Origin of Cultivated Plants

This Crucifer, whose rather hard root has the taste of mustard, was sometimes called in French cran, or cranson de Bretagne. This was an error caused by the old botanical name Armoracia, which was taken for a corruption of Armorica (Brittany). Armoracia occurs in Pliny, and was applied to a crucifer of the Pontine province, which was perhaps Raphanus sativus. After I had formerly[46 - A. de Candolle, Géographie Botanique Raisonnée, p. 654.] pointed out this confusion, I expressed myself as follows on the mistaken origin of the species: —Cochlearia Armoracia is not wild in Brittany, a fact now established by the researches of botanists in the west of France. The Abbé Delalande mentions it in his little work, entitled Hœdic et Houat,[47 - Delalande, Hœdic et Houat, 8vo pamphlet, Nantes, 1850, p. 109.] in which he gives so interesting an account of the customs and productions of these two little islands of Brittany. He quotes the opinion of M. le Gall, who, in an unpublished flora of Morbihan, declares the plant foreign to Brittany. This proof, however, is less strong than others, since the south coast of the peninsula of Brittany is not yet sufficiently known to botanists, and the ancient Armorica extended over a portion of Normandy where the wild horse-radish is now found.[48 - Hardouin, Renou, and Leclerc, Catalogue du Calvados, p. 85; De Brebisson, Fl. de Normandie, p. 25.] This leads me to speak of the original home of the species. English botanists mention it as wild in Great Britain, but are doubtful about its origin. Watson[49 - Watson, Cybele, i. p. 159.] considers it as introduced by cultivation. The difficulty of extirpating it, he says, from places where it is cultivated, is well known to gardeners. It is therefore not surprising that this plant should take possession of waste ground, and persist there so as to appear indigenous. Babington[50 - Babington, Manual of Brit. Bot., 2nd edit., p. 28.] mentions only one spot where the species appears to be really wild, namely, Swansea. We will try to solve the problem by further arguments.

Cochlearia Armoracia is a plant belonging to the temperate, and especially to the eastern regions of Europe. It is diffused from Finland to Astrakhan, and to the desert of Cuman.[51 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., i. p. 159.] Grisebach mentions also several localities in Turkey in Europe, near Enos, for instance, where it abounds on the sea-shore.[52 - Grisebach, Spicilegium Fl. Rumel., i. p. 265.]

The further we advance towards the west of Europe, the less the authors of floras appear sure that the plant is indigenous, and the localities assigned to it are more scattered and doubtful. The species is rarer in Norway than in Sweden,[53 - Fries, Summa, p. 30.] in the British Isles than in Holland, where a foreign origin is not attributed to it.[54 - Miquel, Disquisitio pl. regn. Batav.]

The specific names confirm the impression of its origin in the east rather than in the west of Europe; thus the name chren[55 - Moritzi, Dict. Inéd. des Noms Vulgaires.] in Russia recurs in all the Sclavonic languages, krenai in Lithuanian, chren in Illyrian,[56 - Moritzi, ibid.; Viviani, Fl. Dalmat., iii. p. 322.] etc. It has introduced itself into a few German dialects, round Vienna,[57 - Neilreich, Fl. Wien, p. 502.] for instance, where it persists, in spite of the spread of the German tongue. We owe to it also the French names cran or cranson. The word used in Germany, Meerretig, and in Holland, meer-radys, whence the Italian Swiss dialect has taken the name méridi, or mérédi, means sea-radish, and is not primitive like the word chren. It comes probably from the fact that the plant grows well near the sea, a circumstance common to many of the Cruciferæ, and which should be the case with this species, for it is wild in the east of Russia where there is a good deal of salt soil. The Swedish name peppar-rot[58 - Linnæus, Fl. Suecica, No. 540.] suggests the idea that the species came into Sweden later than the introduction of pepper by commerce into the north of Europe. However, the name may have taken the place of an older one, which has remained unknown to us. The English name of horse-radish is not of such an original nature as to lead to a belief in the existence of the species in the country before the Saxon conquest. It means a very strong radish. The Welsh name rhuddygl maurth[59 - H. Davies, Welsh Botanology, p. 63.] is only the translation of the English word, whence we may infer that the Kelts of Great Britain had no special name, and were not acquainted with the species. In the west of France, the name raifort, which is the commonest, merely means strong root. Formerly it bore in France the names of German, or Capuchin mustard, which shows a foreign and recent origin. On the contrary, the word chren is in all the Sclavonic languages, a word which has penetrated into some German and French dialects under the forms of kreen, cran, and cranson, and which is certainly of a primitive nature, and shows the antiquity of the species in temperate Eastern Europe. It is therefore most probable that cultivation has propagated and naturalized the plant westward from the east for about a thousand years.

