Origin of Cultivated Plants

Olivier,[1836 - Olivier, Voyage, 1807, vol. iii. p. 460.] in a passage already quoted, says that he several times found it in Mesopotamia, in particular upon the right bank of the Euphrates, north of Anah, in places unfit for cultivation. Another botanist, André Michaux, saw it in 1783, near Hamadan, a town in the temperate region of Persia. Dureau de la Malle says that he sent some grains of it to Bosc, who sowed them at Paris and obtained the common spelt; but this seems to me doubtful, for Lamarck, in 1786,[1837 - Lamarck, Dict. Encycl., ii. p. 560.] and Bosc himself, in the Dictionnaire d’Agriculture, article Épeautre (spelt), published in 1809, says not a word of this. The herbariums of the Paris Museum contain no specimens of the cereals mentioned by Olivier.

There is, as we have seen, much uncertainty as to the origin of the species as a wild plant. This leads me to attribute more importance to the hypothesis that spelt is derived by cultivation from the common wheat, or from an intermediate form at some not very early prehistoric time. The experiments of H. Vilmorin[1838 - H. Vilmorin, Bull. Soc. Bot. de France, 1881, p. 858.] support this theory, for cross fertilizations of the spelt by the downy white wheat, and vice versâ, yield “hybrids whose fertility is complete, with a mixture of the characters of both parents, those of the spelt preponderating.”

2. Starch Wheat—Triticum dicoccum, Schrank; Triticum amyleum, Seringe.

This form (Emmer, or Aemer in German), cultivated for starch chiefly in Switzerland, resists a hard winter. It contains two grains in each little ear, like the true spelt.

Heer[1839 - Heer, Pflanz. der. Pfahlb., p. 5, fig. 23, and p. 15.] attributes to a variety of T. dicoccum an ear found in a bad state of preservation in the lake-dwellings of Wangen, Switzerland. Messicommer has since found some at Robenhausen.

It has never been found wild; and the rarity of common names is remarkable. These two circumstances, and the slight value of the botanical characters which serve to distinguish it from Tr. spelta, lead to the conclusion that it is an ancient cultivated variety of the latter.

3. One-grained Wheat—Triticum monococcum, Linnæus.

The one-grained wheat, or little spelt, Einkorn in German, is distinguished from the two preceding by a single seed in the little ear, and by other characters which lead the majority of botanists to consider it as a really distinct species. The experiments of H. Vilmorin confirm this opinion so far, for he has not yet succeeded in crossing T. monococcum with other spelts or wheats. This may be due, as he says himself, to some detail in the manner of operating. He intends to renew his attempts, and may perhaps succeed. [In the Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France, 1883, p. 62, Mr. Vilmorin says that he has not met with better success in the third and fourth years in his attempts at crossing T. monococcum with other species. He intends to make the experiment with T. bœoticum, Boissier, wild in Servia, of which I sent him some seeds gathered by Pancic. As this species is supposed to be the original stock of T. monococcum, the experiment is an interesting one. – Author’s Note, 1884.] In the mean time let us see whether this form of spelt has been long in cultivation, and if it has anywhere been found growing wild.

The one-grained wheat thrives in the poorest and most stony soil. It is not very productive, but yields excellent meal. It is sown especially in mountainous districts, in Spain, France, and the east of Europe, but I do not find it mentioned in Barbary, Egypt, the East, or in India or China.

From some expressions it has been believed to be the tiphai of Theophrastus.[1840 - Fraas, Syn. Fl. Class., p. 307.] It is easier to invoke Dioscorides,[1841 - Dioscorides, Mat. Med., 2, c. iii. 155.] for he distinguishes two kinds of zeia, one with two seeds, another with only one. The latter would be the one-grained wheat. Nothing proves that it was commonly cultivated by the Greeks and Romans. Their modern descendants do not sow it.[1842 - Heldreich, Nutz. Griech.] There are no Sanskrit, Persian, or Arabic names. I suggested formerly that the Hebrew word kussemeth might apply to this species, but this hypothesis now seems to me difficult to maintain.

