Origin of Cultivated Plants

Alexandrine or Egyptian Clover—Trifolium Alexandrinum, Linnæus.

This species is extensively cultivated in Egypt as fodder. Its Arab name is bersym or berzun.487 There is nothing to show that it has been long in use; the name does not occur in Hebrew and Armenian botanical works. The species is not wild in Egypt, but it is certainly wild in Syria and Asia Minor.488

Ervilia—Ervum Ervilia, Linnæus; Vicia Ervilia, Willdenow.

Bertoloni489 gives no less than ten common Italian names —ervo, lero, zirlo, etc. This is an indication of an ancient and general culture. Heldreich490 says that the modern Greeks cultivate the plant in abundance as fodder. They call it robai, from the ancient Greek orobos, as ervos comes from the Latin ervum. The cultivation of the species is mentioned by ancient Greek and Latin authors.491 The Greeks made use of the seed; for some has been discovered in the excavations on the site of Troy.492 There are a number of common names in Spain, some of them Arabic,493 but the species has not been so widely cultivated there for several centuries.494 In France it is so little grown that many modern works on agriculture do not mention it. It is unknown in British India.495

General botanical works indicate Ervum Ervilia as growing in Southern Europe, but if we take severally the best floras, it will be seen that it is in such localities as fields, vineyards, or cultivated ground. It is the same in Western Asia, where Boissier496 speaks of specimens from Syria, Persia, and Afghanistan. Sometimes, in abridged catalogues,497 the locality is not given, but nowhere do I find it asserted that the plant has been seen wild in places far from cultivation. The specimens in my own herbarium furnish no further proof on this head.

In all likelihood the species was formerly wild in Greece, Italy, and perhaps Spain and Algeria, but the frequency of its cultivation in the very regions where it existed prevent us from now finding the wild stocks.

Tare, or Common Vetch—Vicia sativa, Linnæus.

Vicia sativa is an annual leguminous plant wild throughout Europe, except in Lapland. It is also common in Algeria,498 and to the south of the Caucasus as far as the province of Talysch.499 Roxburgh pronounces it to be wild in the north-west provinces and in Bengal, but Sir Joseph Hooker admits this only as far as the variety called angustifolia500 is concerned. No Sanskrit name is known, and in the modern languages of India only Hindu names.501 Targioni believes it to be the ketsach of the Hebrews.502 I have received specimens from the Cape and from California. The species is certainly not indigenous in the two last-named regions, but has escaped from cultivation.

The Romans sowed this plant both for the sake of the seed and as fodder as early as the time of Cato.503 I have discovered no proof of a more ancient cultivation. The name vik, whence vicia, dates from a very remote epoch in Europe, for it exists in Albanian,504 which is believed to be the language of the Pelasgians, and among the Slav, Swedish, and Germanic nations, with slight modifications. This does not prove that the species was cultivated. It is distinct enough and useful enough to herbivorous animals to have received common names from the earliest times.

Flat-podded Pea—Lathyrus Cicera, Linnæus.

An annual leguminous plant, esteemed as fodder, but whose seed, if used as food in any quantity, becomes dangerous.505

It is grown in Italy under the name of mochi.506 Some authors suspect that it is the cicera of Columella and the ervilia of Varro,507 but the common Italian name is very different to these. The species is not cultivated in Greece.508 It is more or less grown in France and Spain, without anything to show that its use dates from ancient times. However, Wittmack509 attributes to it, but doubtfully, some seeds brought by Virchow from the Trojan excavations.

According to the floras, it is evidently wild in dry places, beyond the limits of cultivation in Spain and Italy.510 It is also wild in Lower Egypt, according to Schweinfurth and Ascherson;511 but there is no trace of ancient cultivation in this country or among the Hebrews. Towards the East its wild character becomes less certain. Boissier indicates the plant “in cultivated ground from Turkey in Europe, and Egypt as far as the south of the Caucasus and Babylon.”512 It is not mentioned in India either as wild or cultivated, and has no Sanskrit name.513

The species is probably a native of the region comprised between Spain and Greece, perhaps also of Algeria,514 and diffused by a cultivation, not of very ancient date, over Western Asia.