Turnips—Brassica species et varietates radice in crassata.

The innumerable varieties and subvarieties of the turnip known as swedes, Kohl-rabi, etc., may be all attributed to one of the four species of Linnæus —Brassica napus, Br. oleracea, Br. rapa, Br. campestris– of which the two last should, according to modern authors, be fused into one. Other varieties of the species are cultivated for the leaves (cabbages), for the inflorescence (cauliflowers), or for the oil which is extracted from the seed (colza, rape, etc.). When the root or the lower part of the stem[60 - In turnips and swedes the swelled part is, as in the radish, the lower part of the stem, below the cotyledons, with a more or less persistent part of the root. (See Turpin. Ann. Sc. Natur., ser. 1, vol. xxi.) In the Kohl-rabi (Brassica oleracea caulo-rapa) it is the stem.] is fleshy, the seed is not abundant, nor worth the trouble of extracting the oil; when those organs are slender, the production of the seed, on the contrary, becomes more important, and decides the economic use of the plant. In other words, the store of nutritious matter is placed sometimes in the lower, sometimes in the upper part of the plant, although the organization of the flower and fruit is similar, or nearly so.

Touching the question of origin, we need not occupy ourselves with the botanical limits of the species, and with the classification of the races, varieties, and sub-varieties,[61 - This classification has been the subject of a paper by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, Transactions of the Horticultural Society, vol. v.] since all the Brassicæ are of European and Siberian origin, and are still to be seen in these regions wild, or half wild, in some form or other.

Plants so commonly cultivated and whose germination is so easy often spread round cultivated places; hence some uncertainty regarding the really wild nature of the plants found in the open country. Nevertheless, Linnæus mentions that Brassica napus grows in the sand on the sea-coast in Sweden (Gothland), Holland, and England, which is confirmed, as far as Sweden is concerned, by Fries,[62 - Fries, Summa Veget. Scand., i. p. 29.] who, with his usual attention to questions of this nature, mentions Br. Campestris, L. (type of the Rapa with slender roots), as really wild in the whole Scandinavian peninsula, in Finland and Denmark. Ledebour[63 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., i. p. 216.] indicates it in the whole of Russia, Siberia, and the Caspian Sea.

The floras of temperate and southern Asia mention rapes and turnips as cultivated plants, never as escaped from cultivation.[64 - Boissier, Flora Orientalis; Sir J. Hooker, Flora of British India; Thunberg, Flora Japonica; Franchet and Savatier, Enumeratio Plantarum Japonicarum.] This is already an indication of foreign origin. The evidence of philology is no less significant.

There is no Sanskrit name for these plants, but only modern Hindu and Bengalee names, and those only for Brassica rapa and B. oleracea.[65 - Piddington, Index.] Kæmpfer[66 - Kæmpfer, Amœn., p. 822.] gives Japanese names for the turnip —busei, or more commonly aona– but there is nothing to show that these names are ancient. Bretschneider, who has made a careful study of Chinese authors, mentions no Brassica. Apparently they do not occur in any of the ancient works on botany and agriculture, although several varieties are now cultivated in China.

It is just the reverse in Europe. The old languages have a number of names which seem to be original. Brassica rapa is called meipen or erfinen[67 - Davies, Welsh Botanology, p. 65.] in Wales; repa and rippa in several Slav tongues,[68 - Moritzi, Dict. MS., compiled from published floras.] which answers to the Latin rapa, and is allied to the neipa of the Anglo-Saxons. The Brassica napus is in Welsh bresych yr yd; in Erse braisscagh buigh, according to Threlkeld,[69 - Threlkeld, Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum, 1 vol. in 8vo, 1727.] who sees in braisscagh the root of the Latin Brassica. A Polish name, karpiele, a Lithuanian, jellazoji,[70 - Moritzi, Dict. MS.] are also given, without speaking of a host of other names, transferred sometimes in popular speech from one species to another. I shall speak of the names of Brassica oleracea when I come to vegetables.

