southern Asia. Chinese authors do not mention P. vulgaris,[1704 - Bretschneider does not mention any, either in his pamphlet On the Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works, or in his private letters to me.] which is a further indication of a recent introduction into India, and also into Bactriana, whence the Chinese have imported plants from the second century of our era.

All these circumstances incline me to doubt whether the species was known in Asia before the Christian era. The argument based upon the modern Greek and Italian names for the haricot, derived from fasiolos, needs some support. It may be said in its favour that it was used in the Middle Ages, probably for the common haricot. In the list of vegetables which Charlemagne commanded to be sown in his farms, we find fasiolum,[1705 - E. Meyer, Geschichte der Botanique, iii. p. 404.] without explanation. Albertus Magnus describes under the name faseolus a leguminous plant which appears to be our dwarf haricot.[1706 - “Faseolus est species leguminis et grani, quod est in quantitate parum minus quam Faba, et in figura est columnare sicut faba, herbaque ejus minor est aliquantulum quam herba Fabæ. Et sunt faseoli multorum colorum, sed quodlibet granorum habet maculam nigram in loco cotyledonis” (Jessen, Alberti Magni, De Vegetabilibus, edit. critica, p. 515).] I notice, on the other hand, that writers in the fifteenth century, such as Pierre Crescenzio[1707 - P. Crescens, French trans., 1539.] and Macer Floridus,[1708 - Macer Floridus, edit. 1485, and Choulant’s commentary, 1832.] mention no faseolus or similar name. On the other hand, after the discovery of America, from the sixteenth century all authors publish descriptions and drawings of Phaseolus vulgaris, with a number of varieties.

It is doubtful that its cultivation is ancient in tropical Africa. It is indicated there less often than that of other species of the Dolichos and Phaseolus genera.

It had not occurred to any one to seek the origin of the haricot in America till, quite recently, some remarkable discoveries of fruits and seeds were made in Peruvian tombs at Ancon, near Lima. Rochebrune[1709 - De Rochebrune, Actes de la Soc. Linn. de Bordeaux, vol. xxxiii. Jan., 1880, of which I saw an analysis in Botanisches Centralblatt, 1880, p. 1633.] published a list of the species of different families from the collection made by Cossac and Savatier. Among the number are three kinds of haricot, none of which, says the author, is Phaseolus vulgaris; but Wittmack,[1710 - Wittmack, Sitzungsbericht des Bot. Vereins Brandenburg, Dec. 19, 1879, and a private letter.] who studied the leguminæ brought from these same tombs by Reiss and Stubel, says he made out several varieties of the common haricot among other seeds belonging to Phaseolus lunatus, Linnæus. He had identified them with the varieties of P. vulgaris called by botanists Oblongus purpureus (Martens), Ellipticus præcox (Alefeld), and Ellipticus atrofuscus (Alefeld), which belong to the category of dwarf or branchless haricots.

It is not certain that the tombs in question are all anterior to the advent of the Spaniards. The work of Reiss and Stubel, now in the press, will perhaps give some information on this head; but Wittmack admits, on their authority, that some of the tombs are not ancient. I notice a fact, however, which has passed without observation. The fifty species of Rochebrune are all American. There is not one which can be suspected to be of European origin. Evidently these plants and seeds were either deposited before the conquest, or, in certain tombs which perhaps belong to a subsequent epoch, the inhabitants took care not to put species of foreign origin. This was natural enough according to their ideas, for the custom of depositing plants in the tombs was not a result of the Catholic religion, but was an inheritance from the customs and opinions of the natives. The presence of the common haricot among exclusively American plants seems to me important, whatever the date of the tombs.

It may be objected that the seeds are insufficient ground for determining the species of a phaseolus, and that several species of this genus which are not yet well known were cultivated in South America before the arrival of the Spaniards. Molina[1711 - Molina (Essai sur l’Hist. Nat. du Chili, French trans., p. 101) mentions Phaseoli, which he calls pallar and asellus, and Cl. Gay’s Fl. du Chili adds, without much explanation, Ph. Cumingii, Bentham.] speaks of thirteen or fourteen species (or varieties?) cultivated formerly in Chili alone.