Chickling Vetch—Lathyrus sativus, Linnæus.

An annual leguminous plant, cultivated in the South of Europe, from a very early age, as fodder, and also for the seeds. The Greeks called it lathyros515 and the Latins cicercula.516 It is also cultivated in the temperate regions of Western Asia, and even in the north of India;517 but it has no Hebrew518 nor Sanskrit name,519 which argues a not very ancient cultivation in these regions.

Nearly all the floras of the south of Europe and of Algeria give the plant as cultivated and half-wild, rarely and only in a few localities as truly wild. It is easy to understand the difficulty of recognizing the wild character of a species often mixed with cereals, and which persists and spreads itself after cultivation. Heldreich does not allow that it is indigenous in Greece.520 This is a strong presumption that in the rest of Europe and in Algeria the plant has escaped from cultivation.

It is probable that this was not the case in Western Asia; for authors cite sufficiently wild localities, where agriculture plays a less considerable part than in Europe. Ledebour,521 for instance, mentions specimens gathered in the desert, near the Caspian Sea, and in the province of Lenkoran. Meyer522 confirms the assertion with respect to Lenkoran. Baker, in his flora of British India, after indicating the species as scattered here and there in the northern provinces, adds, “often cultivated,” whence it may be inferred that he considers it as indigenous, at least in the north. Boissier asserts nothing with regard to the localities in Persia which he mentions in his Oriental flora.523

To sum up, I think it probable that the species was indigenous before cultivation in the region extending from the south of the Caucasus, or of the Caspian Sea, to the north of India, and that it spread towards Europe in the track of ancient cultivation, mixed perhaps with cereals.

Ochrus—Pisum ochrus, Linnæus; Lathyrus ochrus, de Candolle.

Cultivated as an annual fodder in Catalonia, under the name of tapisots,524 and in Greece, particularly in the island of Crete, under that of ochros,525 mentioned by Theophrastus,526 but without a word of description. Latin authors do not speak of it, which argues a rare and local cultivation in ancient times.

The species is certainly wild in Tuscany.527 It appears to be wild also in Greece and Sardinia, where it is found in hedges,528 and in Spain, where it grows in uncultivated ground;529 but as for the south of France, Algeria, and Sicily, authors are either silent as to the locality, or mention only fields and cultivated ground. The plant is unknown further east than Syria,530 where probably it is not wild.

The fine plate published by Sibthorp, Flora Græca, 589, suggests that the species is worthy of more general cultivation.

Trigonel, or Fenugreek– Trigonella fænum-græcum, Linnæus.

The cultivation of this annual leguminous plant was common in ancient Greece and Italy,531 either for spring forage, or for the medicinal properties of its seeds. Abandoned almost everywhere in Europe, and notably in Greece,532 it is maintained in the East and in India,533 where it is probably of very ancient date, and throughout the Nile Valley.534 The species is wild in the Punjab and in Kashmir,535 in the deserts of Mesopotamia and of Persia,536 and in Asia Minor,537 where, however, the localities cited do not appear sufficiently distinct from the cultivated ground. It is also indicated538 in several places in Southern Europe, such as Mount Hymettus and other localities in Greece, the hills above Bologna and Genoa, and a few waste places in Spain; but the further west we go the more we find mentioned such localities as fields, cultivated ground, etc.; and careful authors do not fail to note that the species has probably escaped from cultivation.539 I do not hesitate to say that if a plant of this nature were indigenous in Southern Europe, it would be far more common, and would not be wanting to the insular floras, such as those of Sicily, Ischia, and the Balearic Isles.540

The antiquity of the species and of its use in India is confirmed by the existence of several different names in different dialects, and above all of a Sanskrit and modern Hindu name, methi.541 There is a Persian name, schemlit, and an Arab name, helbeh;542 but none is known in Hebrew.543 One of the names of the plant in ancient Greek, tailis τηλις, may, perhaps, be considered by philologists as akin to the Sanskrit name,544 but of this I am no judge. The species may have been introduced by the Aryans, and the primitive name have left no trace in northern languages, since it can only live in the south of Europe.