The Hebrews had no names for cabbages, rapes, and turnips,[71 - Rosenmüller, Biblische Naturgeschichte, vol. i., gives none.] but there are Arab names: selgam for the Br. napus, and subjum or subjumi for Br. rapa; words which recur in Persian and even in Bengali, transferred perhaps from one species to another. The cultivation of these plants has therefore been diffused in the south-west of Asia since Hebrew antiquity.

Finally, every method, whether botanical, historical, or philological, leads us to the following conclusions: —

Firstly, the Brassicæ with fleshy roots were originally natives of temperate Europe.

Secondly, their cultivation was diffused in Europe before, and in Asia after, the Aryan invasion.

Thirdly, the primitive slender-rooted form of Brassica napus, called Br. campestris, had probably from the beginning a more extended range, from the Scandinavian peninsula towards Siberia and the Caucasus. Its cultivation was perhaps introduced into China and Japan, through Siberia, at an epoch which appears not to be much earlier than Greco-Roman civilization.

Fourthly, the cultivation of the various forms or species of Brassica was diffused throughout the south-west of Asia at an epoch later than that of the ancient Hebrews.

Skirret—Sium Sisarum, Linnæus.

This vivacious Umbellifer, furnished with several diverging roots in the form of a carrot, is believed to come from Eastern Asia. Linnæus indicates China, doubtfully; and Loureiro,[72 - Linnæus, Species, p. 361; Loureiro, Fl. Cochinchinensis, p. 225.] China and Cochin-China, where he says it is cultivated. Others have mentioned Japan and the Corea, but in these countries there are species which it is easy to confound with the one in question, particularly Sium Ninsi and Panax Ginseng. Maximowicz,[73 - Maximowicz, Diagnoses Plantarum Japonicæ et Manshuriæ, in Mélanges Biologiques du Bulletin de l’Acad., St. Petersburg, decad 13, p. 18.] who has seen these plants in China and in Japan, and who has studied the herbariums of St. Petersburgh, recognizes only the Altaic region of Siberia and the North of Persia as the home of the wild Sium Sisarum. I am very doubtful whether it is to be found in the Himalayas or in China, since modern works on the region of the river Amoor and on British India make no mention of it.

It is doubtful whether the ancient Greeks and Romans knew this plant. The names Sisaron of Dioscorides, Siser of Columella and of Pliny,[74 - Dioscorides, Mat. Med., 1. 2, c. 139; Columella, 1. 11, c. 3, 18, 35; Lenz, Bot. der Alten, p. 560.] are attributed to it. Certainly the modern Italian name sisaro or sisero seems to confirm this idea; but how could these authors have failed to notice that several roots descend from the base of the stem, whereas all the other umbels cultivated in Europe have but a single tap-root? It is just possible that the siser of Columella, a cultivated plant, may have been the parsnip; but what Pliny says of the siser does not apply to it. According to him it was a medicinal plant, inter medica dicendum.[75 - Pliny, Hist. Plant., 1. 19, c. 5.] He says that Tiberius caused a quantity to be brought every year from Germany, which proves, he adds, that it thrives in cold countries.

If the Greeks had received the plant direct from Persia, Theophrastus would probably have known it. It came perhaps from Siberia into Russia, and thence into Germany, in which case the anecdote about Tiberius might well apply to the skirret. I cannot find any Russian name, certainly, but the Germans have original names, Krizel or Grizel, Görlein or Gierlein, which indicate an ancient cultivation, more than the ordinary name Zuckerwurzel, or sugar-root.[76 - Nemnich, Polygl. Lexicon, ii. p. 1313.] The Danish name has the same meaning —sokerot, whence the English skirret. The name sisaron is not known in modern Greece; nor was it known there even in the Middle Ages, and the plant is not now cultivated in that country.[77 - Lenz, Bot. der Alten, p. 560; Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands; Langkavel, Bot. der Späteren Griechen.] There are reasons for doubt as to the true sense of the words sisaron and siser. Some botanists of the sixteenth century thought that sisaron was perhaps the parsnip proper, and Sprengel[78 - Sprengel, Dioscoridis, etc., ii. p. 462.] supports this idea.