Wittmack insists upon the general and ancient use of the haricot in several parts of South America. This proves at least that several species were indigenous and cultivated. He quotes the testimony of Joseph Acosta, one of the first writers after the conquest, who says that “the Peruvians cultivated vegetables which they called frisoles and palares, and which they used as the Spaniards use garbanzos (chick-pea), beans and lentils. I have not found,” he adds, “that these or other European vegetables were found here before the coming of the Europeans.” Frisole, fajol, fasoler, are Spanish names for the common haricot, corruptions of the Latin faselus, fasolus, faseolus. Paller is American.

I may take this opportunity of explaining the origin of the French name haricot. I sought for it formerly in vain;[1712 - A. de Candolle, Géog. Bot. Rais., p. 691.] but I noticed that Tournefort[1713 - Tournefort Eléments (1694), i. p. 328; Instit., p. 415.] (Instit., p. 415) was the first to use it. I called attention also to the existence of the word arachos (Greek: arachos) in Theophrastus, probably for a kind of vetch, and of the Sanskrit word harenso for the common pea. I rejected as improbable the notion that the name of a vegetable could come from the dish called haricot or laricot of mutton, as suggested by an English author, and criticized Bescherelle, who derived the word from Keltic, while the Breton words are totally different, and signify small bean (fa-munno) or kind of pea (pis-ram). Lettré, in his dictionary, also seeks the etymology of the word. Without any acquaintance with my article, he inclines to the theory that haricot, the plant, comes from the ragout, seeing that the latter is older in the language, and that a certain resemblance may be traced between the haricot bean and the morsels of meat in the ragout, or else that this bean was suitable to the making of the dish. It is certain that this vegetable was called in French faséole or fazéole, from the Latin name, until nearly the end of the seventeenth century; but chance has led me to discover the real origin of the word haricot. An Italian name, araco, found in Durante and Matthioli, in Latin Aracus niger,[1714 - Durante, Herbario Nuovo, 1585, p. 39; Matthioli ed Valgris, p. 322; Targioni, Dizion. Bot. Ital., i. p. 13.] was given to a leguminous plant which modern botanists attribute to Lathyrus ochrus. It is not surprising that an Italian seventeenth-century name should be transported by French cultivators of the following century to another leguminous plant, and that ara should have been ari. It is the sort of mistake which is common now. Besides, aracos or arachos has been attributed by commentators to several Leguminosœ of the genera Lathyrus, Vicia, etc. Durante gives the Greek arachos as the synonym for his araco, whereby we see the etymology. Père Feuillée[1715 - Feuillée, Hist. des Plan. Medic. du Pérou, etc., in 4to, 1725, p. 54.] wrote in French aricot; before him Tournefort spelt it haricot, in the belief, perhaps, that the Greek word was written with an aspirate, which is not the case; at least in the best authors.

I may sum up as follows: – (1) Phaseolus vulgaris has not been long cultivated in India, the south-west of Asia, and Egypt; (2) it is not certain that it was known in Europe before the discovery of America; (3) at this epoch the number of varieties suddenly increased in European gardens, and all authors commenced to mention them; (4) the majority of the species of the genus exist in South America; (5) seeds apparently belonging to the species have been discovered in Peruvian tombs of an uncertain date, intermixed with many species, all American.

I do not examine whether Phaseolus vulgaris existed in both hemispheres previous to cultivation, because examples of this nature are exceedingly rare among non-aquatic phanerogamous plants of tropical countries. Perhaps there is not one in a thousand, and even then human agency may be suspected.[1716 - A. de Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Rais., chapter on disjunctive species.] To open this question in the case of Ph. vulgaris, it should at least be found wild in both old and new worlds, which has not happened. If it had occupied so vast an area, we should see signs of it in individuals really wild in widely separate regions on the same continent, as is the case with the following species, Ph. lunatas.

Scimetar-podded Kidney Bean, or Sugar Bean. —Phaseolus lunatus, Linnæus; Phaseolus lunatus macrocarpus; Bentham, Ph. inamœnus, Linnæus.

This haricot, as well as that called Lima, is so widely diffused in tropical countries, that it has been described under different names.[1717 - Ph. bipunctatus, Jacqnin; Ph. inamœnus, Linnæus; Ph. puberulus, Kunth; Ph. saccharatus, MacFadyen; etc., etc.] All these forms can be classed in two groups, of which Linnæus made different species. The commonest in our gardens is that which has been called since the beginning of the century the Lima haricot. It may be distinguished by its height, by the size of its pods and beans. It lasts several years in countries which are favourable to it.