Bird’s Foot—Ornithopus sativus, Brotero; O. isthmocarpus, Cosson.

The true bird’s foot, wild and cultivated in Portugal, was described for the first time in 1804 by Brotero,545 and Cosson has distinguished it more clearly from allied species.546 Some authors had confounded it with Ornithopus roseus of Dufour, and agriculturists have sometimes given it the name of a very different species, O. perpusillus, which by reason of its small size is unsuited for cultivation. It is only necessary to see the pod of Ornithopus sativus to make certain of the species, for it is when ripe contracted at intervals and considerably bent. If there are in the fields plants of a similar appearance, but whose pods are straight and not contracted, they are the result of a cross with O. roseus, or, if the pod is curved but not contracted, with O. compressus. From the appearance of these plants, it seems that they might be grown in the same manner, and would present, I suppose, the same advantages.

The bird’s foot is only suited to a dry and sandy soil. It is an annual which furnishes in Portugal a very early spring fodder. Its cultivation has been successfully introduced into Campine.547

O. sativus appears to be wild in several districts of Portugal and the south of Spain. I have a specimen from Tangier; and Cosson found it in Algeria. It is often found in abandoned fields, and even elsewhere. It is difficult to say whether the specimens are not from plants escaped from cultivation, but localities are cited where this seems improbable; for instance, a pine wood near Chiclana, in the south of Spain (Willkomm).

Spergula, or Corn Spurry—Spergula arvensis, Linnæus.

This annual, belonging to the family of the Caryophylaceæ, grows in sandy fields and similar places in Europe, in North Africa and Abyssinia,548 in Western Asia as far as Hindustan,549 and even in Java.550 It is difficult to know over what extent of the old world it was originally indigenous. In many localities we do not know if it is really wild or naturalized from cultivation. Sometimes a recent introduction may be suspected. In India, for instance, numerous specimens have been gathered in the last few years; but Roxburgh, who was so diligent a collector at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century, does not mention the species. No Sanskrit or modern Hindu name is known,551 and it has not been found in the countries between India and Turkey.

The common names may tell us something with regard to the origin of the species and to its cultivation.

No Greek or Latin name is known. Spergula, in Italian spergola, seems to be a common name long in use in Italy. Another Italian name, erba renaiola, indicates only its growth in the sand (rena). The French (spargoule), Spanish (esparcillas), Portuguese (espargata), and German (Spark), have all the same root. It seems that throughout the south of Europe the species was taken from country to country by the Romans, before the division of the Latin languages. In the north the case is very different. There is a Russian name, toritsa;552 several Danish names, humb or hum, girr or kirr;553 and Swedish, knutt, fryle, nägde, skorff.554 This great diversity shows that attention had long been drawn to this plant in this part of Europe, and argues an ancient cultivation. It was cultivated in the neighbourhood of Montbelliard in the sixteenth century,555 and it is not stated that it was then of recent introduction. Probably it arose in the south of Europe during the Roman occupation, and perhaps earlier in the north. In any case, its original home must have been Europe.

Agriculturists distinguish a taller variety of spergula,556 but botanists are not agreed with them in finding in it sufficient characteristics of a distinct species, and some do not even make it a variety.

Guinea Grass—Panicum maximum, Jacquin.557

This perennial grass has a great reputation in countries lying between the tropics as a nutritious fodder, easy of cultivation. With a little care a meadow of guinea grass will last for twenty years.558

Its cultivation appears to have begun in the West Indies. P. Browne speaks of it in his work on Jamaica, published in the middle of the last century, and it is subsequently mentioned by Swartz.

The former mentions the name guinea grass, without any remarks on the original home of the species. The latter says, “formerly brought from the coast of Africa to the Antilles.” He probably trusted to the indication given by the common name; but we know how fallacious such indications of origin sometimes are. Witness the so-called Turkey wheat, which comes from America.