The French names chervis and girole[79 - Olivier de Serres, Théâtre de l’Agriculture, p. 471.] would perhaps teach us something if we knew their origin. Littré derives chervis from the Spanish chirivia, but the latter is more likely derived from the French. Bauhin[80 - Bauhin, Hist. Pl., iii. p. 154.] mentions the low Latin names servillum, chervillum, or servillam, words which are not in Ducange’s dictionary. This may well be the origin of chervis, but whence came servillum or chervillum?

Arracacha or Arracacia—Arracacha esculenta, de Candolle.

An umbel generally cultivated in Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador as a nutritious plant. In the temperate regions of those countries it bears comparison with the potato, and even yields, we are assured, a lighter and more agreeable fecula. The lower part of the stem is swelled into a bulb, on which, when the plant thrives well, tubercles, or lateral bulbs, form themselves, and persist for several months, which are more prized than the central bulb, and serve for future planting.[81 - The best information about the cultivation of this plant was given by Bancroft to Sir W. Hooker, and may be found in the Botanical Magazine, pl. 3092. A. P. de Candolle published, in La 5e Notice sur les Plantes Rares des Jardin Bot. de Genève, an illustration showing the principal bulb.]

The species is probably indigenous in the region where it is cultivated, but I do not find in any author a positive assertion of the fact. The existing descriptions are drawn from cultivated stocks. Grisebach indeed says that he has seen (presumably in the herbarium at Kew) specimens gathered in New Granada, in Peru, and in Trinidad,[82 - Grisebach, Flora of British West-India Islands.] but he does not say whether they were wild. The other species of the same genus, to the number of a dozen, grow in the same districts of America, which renders the above-mentioned origin more probable.

The introduction of the arracacha into Europe has been attempted several times without success. The damp climate of England accounts for the failure of Sir William Hooker’s attempts; but ours, made at two different times, under very different conditions, have met with no better success. The lateral bulbs did not form, and the central bulb died in the house where it was placed for the winter. The bulbs presented to different botanical gardens in France and Italy and elsewhere shared the same fate. It is clear that if the plant is in America really equal to the potato in productiveness and taste, this will never be the case in Europe. Its cultivation does not in America spread as far as Chili and Mexico, like that of the potato and sweet potato, which confirms the difficulty of propagation observed elsewhere.

Madder—Rubia tinctorum, Linnæus.

The madder is certainly wild in Italy, Greece, the Crimea, Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, Armenia, and near Lenkoran.[83 - Bertoloni, Flora Italica, ii. p. 146; Decaisne, Recherches sur la Garance, p. 68; Boissier, Flora Orientalis, iii. p. 17; Ledebour, Flora Rossica, ii. p. 405.] As we advance westward in the south of Europe, the wild, indigenous nature of the plant becomes more and more doubtful. There is uncertainty even in France. In the north and east the plant appears to be “naturalized in hedges and on walls,”[84 - Cosson and Germain, Flore des Environs de Paris, ii. p. 365.] or “subspontaneous,” escaped from former cultivation.[85 - Kirschleger, Flore d’Alsace, i. p. 359.] In Provence and Languedoc it is more spontaneous or wild, but here also it may have spread from a somewhat extensive cultivation. In the Iberian peninsula it is mentioned as “subspontaneous.”[86 - Willkomm and Lange, Prodromus Floræ Hispanicæ, ii. p. 307.] It is the same in the north of Africa.[87 - Ball, Spicilegium Floræ Maroccanæ, p. 483; Munby, Catal. Plant. Alger., edit. 2, p. 17.] Evidently the natural, ancient, and undoubted habitation is western temperate Asia and the south-east of Europe. It does not appear that the plant has been found beyond the Caspian Sea in the land formerly occupied by the Indo-Europeans, but this region is still little known. The species only exists in India as a cultivated plant, and has no Sanskrit name.[88 - Piddington, Index.]

Neither is there any known Hebrew name, while the Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Germans, and Kelts had various names, which a philologist could perhaps trace to one or two roots, but which nevertheless indicate by their numerous modifications an ancient date. Probably the wild roots were gathered in the fields before the idea of cultivating the species was suggested. Pliny, however, says[89 - Plinius, lib. 19, cap. 3.] that it was cultivated in Italy in his time, and it is possible that the custom was of older date in Greece and Asia Minor.