Marschall Bieberstein[1843 - Bieberstein, Fl. Tauro-Caucasaica, vol. i. p. 85.] mentions Triticum monococcum, or a variety of it, growing wild in the Crimea and the eastern Caucasus, but no botanist has confirmed this assertion. Steven,[1844 - Steven, Verzeichniss Taur. Halbins. Pflan., p. 354.] who lived in the Crimea, declares that he never saw the species except cultivated by the Tartars. On the other hand, the plant which Balansa gathered in a wild state near Mount Sipylus, in Anatolia, is T. monococcum, according to J. Gay,[1845 - Bull. Soc. Bot. Fran., 1860, p. 30.] who takes with this form Triticum bœoticum, Boissier, which grows wild in the plains of Bœotia[1846 - Boissier, Diagnoses, 1st series, vol. ii. fasc. 13, p. 69.] and in Servia.[1847 - Balansa, 1854, No. 137 in Boissier’s Herbarium, in which there is also a specimen found in the fields in Servia, and a variety with brown beards sent by Pancic, growing in Servian meadows. The same botanist (of Belgrade) has just sent me wild specimens from Servia, which I cannot distinguish from T. monococcum, which he assures me is not cultivated in Servia. Bentham writes to me that T. bœoticum, of which he saw several specimens, is, he thinks, the same as T. monococcum.]

Admitting these facts, T. monococcum is a native of Servia, Greece, and Asia Minor, and as the attempts to cross it with other spelts or wheats have not been successful, it is rightly termed a species in the Linnæan sense.

The separation of wheat with free grains from spelt must have taken place before all history, perhaps before the beginning of agriculture. Wheat must have appeared first in Asia, and then spelt, probably in Eastern Europe and Anatolia. Lastly, among spelts T. monococcum seems to be the most ancient form, from which the others have gradually developed in several thousand years of cultivation and selection.

Two-rowed Barley—Hordeum distichon, Linnæus.

Barley is among the most ancient of cultivated plants. As all its forms resemble each other in nature and uses, we must not expect to find in ancient authors and in common names that precision which would enable us to recognize the species admitted by botanists. In many cases the name barley has been taken in a vague or generic sense. This is a difficulty which we must take into account. For instance, the expression of the Old Testament, of Berosus, of Moses of Chorene, Pausanias, Marco Polo, and more recently of Olivier, indicating “wild and cultivated barley” in a given country, prove nothing, because we do not know to which species they refer. There is the same obscurity in China. Dr. Bretschneider says[1848 - Bretschneider, On the Study, etc., p. 8.] that, according to a work published in the year A.D. 100, the Chinese cultivated barley, but he does not specify the kind. At the extreme west of the old world the Guanchos also cultivated a barley, of which we know the name but not the species.

The common variety of the two-rowed barley, in which the husk remains attached to the ripened grain, has been found wild in Western Asia, in Arabia Petrea,[1849 - A specimen determined by Reuter in Boissier’s Herbarium.] near Mount Sinai,[1850 - Figari and de Notaris, Agrostologiæ Ægypt. Fragm., p. 18.] in the ruins of Persepolis,[1851 - A very starved plant gathered by Kotschy, No. 290, of which I possess a specimen. Boissier terms it H. distichon, varietas.] near the Caspian Sea,[1852 - C. A. Meyer, Verzeichniss, p. 26, from specimens seen also by Ledebour, Fl. Ross., iv. p. 327.] between Lenkoran and Baku, in the desert of Chirvan and Awhasia, to the south of the Caucasus,[1853 - Ledebour, ibid.] and in Turcomania.[1854 - Regel, Descr. Plant., Nov., 1881, fasc. 8, p. 37.] No author mentions it in Greece, Egypt, or to the east of Persia. Willdenow[1855 - Willdenow, Sp. Plant., i. p. 473.] indicates it at Samara, in the south-east of Russia; but more recent authors do not confirm this. Its modern area is, therefore, from the Red Sea to the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea.