Swartz, who is an excellent botanist, says that the plant grows in the dry cultivated pastures of the West Indies, where it is also wild, which may imply that it has become naturalized in places where it was formerly cultivated. I cannot find it anywhere asserted that it is really wild in the West Indies. It is otherwise in Brazil. From data collected by de Martius and studied by Nees,559 data afterwards increased and more carefully studied by Dœll,560 Panicum maximum grows in the clearings of the forests of the Amazon valley, near Santarem, in the provinces of Balria, Ceara, Rio de Janeiro, and Saint Paul. Although the plant is often cultivated in these countries, the localities given, by their number and nature, prove that it is indigenous. Dœll has also seen specimens from French Guiana and New Granada.

With respect to Africa, Sir William Hooker561 mentioned specimens brought from Sierra Leone, from Aguapim, from the banks of the Quorra, and from the Island of St. Thomas, in Western Africa. Nees562 indicates the species in several districts of Cape Colony, even in the bush and in mountainous country. Richard563 mentions places in Abyssinia, which also seem to be beyond the limits of cultivation, but he owns to being not very sure of the species. Anderson, on the contrary, positively asserts that Panicum maximum was brought from the banks of the Mozambique and of the Zambesi rivers by the traveller Peters.564

The species is known to have been introduced into Mauritius by the Governour Labourdonnais,565 and to have become naturalized from cultivation as in Rodriguez and the Seychelles Isles. Its introduction into Asia must be recent, for Roxburgh and Miquel do not mention the species. In Ceylon it is only cultivated.566

On the whole, it seems to me that the probabilities are in favour of an African origin, as its name indicates, and this is confirmed by the general, but insufficiently grounded opinion of authors.567 However, as the plant spreads so rapidly, it is strange that it has not reached Egypt from the Mozambique or Abyssinia, and that it was introduced so late into the islands to the east of Africa. If the co-existence of phanerogamous species in Africa and America previous to cultivation were not extremely rare, it might be inferred in this case; but this is unlikely in the case of a cultivated plant of which the diffusion is evidently very easy.

Article III.—Various Uses of the Stem and Leaves

Tea—Thea sinensis, Linnæus.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, when the shrub which produces tea was still very little known, Linnæus gave it the name of Thea sinensis. Soon afterwards, in the second edition of the Species Plantarum, he judged it better to distinguish two species, Thea bohea and Thea viridis, which he believed to correspond to the commercial distinction between black and green teas. It has since been proved that there is but one species, comprehending several varieties, from all of which either black or green tea may be obtained according to the process of manufacture. This question was settled, when another was raised, as to whether Thea really forms a genus by itself distinct from the genus Camellia. Some authors make Thea a section of the old genus Camellia; but from the characters indicated with great precision by Seemann,568 it seems to me that we are justified in retaining the genus Thea, together with the old nomenclature of the principal species.

A Japanese legend, related by Kæmpfer,569 is often quoted. A priest who came from India into China in A.D. 519, having succumbed to sleep when he had wished to watch and pray, in a movement of anger cut off his two eyelids, which were changed into a shrub, the tea tree, whose leaves are eminently calculated to prevent sleep. Unfortunately for those people who readily admit legends in whole or in part, the Chinese have never heard of this story, although the event is said to have taken place in their country. Tea was known to them long before 519, and probably it was not brought from India. This is what Bretschneider tells us in his little work, rich in botanical and philological facts.570 The Pentsao, he says, mentions tea 2700 B.C., the Rye 300 or 600 B.C.; and the commentator of the latter work, in the fourth century of our era, gave details about the plant and about the infusion of the leaves. Its use is, therefore, of very ancient date in China. It is perhaps more recent in Japan, and if it has been long known in Cochin-China, it is possible, but not proved, that it formerly spread thither from India; authors cite no Sanskrit name, nor even any name in modern Indian languages. This fact will appear strange when contrasted with what we have to say on the natural habitat of the species.