Linnæus believed that his Ph. lunatus came from Bengal and the other from Africa, but he gives no proof. For a century his assertions were repeated. Now, Bentham,[1718 - Bentham, in Fl. Brasil., vol. xv. p. 181.] who is careful about origins, believes the species and its variety to be certainly American; he only doubts about its presence as a wild plant both in Africa and Asia. I see no indication whatever of ancient existence in Asia. The plant has never been found wild, and it has no name in the modern languages of India or in Sanskrit.[1719 - Roxburgh, Piddington, etc.] It is not mentioned in Chinese works. Anglo-Indians call it French bean,[1720 - Royle, Ill. Himalaya, p. 190.] like the common haricot, which shows how modern is its cultivation.

It is cultivated in nearly all tropical Africa. However, Schweinfurth and Ascherson[1721 - Aufäzhlung, etc., p. 257.] do not mention it for Abyssinia, Nubia, or Egypt. Oliver[1722 - Oliver. Fl. of Trop. Afr., p. 192.] quotes a number of specimens found in Guinea and the interior of Africa, without saying whether they were wild or cultivated. If we suppose the species of African origin or of very early introduction, it would have spread to Egypt and thence to India.

The facts are quite different for South America. Bentham mentions wild specimens from the Amazon basin and Central Brazil. They belong especially to the large variety (macrocarpus), which abounds also in the Peruvian tombs of Ancon, according to Wittmack.[1723 - Wittmack, Sitz. Bot. Vereins Branden., Dec. 19, 1879.] It is evidently a Brazilian species, diffused by cultivation, and perhaps long since naturalized here and there in tropical America. I am inclined to believe it was introduced into Guinea by the slave trade, and that it spread thence into the interior and the coast of Mozambique.

Moth, or Aconite-leaved Kidney Bean—Phaseolus aconitifolius, Willdenow.

An annual species grown in India as fodder, and of which the seeds are eatable, though but little valued. The Hindustani name is mout, among the Sikhs moth. It is somewhat like Ph. trilobus, which is cultivated for the seed. Ph. aconitifolius is wild in British India from Ceylon to the Himalayas.[1724 - Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. edit. 1832, vol. iii. p. 299; Aitchison, Catal. of Punjab, p. 48; Sir J. Hooker, Fl. of Brit. Ind., ii. p. 202.] The absence of a Sanskrit name, and of different names in modern Indian languages, points to a recent cultivation.

Three-lobed Kidney Bean—Phaseolus trilobus, Willdenow.

One of the most commonly cultivated species in India;[1725 - Sir J. Hooker, Fl. of Brit. Ind., ii. p. 201.] at least in the last few years, for Roxburgh,[1726 - Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., p. 299.] at the end of the eighteenth century, had only seen it wild. All authors agree in considering it as wild from the foot of the Himalayas to Ceylon. It also exists in Nubia, Abyssinia, and Zambesi;[1727 - Schweinfurth, Beitr. z. Fl. Ethiop., p. 15; Aufzählung, p. 257; Oliver, Fl. Trop. Afr., p. 194.] it is not said whether wild or cultivated. Piddington gives a Sanskrit name, and several names in modern Indian languages, which shows that the species has been cultivated, or at least known for three thousand years.

Green Gram, or Múng—Phaseolus mungo, Linnæus.

A species commonly cultivated in India and in the Nile Valley. The considerable number of varieties, and the existence of three different names in the modern languages of India, point to a cultivation of one or two thousand years, but there is no Sanskrit name.[1728 - See authors quoted for P. tribolus.] In Africa it is probably recent. Anglo-Indian botanists agree that it is wild in India.

Lablab, or Wall—Dolichos Lablab, Linnæus.

This species is much cultivated in India and tropical Africa. Roxburgh counts as many as seven varieties with Indian names. Piddington quotes in his Index a Sanskrit name, schimbi, which recurs in modern languages. Its culture dates perhaps from three thousand years. Yet the species was not anciently diffused in China, or in Western Asia and Egypt; at least, I can find no trace of it. The little extension of these edible Leguminosæ beyond India in ancient times is a singular fact. It is possible that their cultivation is not of ancient date.