Hence this barley should be one of the forms cultivated by Semitic and Turanian peoples. Yet it has not been found in Egyptian monuments. It seems that the Aryans must have known it, but I find no proof in vernacular names or in history.

Theophrastus[1856 - Theophrastus, Hist. Plant., lib. viii. cap. 4.] speaks of the two-rowed barley. The lake-dwellers of Eastern Switzerland cultivated it before they possessed metals,[1857 - Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten, p. 13; Messicommer, Flora Bot. Zeitung, 1869, p. 320.] but the six-rowed barley was more common among them.

The variety in which the grain is bare at maturity (H. distichon nudum, Linnæus), which in France has all sorts of absurd names, orge à café, orge du Pérou (coffee barley, Peruvian barley), has never been found wild.

The fan-shaped barley (Hordeum Zeocriton, Linnæus) seems to me to be a cultivated form of the two-rowed barley. It is not known in a wild state, nor has it been found in Egyptian monuments, nor the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, and Italy.

Common Barley—Hordeum vulgare, Linnæus.

The common barley with four rows of grain is mentioned by Theophrastus,[1858 - Theophrastus, Hist., lib. viii. cap. 4.] but it seems to have been less cultivated in antiquity than that with two rows, and considerably less than that with six rows. It has not been found in Egyptian monuments, nor in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, and Italy.

Willdenow[1859 - Willdenow, Species Plant., i. p. 472.] says that it grows in Sicily and in the south-east of Russia, at Samara, but the modern floras of these two countries do not confirm this. We do not know what species of barley it was that Olivier saw growing wild in Mesopotamia; consequently the common barley has not yet been found certainly wild.

The multitude of common names which are attributed to it prove nothing as to its origin, for in most cases it is impossible to know if they are names of barley in general, or of a particular kind of barley cultivated in a given country.

Six-rowed Barley—Hordeum hexastichon, Linnæus.

This was the species most commonly cultivated in antiquity. Not only is it mentioned by Greek authors, but it has also been found in the earliest Egyptian monuments,[1860 - Unger, Pflanzen des Alten Egyptens, p. 33; Ein Ziegel der Dashur Pyramide, p. 109.] and in the remains of the lake-dwellings of Switzerland (age of stone), of Italy, and of Savoy (age of bronze).[1861 - Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten, p. 5, figs. 2 and 3; p. 13, fig. 9; Flora Bot. Zeitung, 1869, p. 320; de Mortillet, according to Perrin, Études préhistoriques sur la Savoie, p. 23; Sordelli, Sulle piante della torbiera di Lagozza, p. 33.] Heer has even distinguished two varieties of the species formerly cultivated in Switzerland. One of them answers to the six-rowed barley represented on the medals of Metapontis, a town in the south of Italy, six centuries before Christ.

According to Roxburgh,[1862 - Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., edit. 1832, vol. i. p. 358.] it was the only kind of barley grown in India at the end of the last century. He attributes to it the Sanskrit name yuva, which has become juba in Bengali. Adolphe Pictet[1863 - Ad. Pictet, Origines Indo-Europ., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 333.] has carefully studied the names in Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages which answer to the generic name barley, but he has not been able to go into the details of each species.

The six-rowed barley has not been seen in the conditions of a wild plant, of which the species has been determined by a botanist. I have not found it in Boissier’s herbarium, which is so rich in Eastern plants. It is possible that the wild barleys mentioned by ancient authors and by Olivier were Hordeum hexastichon, but there is no proof of this.

On Barleys in general

We have seen that the only form which is now found wild is the simplest, the least productive, Hordeum distichon, which was, like H. hexastichon, cultivated in prehistoric time. Perhaps H. vulgare has not been so long in cultivation as the two others.

Two hypotheses may be drawn from these facts: 1. That the barleys with four and six rows were, in prehistoric agriculture anterior to that of the ancient Egyptians who built the monuments, derived from H. distichon. 2. The barleys with six and four ranks were species formerly wild, extinct since the historical epoch. It would be strange in this case that no trace of them has remained in the floras of the vast region comprised between India, the Black Sea, and Abyssinia, where we are nearly sure of their cultivation, at least of that of the six-ranked barley.