The cultivation of madder is often mentioned in French records of the Middle Ages.[90 - De Gasparin, Traité d’Agriculture, iv. p. 253.] It was afterwards neglected or abandoned, until Althen reintroduced it into the neighbourhood of Avignon in the middle of the eighteenth century. It flourished formerly in Alsace, Germany, Holland, and especially in Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria, whence the exportation was considerable; but the discovery of dyes extracted from inorganic substances has suppressed this cultivation, to the great detriment of the provinces which drew large profits from it.

Jerusalem Artichoke—Helianthus tuberosus, Linnæus.

It was in the year 1616 that European botanists first mentioned this Composite, with a large root better adapted for the food of animals than of man. Columna[91 - Columna, Ecphrasis, ii. p. 11.] had seen it in the garden of Cardinal Farnese, and called it Aster peruanus tuberosus. Other authors of the same century gave it epithets showing that it was believed to come from Brazil, or from Canada, or from the Indies, that is to say, America. Linnæus[92 - Linnæus, Hortus Cliffortianus, p. 420.] adopted, on Parkinson’s authority, the opinion of a Canadian origin, of which, however, he had no proof. I pointed out formerly[93 - A. de Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Raisonnée, p. 824.] that there are no species of the genus Helianthus in Brazil, and that they are, on the contrary, numerous in North America.

Schlechtendal,[94 - Schlechtendal, Bot. Zeit. 1858, p. 113.] after having proved that the Jerusalem artichoke can resist the severe winters of the centre of Europe, observes that this fact is in favour of the idea of a Canadian origin, and contrary to the belief of its coming from some southern region. Decaisne[95 - Decaisne, Recherches sur l’Origine de quelques-unes de nos Plantes Alimentaires, in Flore des Serres et Jardins, vol. 23, 1881, p. 112.] has eliminated from the synonymy of H. tuberosus several quotations which had occasioned the belief in a South American or Mexican origin. Like the American botanists, he recalls what ancient travellers had narrated of certain customs of the aborigines of the Northern States and of Canada. Thus Champlain, in 1603, had seen, “in their hands, roots which they cultivate, and which taste like an artichoke.” Lescarbot[96 - Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, edit. 3, 1618, t. vi. p. 931.] speaks of these roots with the artichoke flavour, which multiply freely, and which he had brought back to France, where they began to be sold under the name of topinambaux. The savages, he says, call them chiquebi. Decaisne also quotes two French horticulturists of the seventeenth century, Colin and Sagard, who evidently speak of the Jerusalem artichoke, and say it came from Canada. It is to be noted that the name Canada had at that time a vague meaning, and comprehended some parts of the modern United States. Gookin, an American writer on the customs of the aborigines, says that they put pieces of the Jerusalem artichoke into their soups.[97 - Pickering, Chron. Arrang., pp. 749, 972.]

Botanical analogies and the testimony of contemporaries agree, as we have seen, in considering this plant to be a native of the north-east of America. Dr. Asa Gray, seeing that it is not found wild, had formerly supposed it to be a variety of H. doronicoides of Lamarck, but he has since abandoned this idea (American Journal of Science, 1883, p. 224). An author gives it as wild in the State of Indiana.[98 - Catalogue of Indiana Plants, 1881, p. 15.] The French name topinambour comes apparently from some real or supposed Indian name. The English name Jerusalem artichoke is a corruption of the Italian girasole, sunflower, combined with an allusion to the artichoke flavour of the root.

Salsify—Tragopogon porrifolium, Linnæus.

The salsify was more cultivated a century or two ago than it is now. It is a biennial composite, found wild in Greece, Dalmatia, Italy, and even in Algeria.[99 - Boissier, Fl. Orient., iii. p. 745; Viviani, Fl. Dalmat., ii. p. 108; Bertoloni, Fl. Ital., viii. p. 348; Gussone, Synopsis Fl. Siculæ, ii. p. 384; Munby, Catal. Alger., edit. 2, p. 22.] It frequently escapes from gardens in the west of Europe, and becomes half-naturalized.[100 - A. de Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Raisonnée, p. 671.]