The lablab is undoubtedly wild in India, and also, it is said, in Java.[1729 - Sir J. Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 209; Junghuhn, Plantæ Jungh., fasc. ii. p. 240.] It has become naturalized from cultivation in the Seychelles.[1730 - Baker, Fl. of Mauritius, p. 83.] The indications of authors are not positive enough to say whether it is wild in Africa.[1731 - Oliver, Fl. of Trop. Africa, ii. p. 210.]

Lubia—Dolichos Lubia, Forskal.

This species, cultivated in Europe under the name of lubia, loubya, loubyé, according to Forskal and Delile,[1732 - Forskal, Descript., p. 133; Delile, Plant. Cult. en Égypte, p. 14.] is little known to botanists. According to the latter author it exists also in Syria, Persia, and India; but I do not find this in any way confirmed in modern works on these two countries. Schweinfurth and Ascherson[1733 - Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Aufzählung, p. 256.] admit it as a distinct species, cultivated in the Nile Valley. Hitherto no one has found it wild. No Dolichos or Phaseolus is known in the monuments of ancient Egypt. We shall see from the evidence of the common names that these plants were probably introduced into Egyptian agriculture after the time of the Pharaohs.

The name lubia is used by the Berbers, unchanged, and by the Spaniards as alubia for the common haricot, Phaseolus vulgaris. Although Phaseolus and Dolichos are very similar, this is an example of the little value of common names as a proof of species. Loba is, as we have seen, one of the Hindustani names for Phaseolus vulgaris,[1734 - Dict. Franç. – Berbère, at the word haricot; Willkomm and Lange, Prod. Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 324. The common haricot has no less than five different names in the Iberian peninsula.] and lobia that of Dolichos sinensis in the same language.[1735 - Piddington, Index.] Orientalists should tell us whether lubia is an old word in Semitic languages. I do not find a similar name in Hebrew, and it is possible that the Armenians or the Arabs took lubia from the Greek lobos (λοβος), which means any projection, like the lobe of the ear, a fruit of the nature of a pod, and more particularly, according to Galen, Ph. vulgaris. Lobion (Λοβιον) in Dioscorides is the fruit of Ph. vulgaris, at least in the opinion of commentators.[1736 - Lenz, Bot. der Alt. Gr. und Röm., p. 732.] It remains as loubion in modern Greek, with the same meaning.[1737 - Langkavel, Bot. der Späteren Griechen, p. 4; Heldreich, Nutzpfl. Griechenl., p. 72.]

Bambarra Ground Nut—Glycine subterranea, Linnæus, junr.; Voandzeia subterranea, Petit Thouars.

The earliest travellers in Madagascar remarked this leguminous annual, cultivated by the natives for the pod or seed, dressed like peas, French beans, etc. It resembles the earth, particularly in that the flower-stem curves downwards, and plunges the young fruit or pod into the earth. Its cultivation is common in the gardens of tropical Africa, and it is found, but less frequently, in those of Southern Asia.[1738 - Sir J. Hooker, Flora of Brit. Ind., ii. p. 205; Miquel, Fl. Indo-Batava, i. p. 175.] It seems that it is not much grown in America,[1739 - Linnæus, junr., Decad., ii. pl. 19, seems to have confounded this plant with Arachis, and he gives, perhaps because of this error, Voandzeia as cultivated at his time in Surinam. Modern writers on America either have not seen it or have omitted to mention it.] except in Brazil, where it is called mandubi di Angola.[1740 - Gardener’s Chronicle, Sept. 4, 1880.]

Early writers on Asia do not mention it; its origin must, therefore, be sought in Africa. Loureiro[1741 - Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., ii. p. 523.] had seen it on the eastern coast of this continent, and Petit Thouars in Madagascar, but they do not say that it was wild. The authors of the flora of Senegambia[1742 - Guillemin, Perottet, Richard, Fl. Senegambia Tentamen, p. 254.] described it as “cultivated and probably wild” in Galam. Lastly, Schweinfurth and Ascherson[1743 - Aufzählung, p. 259.] found it wild on the banks of the Nile from Khartoum to Gondokoro. In spite of the possibility of naturalization from cultivation, it is extremely probable that the plant is wild in tropical Africa.