The seeds of the tea-plant often sow themselves beyond the limits of cultivation, thereby inspiring doubt among botanists as to the wild nature of plants encountered here and there. Thunberg believed the species to be wild in Japan, but Franchet and Savatier571 absolutely deny this. Fortune,572 who has so carefully examined the cultivation of tea in China, does not speak of the wild plant. Fontanier573 says that the tea-plant grows wild abundantly in Mantschuria. It is probable that it exists in the mountainous districts of South-eastern China, where naturalists have not yet penetrated. Loureiro says that it is found both “cultivated and uncultivated” in Cochin-China.574 What is more certain is, that English travellers gathered specimens in Upper Assam575 and in the province of Cachar.576 So that the tea-plant must be wild in the mountainous region which separates the plains of India from those of China, but the use of the leaves was not formerly known in India.

The cultivation of tea, now introduced into several colonies, has produced admirable results in Assam. Not only is the product of a superior quality to that of average Chinese teas, but the quantity obtained increases rapidly. In 1870, three million pounds of tea were produced in British India; in 1878, thirty-seven million pounds; and in 1880, a harvest of seventy million pounds was looked for.577 Tea will not bear frost, and suffers from drought. As I have elsewhere stated,578 the conditions which favour it are the opposite to those which suit the vine. On the other hand, it has been observed that tea flourishes in Azores, where good wine is made;579 but it is possible to cultivate in gardens, or on a small scale, many plants which will not be profitable on a large scale. The vine grows in China, yet the manufacture of wine is unimportant. Conversely, no wine-growing country grows tea for exportation. After China, Japan, and Assam, it is in Java, Ceylon, and Brazil that tea is most largely grown, where, certainly, the vine is little cultivated, or not at all; while the wines of dry regions, such as Australia and the Cape, are already known in the market.

Flax—Linum usitatissimum, Linnæus.

The question as to the origin of flax, or rather of the cultivated flax, is one of those which give rise to most interesting researches.

In order to understand the difficulties which it presents, we must first ascertain what nearly allied forms authors designate – sometimes as distinct species of the genus Linum, and sometimes as varieties of a single species.

The first important work on this subject was by Planchon, in 1848.580 He clearly showed the differences between Linum usitatissimum, L. humile, and L. angustifolium, which were little known. Afterwards Heer,581 when making profound researches into ancient cultivation, went again into the characters indicated, and by adding the study of two intermediate forms, as well as the comparison of a great number of specimens, he arrived at the conclusion that there was a single species, composed of several slightly different forms. I give a translation of his Latin summary of the characters, only adding a name for each distinct form, in accordance with the custom of botanical works.

Linum usitatissimum.

1. Annuum (annual). Root annual; stem single, upright; capsules 7 to 8 mm. long; seeds 4 to 6 mm., terminating in a point. α. Vulgare (common). Capsules 7 mm., not opening when ripe, and displaying glabrous partitions. German names, Schliesslein, Dreschlein. β. Humile (low). Capsules 8 mm., opening suddenly when ripe; the partitions hairy. Linum humile, Miller; L. crepitans, Böninghausen. German names, Klanglein, Springlein.

2. Hyemale (winter). Root annual or biennial; stems numerous, spreading at the base, and bent; capsules 7 mm., terminating in a point. Linum hyemale romanum. In German, Winterlein.

3. Ambiguum (doubtful). Root annual or perennial; stems numerous, leaves acuminate; capsules 7 mm., with partitions nearly free from hairs; seeds 4 mm., ending in a short point. Linum ambiguum, Jordan.

4. Angustifolium (narrow-leaved). Root annual or perennial; stems numerous, spreading at the base, and bent; capsules 6 mm., with hairy partitions; seeds 3 mm., slightly hooked at the top. Linum angustifolium.

It may be seen how easily one form passes into another. The quality of annual, biennial, or perennial, which Heer suspected to be uncertain, is vague, especially for the angustifolium; for Loret, who has observed this flax in the neighbourhood of Montpellier, says,582 “In very hot countries it is nearly always an annual, and this is the case in Sicily according to Gussone; with us it is annual, biennial, or perennial, according to the nature of the soil in which it grows; and this may be ascertained by observing it on the shore, notably at Maguelone. There it may be seen that along the borders of trodden paths it lasts longer than on the sand, where the sun soon dries up the roots and the acidity of the soil prevents the plant from enduring more than a year.”