Commentators[101 - Fraas, Synopsis Fl. Class., p. 196; Lenz, Bot. der Alten, p. 485.] give the name Tragopogon (goat’s beard) of Theophrastus sometimes to the modern species, sometimes to Tragopogon crocifolium, which also grows in Greece. It is difficult to know if the ancients cultivated the salsify or gathered it wild in the country. In the sixteenth century Olivier de Serres says it was a new culture in his country, the south of France. Our word Salsifis comes from the Italian Sassefrica, that which rubs stones, a senseless term.

Scorzonera—Scorzonera hispanica, Linnæus.

This plant is sometimes called the Spanish salsify, from its resemblance to Tragopogon porrifolium; but its root has a brown skin, whence its botanical name, and the popular name écorce noire in some French provinces.

It is wild in Europe, from Spain, where it abounds, the south of France, and Germany, to the region of Caucasus, and perhaps even as far as Siberia, but it is wanting in Sicily and Greece.[102 - Willkomm and Lange, Prodromus Floræ Hispanicæ, ii. p. 223; De Candolle, Flore Française, iv. p. 59; Koch, Synopsis Fl. Germ., edit. 2, p. 488; Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 794; Boissier, Fl. Orientalis, iii. p. 767; Bertoloni, Fl. Ital., viii. p. 365.] In several parts of Germany the species is probably naturalized from cultivation.

It seems that this plant has only been cultivated within the last hundred or hundred and fifty years. The botanists of the sixteenth century speak of it as a wild species introduced occasionally into botanical gardens. Olivier de Serres does not mention it.

It was formerly supposed to be an antidote against the bite of adders, and was sometimes called the viper’s plant. As to the etymology of the name Scorzonera, it is so evident, that it is difficult to understand how early writers, even Tournefort,[103 - Tournefort, Éléments de Botanique, p. 379.] have declared the origin of the word to be escorso, viper in Spanish or Catalan. Viper is in Spanish more commonly vibora.

There exists in Sicily a Scorzonera deliciosa, Gussone, whose very sugary root is used in the confection of bonbons and sherbets, at Palermo.[104 - Gussone, Synopsis Floræ Siculæ.] How is it that its cultivation has not been tried? It is true that I tasted at Naples Scorzonera ices, and found them detestable, but they were perhaps made of the common species (Scorzonera hispanica).

Potato—Solanum tuberosum, Linnæus.

In 1855 I stated and discussed what was then known about the origin of the potato, and about its introduction into Europe.[105 - A. de Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Raisonnée, pp. 810, 816.] I will now add the result of the researches of the last quarter of a century. It will be seen that the data formerly acquired have become more certain, and that several somewhat doubtful accessory questions have remained uncertain, though the probabilities in favour of what formerly seemed the truth have grown stronger.

It is proved beyond a doubt that at the time of the discovery of America the cultivation of the potato was practised, with every appearance of ancient usage, in the temperate regions extending from Chili to New Granada, at altitudes varying with the latitude. This appears from the testimony of all the early travellers, among whom I shall name Acosta for Peru,[106 - Acosta, p. 163, verso.] and Pedro Cieca, quoted by de l’Ecluse,[107 - De l’Ecluse (or Clusius), Rariarum Plantarum Historiæ, 1601, lib. 4, p. lxxix., with illustration.] for Quito.

In the eastern temperate region of South America, on the heights of Guiana and Brazil, for instance, the potato was not known to the aborigines, or if they were acquainted with a similar plant, it was Solanum Commersonii, which has also a tuberous root, and is found wild in Montevideo and in the south of Brazil. The true potato is certainly now cultivated in the latter country, but it is of such recent introduction that it has received the name of the English Batata.[108 - De Martius, Flora Brasil., vol. x. p. 12.] According to Humboldt it was unknown in Mexico,[109 - Von Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 451; Essai sur la Géographie des Plantes, p. 29.] a fact confirmed by the silence of subsequent authors, but to a certain degree contradicted by another historical fact. It is said that Sir Walter Raleigh, or rather Thomas Herriott, his companion in several voyages, brought back to Ireland, in 1585 or 1586, some tubers of the Virginian potato.[110 - At that epoch Virginia was not distinguished from Carolina.] Its name in its own country was openawk. From Herriott’s description of the plant, quoted by Sir Joseph Banks,[111 - Banks, Trans. Hort. Soc., 1805, vol. i. p. 8.] there is no doubt that it was the potato, and not the batata, which at that period was sometimes confounded with it. Besides, Gerard[112 - Gerard, Herbal, 1597, p. 781, with illustration.] tells us that he received from Virginia the potato which he cultivated in his garden, and of which he gives an illustration which agrees in all points with Solanum tuberosum. He was so proud of it that he is represented, in his portrait at the beginning of the work, holding in his hand a flowering branch of this plant.