Rye—Secale cereale, Linnæus.

Rye has not been very long in cultivation, unless, perhaps, in Russia and Thrace. It has not been found in Egyptian monuments, and has no name in Semitic languages, even in the modern ones, nor in Sanskrit and the modern Indian languages derived from Sanskrit. These facts agree with the circumstance that rye thrives better in northern than in southern countries, where it is not usually cultivated in modern times. Dr. Bretschneider[1864 - Bretschneider, On Study and Value, etc., pp. 18, 44.] thinks it is unknown to Chinese agriculture. He doubts the contrary assertion of a modern writer, and remarks that the name of a cereal mentioned in the memoirs of the Emperor Kanghi, which may be supposed to be this species, signifies Russian wheat. Now rye, he says, is much cultivated in Siberia. There is no mention of it in Japanese floras.

The ancient Greeks did not know it. The first author who mentions it in the Roman empire is Pliny,[1865 - Pliny, Hist., lib. xviii. c. 16.] who speaks of the secale cultivated at Turin at the foot of the Alps, under the name of Asia. Galen,[1866 - Galen, De Alimentis, lib. xiii., quoted by Lenz, Bot. de Alten, p. 259.] born in A.D. 131, had seen it cultivated in Thrace and Macedonia under the name briza. Its cultivation does not seem ancient, at least in Italy, for no trace of rye has been found in the remains of the lake-dwellings of the north of that country, or of Switzerland and Savoy, even of the age of bronze. Jetteles found remains of rye near Olmutz, together with instruments of bronze, and Heer,[1867 - Heer, Die Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten, p. 16.] who saw the specimens, mentions others of the Roman epoch in Switzerland.

Failing archæological proofs, European languages show an early knowledge of rye in German, Keltic, and Slavonic countries. The principal names, according to Adolphe Pictet,[1868 - Ad. Pictet, Origines Indo-Europ., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 344.] belong to the peoples of the north of Europe: Anglo-Saxon, ryge, rig; Scandinavian, rûgr; Old High German, roggo; Ancient Slav, ruji, roji; Polish, rez; Illyrian, raz, etc. The origin of this name must date, he says, from an epoch previous to the separation of the Teutons from the Lithuano-Slavs. The word secale of the Latins recurs in a similar form among the Bretons, segal, and the Basques, cekela, zekhalea; but it is not known whether the Latins borrowed it from the Gauls and Iberians, or whether, conversely, the latter took the name from the Romans. This second hypothesis appears to be the more probable of the two, since the Cisalpine Gauls of Pliny’s time had quite a different name. I also find mentioned a Tartar name, aresch,[1869 - Nemnich, Lexicon Naturgesch.] and an Ossete name, syl, sil,[1870 - Ad. Pictet, ubi supra.] which points to an ancient cultivation to the east of Europe.

Thus historical and philological data show that the species probably had its origin in the countries north of the Danube, and that its cultivation is hardly earlier than the Christian era in the Roman empire, but perhaps more ancient in Russia and Tartary.

The indication of wild rye given by several authors should scarcely ever be accepted, for it has often happened that Secale cereale has been confounded with perennial species, or with others of which the ear is easily broken, which modern botanists have rightly distinguished.[1871 - Secale fragile, Bieberstein; S. anatolicum, Boissier; S. montanum, Gussone; S. villosum, Linnæus. I explained in my Géogr. Botanique, p. 936, the errors which result from this confusion, when rye was said to be wild in Sicily, Crete, and sometimes in Russia.] Many mistakes which thus arose have been cleared up by an examination of original specimens. Others may be suspected. Thus I do not know what to think of the assertions of L. Ross, who said he had found rye growing wild in several parts of Anatolia,[1872 - Flora, Bot. Zeitung, 1856, p. 520.] and of the Russian traveller Ssaewerzoff, who said he saw it in Turkestan.[1873 - Flora, Bot. Zeitung, 1869, p. 93.] The latter fact is probable enough, but it is not said that any botanist verified the species. Kunth[1874 - Kunth, Enum., i. p. 449.] had previously mentioned it in “the desert between the Black Sea and the Caspian,” but he does not say on what authority of traveller or of specimens. Boissier’s herbarium has shown me no wild Secale cereale, but it has persuaded me that another species of rye might easily be mistaken for this one, and that assertions require to be carefully verified.