Buckwheat—Polygonum fagopyrum, Linnæus; Fagopyrum esculentum, Mœnch.

The history of this species has been completely cleared up in the last few years. It grows wild in Mantschuria, on the banks of the river Amur,[1744 - Maximowicz, Primitiæ Fl. Amur., p. 236.] in Dahuria, and near Lake Baikal.[1745 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., iii. 517.] It is also indicated in China and in the mountains of the north of India,[1746 - Meissner, in De Candolle, Prodr., xiv. p. 143.] but I do not find that in these regions its wild character is certain. Roxburgh has only seen it in a cultivated state in the north of India, and Bretschneider[1747 - Bretschneider, On Study, etc., p. 9.] thinks it doubtful that it is indigenous in China. Its cultivation is not ancient, for the first Chinese author who mentions it lived in the tenth or eleventh century of the Christian era.

Buckwheat is cultivated in the Himalayas under the names ogal or ogla and kouton.[1748 - Madden, Trans. Edinburgh Bot. Soc., v. p. 118.] As there is no Sanskrit name for this species nor for the two following, I doubt the antiquity of their cultivation in the mountains of Central Asia. It was certainly unknown to the Greeks and Romans. The name fagopyrum is an invention of modern botanists from the similarity in the shape of the seed to a beech-nut, whence also the German buchweitzen[1749 - The English name buckwheat and the French name of some localities, buscail, come from the German.] (corrupted in English into buckwheat) and the Italian faggina.

The names of this plant in European languages of Aryan origin have not a common root. Thus the western Aryans did not know the species any more than the Sanskrit-speaking Orientals, a further sign of the nonexistence of the plant in the mountains of Central Asia. Even at the present day it is probably unknown in the north of Persia and in Turkey, since floras do not mention it.[1750 - Boissier, Fl. Orient.; Buhse and Boissier, Pflanzen Transcaucasien.] Bosc states, in the Dictionnaire d’Agriculture, that Olivier had seen it wild in Persia, but I do not find this in this naturalist’s published account of his travels.

The species came into Europe in the Middle Ages, through Tartary and Russia. The first mention of its cultivation in Germany occurs in a Mecklenburg register of 1436.[1751 - Pritzel, Sitzungsbericht Naturforsch. freunde zu Berlin, May 15, 1866.] In the sixteenth century it spread towards the centre of Europe, and in poor soil, as in Brittany, it became important. Reynier, who, as a rule, is very accurate, imagined that the French name sarrasin was Keltic;[1752 - Reynier, Économie des Celtes, p. 425.] but M. le Gall wrote to me formerly that the Breton names simply mean black wheat or black corn, ed-du and gwinis-du. There is no original name in Keltic languages, which seems natural now that we know the origin of the species.[1753 - I have given the vernacular names at greater length in Géogr. Bot. Rais., p. 953.]

When the plant was introduced into Belgium and into France, and even when it became known in Italy, that is to say in the sixteenth century, the name blé sarrasin (Saracen wheat) or sarrasin was commonly adopted. Common names are often so absurd, and so unthinkingly bestowed, that we cannot tell in this particular case whether the name refers to the colour of the grain which was that attributed to the Saracens, or to the supposed introduction from the country of the Arabs or Moors. It was not then known that the species did not exist in the countries south of the Mediterranean, nor even in Syria and Persia. It is also possible that the idea of a southern origin was taken from the name sarrasin, which was given from the colour. This origin was admitted until the end of the last and even in the present century.[1754 - Nemnich, Polyglott. Lexicon, p. 1030; Bosc, Dict. d’Agric., xi. p. 379.] Reynier was, fifty years ago, the first to oppose it.

Buckwheat sometimes escapes from cultivation and becomes quasi-wild. The nearer we approach its original country the more often this occurs, whence it results that it is hard to define the limit of the wild plant on the confines of Europe and Asia, in the Himalayas, and in China. In Japan these semi-naturalizations are not rare.[1755 - Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Pl. Japon., i. p. 403.]

Tartary Buckwheat—Polygonum tataricum, Linnæus; Fagopyrum tataricum, Gærtner.