The species could scarcely have been introduced into Virginia or Carolina in Raleigh’s time (1585), unless the ancient Mexicans had possessed it, and its cultivation had been diffused among the aborigines to the north of Mexico. Dr. Roulin, who has carefully studied the works on North America, has assured me that he has found no signs of the potato in the United States before the arrival of the Europeans. Dr. Asa Gray also told me so, adding that Mr. Harris, one of the men most intimately acquainted with the language and customs of North American tribes, was of the same opinion. I have read nothing to the contrary in recent publications, and we must not forget that a plant so easy of cultivation would have spread itself even among nomadic tribes, had they possessed it. It seems to me most likely that some inhabitants of Virginia – perhaps English colonists – received tubers from Spanish or other travellers, traders or adventurers, during the ninety years which had elapsed since the discovery of America. Evidently, dating from the conquest of Peru and Chili, in 1535 to 1585, many vessels could have carried tubers of the potato as provisions, and Sir Walter Raleigh, making war on the Spaniards as a privateer, may have pillaged some vessel which contained them. This is the less improbable, since the Spaniards had introduced the plant into Europe before 1585.

Sir Joseph Banks[113 - Banks, Trans. Hort. Soc., 1805, vol. i. p. 8.] and Dunal[114 - Dunal, Hist. Nat. des Solanum, in 4to.] were right to insist upon the fact that the potato was first introduced by the Spaniard, since for a long time the credit was generally given to Sir Walter Raleigh, who was the second introducer, and even to other Englishmen, who had introduced, not the potato but the batata (sweet potato), which is more or less confounded with it.[115 - The plant imported by Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake was clearly the sweet potato, Sir J. Banks says; whence it results that the questions discussed by Humboldt touching the localities visited by these travellers do not apply to the potato.] A celebrated botanist, de l’Ecluse,[116 - De l’Ecluse, Rariarum Plantarum Historiæ, 1601, lib. 4. p. lxxviii.] had nevertheless defined the facts in a remarkable manner. It is he who published the first good description and illustration of the potato, under the significant name of Papas Peruanorum. From what he says, the species has little changed under the culture of nearly three centuries, for it yielded in the beginning as many as fifty tubers of unequal size, from one to two inches long, irregularly ovoid, reddish, ripening in November (at Vienna). The flower was more or less pink externally, and reddish within, with five longitudinal stripes of green, as is often seen now. No doubt numerous varieties have been obtained, but the original form has not been lost. De l’Ecluse compares the scent of the flower with that of the lime, the only difference from our modern plant. He sowed seeds which produced a white-flowered variety, such as we sometimes see now.

The plants described by de l’Ecluse were sent to him in 1588, by Philippe de Sivry, Seigneur of Waldheim and Governor of Mons, who had received them from some one in attendance on the papal legate in Belgium. De l’Ecluse adds that the species had been introduced into Italy from Spain or America (certum est vel ex Hispania, vel ex America habuisse), and he wonders that, although the plant had become so common in Italy that it was eaten like a turnip and given to the pigs, the learned men of the University of Padua only became acquainted with it by means of the tuber which he sent them from Germany. Targioni[117 - Targioni-Tozzetti, Lezzioni, ii. p. 10; Cenni Storici sull’ Introduzione di Varie Piante nell’ Agricoltura di Toscana, 1 vol. in 8vo, Florence, 1853, p. 37.] has not been able to discover any proof that the potato was as widely cultivated in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century as de l’Ecluse asserts, but he quotes Father Magazzini of Vallombrosa, whose posthumous work, published in 1623, mentions the species as one previously brought, without naming the date, from Spain or Portugal by barefooted friars. It was, therefore, towards the end of the sixteenth or at the beginning of the seventeenth century that the cultivation of the potato became known in Tuscany. Independently of what de l’Ecluse and the agriculturist of Vallombrosa say of its introduction from the Iberian peninsula, it is not at all likely that the Italians had any dealings with Raleigh’s companions.