Failing satisfactory proofs of wild plants, I formerly urged, in my Géographie Botanique Raisonnée, an argument of some value. Secale cereale sows itself from cultivation, and becomes almost wild in parts of the Austrian empire,[1875 - Sadler, Fl. Pesth., i. p. 80; Host, Fl. Austr., i. p. 177; Baumgarten, Fl. Transylv., p. 225; Neilreich, Fl. Wien., p. 58; Viviani, Fl. Dalmat., i. p. 97; Farkas, Fl. Croat., p. 1288.] which is seldom seen elsewhere.[1876 - Strobl saw it, however, in the woods on the slopes of Etna, a result of its introduction into cultivation in the eighteenth century (Œster. Bot. Zeit., 1881, p. 159).] Thus in the east of Europe, where history points to an ancient cultivation, rye finds at the present day the most favourable conditions for living without the aid of man. It can hardly be doubted, from these facts, that its original area was in the region comprised between the Austrian Alps and the north of the Caspian Sea. This seems the more probable that the five or six known species of the genus Secale inhabit western temperate Asia or the south-east of Europe.

Admitting this origin, the Aryan natives would not have known the species, as philology already shows us; but in their migrations westward they must have met with it under different names, which they transported here and there.

Common Oats and Eastern Oats—Avena sativa, Linnæus; Avena orientalis, Schreber.

The ancient Egyptians and the Hebrews did not cultivate oats, but they are now grown in Egypt.[1877 - Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Beitrage zur Fl. Æthiop., p. 298.] There is no Sanskrit name, nor any in modern Indian languages. They are only now and then planted by the English in India for their horses.[1878 - Royle, Ill., p. 419.] The earliest mention of oats in China is in an historical work on the period 618 to 907 A.D.; it refers to the variety known to botanists as Avena sativa nuda.[1879 - Bretschneider, On Study and Value, etc., pp. 18, 44.] The ancient Greeks knew the genus very well; they called it bromos,[1880 - Fraas, Syn. Fl. Class., p. 303; Lenz, Bot. der Alten, p. 243.] as the Latins called it avena; but these names were commonly applied to species which are not cultivated, and which are weeds mixed with cereals. There is no proof that they cultivated the common oats. Pliny’s remark[1881 - Pliny, Hist., lib. xviii. cap. 17.] that the Germans lived on oatmeal, implies that the species was not cultivated by the Romans.

The cultivation of oats was, therefore, practised anciently to the north of Italy and of Greece. It was diffused later and partially in the south of the Roman empire. It is possible that it was more ancient in Asia Minor, for Galen[1882 - Galen, De Alimentis, lib. i. cap. 12.] says that oats were abundant in Mysia, above Pergamus; that they were given to horses, and that men used them for food in years of scarcity. A colony of Gauls had formerly penetrated into Asia Minor. Oats have been found among the remains of the Swiss lake-dwellings of the age of bronze,[1883 - Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten, p. 6, fig. 24.] and in Germany, near Wittenburg, in several tombs of the first centuries of the Christian era, or a little earlier.[1884 - Lenz, Bot. der Alten, p. 245.] Hitherto none have been found in the lake-dwellings of the north of Italy, which confirms the belief that oats were not cultivated in Italy in the time of the Roman republic.

The vernacular names also prove an ancient existence north and west of the Alps, and on the borders of Europe towards Tartary and the Caucasus. The most widely diffused of these names is indicated by the Latin avena, Ancient Slav ovisu, ovesu, ovsa, Russian ovesu, Lithuanian awiza, Lettonian ausas, Ostias abis.[1885 - Ad. Pictet, Orig. Indo. – Europ., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 350.] The English word oats comes, according to A. Pictet, from the Anglo-Saxon ata or ate. The Basque name, olba or oloa,[1886 - Notes communicated by M. Clos.] argues a very ancient Iberian cultivation.

The Keltic names are quite different:[1887 - Ad. Pictet, ubi supra.] Irish coirce, cuirce, corca, Armorican kerch. Tartar sulu, Georgian kari, Hungarian zab, Croat zob, Esthonian kaer, and others are mentioned by Nemnich[1888 - Nemnich, Polyglott. Lexicon, p. 548.] as applying to the generic name oats, but it is not likely that names so varied do not belong to a cultivated species. It is strange that there should be an independent Berber name zekkoum,[1889 - Dict. Fr. – Berbère, published by the French Government.] as there is nothing to show that the species was anciently cultivated in Africa.

All these facts show how erroneous is the opinion which reigned in the last century,[1890 - Linnæus, Species, p. 118; Lamarck, Dict. Enc., i. p. 431.] that oats were brought originally from the island of Juan Fernandez, a belief which came apparently from an assertion of the navigator Anson.[1891 - Phillips, Cult. Veget., ii. p. 4.] It is evidently not in the Austral hemisphere that we must seek for the home of the species, but in those countries of the northern hemisphere where it was anciently cultivated.

Oats sow themselves on rubbish-heaps, by the wayside, and near cultivated ground more easily than other cereals, and sometimes persist in such a way as to appear wild. This has been observed in widely separate places, as Algeria and Japan, Paris and the north of China.[1892 - Munby, Catal. Alger., edit. 2, p. 36; Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Pl. Jap., ii. p. 175; Cosson, Fl. Paris, ii. p. 637; Bunge, Enum. Chin., p. 71, for the variety nuda.] Instances of this nature render us sceptical as to the wild nature of the oats which Bové said he found in the desert of Sinai. It has also been said[1893 - Lamarck, Dict. Encycl., i. p. 331.] that the traveller Olivier saw oats wild in Persia, but he does not mention the fact in his work. Besides, several annual species nearly resembling oats may deceive the traveller. I cannot discover either in books or herbaria the existence of really wild oats either in Europe or Asia, and Bentham has assured me that there are no such specimens in the herbarium at Kew; but certainly the half-wild or naturalized condition is more frequent in the Austrian states from Dalmatia to Transylvania[1894 - Viviani, Fl. Dalmat., i. p. 69; Host, Fl. Austr., i. p. 138; Neilreich, Fl. Wien., p. 85; Baumgarten, Enum. Transylv., iii. p. 259; Farkas, Fl. Croatica, p. 1277.] than elsewhere. This is an indication of origin which may be added to the historical and philological arguments in favour of eastern temperate Europe.

Avena strigosa, Schreber, appears to be a variety of the common oats, judging from the experiments in cultivation mentioned by Bentham, who adds, it is true, that these need confirmation.[1895 - Bentham, Handbook of British Flora, edit. 4, p. 544.] There is a good drawing of the variety in Host, Icones Graminum Austriacorum, ii. pl. 56, which may be compared with A. sativa, pl. 59. For the rest, Avena strigosa has not been found wild. It exists in Europe in deserted fields, which confirms the hypothesis that it is a form derived by cultivation.

Avena orientalis, Schreber, of which the spikelets lean all to one side, has also been grown in Europe from the end of the eighteenth century. It is not known in a wild state. Often mixed with common oats, it is not to be distinguished from them at a glance. The names it bears in Germany, Turkish or Hungarian oats, points to a modern introduction from the East. Host gives a good drawing of it (Gram. Austr., i. pl. 44).

As all the varieties of oats are cultivated, and none have been discovered in a truly wild state, it is very probable that they are all derived from a single prehistoric form, a native of eastern temperate Europe and of Tartary.

Common Millet—Panicum miliaceum, Linnæus.