Origin of Cultivated Plants. Alphonse de Candolle

observed a wild variety identical with those which are cultivated, he would not have suggested the hypothesis that the manioc is obtained from his Manihot pusilla195 of the province of Goyaz, a plant of small size, and considered as a true species or as a variety of Manihot palmata.196 Martius declared in 1867, that is after having received a quantity of information of a later date than his journey, that the plant was not known in a wild state.197 An early traveller, usually accurate, Piso,198 speaks of a wild mandihoca, of which the Tapuyeris, the natives of the coast to the north of Rio Janeiro, ate the roots. “It is,” he says, “very like the cultivated plant;” but the illustration he gives of it appears unsatisfactory to authors who have studied the maniocs. Pohl attributes it to his M. aipi, and Dr. Müller passes it over in silence. For my part, I am disposed to believe what Piso says, and his figure does not seem to me entirely unsatisfactory. It is better than that by Vellozo, of a wild manioc which is doubtfully attributed to M. aipi.199 If we do not accept the origin in eastern tropical Brazil, we must have recourse to two hypotheses: either the cultivated maniocs are obtained from one of the wild species modified by cultivation, or they are varieties which exist only by the agency of man after the disappearance of their fellows from modern wild vegetation.

      Garlic—Allium sativum, Linnæus.

      Linnæus, in his Species Plantarum, indicates Sicily as the home of the common garlic; but in his Hortus Cliffortianus, where he is usually more accurate, he does not give its origin. The fact is that, according to all the most recent and complete floras of Sicily, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, and Algeria, garlic is not considered to be indigenous, although specimens have been gathered here and there which had more or less the appearance of being so. A plant so constantly cultivated and so easily propagated may spread from gardens and persist for a considerable time without being wild by nature. I do not know on what authority Kunth200 mentions that the species is found in Egypt. According to authors who are more accurate201 in their accounts of the plants of that country, it is only found there under cultivation. Boissier, whose herbarium is so rich in Eastern plants, possesses no wild specimens of it. The only country where garlic has been found in a wild state, with the certainty of its really being so, is the desert of the Kirghis of Sungari; bulbs were brought thence and cultivated at Dorpat,202 and specimens were afterwards seen by Regel.203 The latter author also says that he saw a specimen which Wallich had gathered as wild in British India; but Baker,204 who had access to the rich herbarium at Kew, does not speak of it in his review of the “Alliums of India, China, and Japan.”

      Let us see whether historical and philological records confirm the fact of an origin in the south-west of Siberia alone.

      Garlic has been long cultivated in China under the name of suan. It is written in Chinese by a single sign, which usually indicates a long known and even a wild species.205 The floras of Japan206 do not mention it, whence I gather that the species was not wild in Eastern Siberia and Dahuria, but that the Mongols brought it into China.

      According to Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians made great use of it. Archæologists have not found the proof of this in the monuments, but this may be because the plant was considered unclean by the priests.207

      There is a Sanskrit name, mahoushouda,208 become loshoun in Bengali, and to which appears to be related the Hebrew name schoum or schumin,209 which has produced the Arab thoum or toum. The Basque name baratchouria is thought by de Charencey210 to be allied with Aryan names. In support of his hypothesis I may add that the Berber name, tiskert, is quite different, and that consequently the Iberians seem to have received the plant and its name rather from the Aryans than from their probable ancestors of Northern Africa. The Lettons call it kiplohks, the Esthonians krunslauk, whence probably the German Knoblauch. The ancient Greek name appears to have been scorodon, in modern Greek scordon. The names given by the Slavs of Illyria are bili and cesan. The Bretons say quinen,211 the Welsh craf, cenhinnen, or garlleg, whence the English garlic. The Latin allium has passed into the languages of Latin origin.212 This great diversity of names intimates a long acquaintance with the plant, and even an ancient cultivation in Western Asia and in Europe. On the other hand, if the species has existed only in the land of the Kirghis, where it is now found, the Aryans might have cultivated it and carried it into India and Europe; but this does not explain the existence of so many Keltic, Slav, Greek, and Latin names which differ from the Sanskrit. To explain this diversity, we must suppose that its original abode extended farther to the west than that known at the present day, an extension anterior to the migrations of the Aryans.

      If the genus Allium were once made, as a whole, the object of such a serious study as that of Gay on some of its species,213 perhaps it might be found that certain wild European forms, included by authors under A. arenarium, L., A. arenarium, Sm., or A. scorodoprasum, L., are only varieties of A. sativum. In that case everything would agree to show that the earliest peoples of Europe and Western Asia cultivated such form of the species just as they found it from Tartary to Spain, giving it names more or less different.

      Onion —Allium Cepa, Linnæus.

      I will state first what was known in 1855;214 I will then add the recent botanical observations which confirm the inferences from philological data.

      The onion is one of the earliest of cultivated species. Its original country is, according to Kunth, unknown.215 Let us see if it is possible to discover it. The modern Greeks call Allium Cepa, which they cultivate in abundance, krommunda.216 This is a good reason for believing that the krommuon of Theophrastus217 is the same species, as sixteenth-century writers already supposed.218 Pliny219 translated the word by cœpa. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew several varieties, which they distinguished by the names of countries: Cyprium, Cretense, Samothraciae, etc. One variety cultivated in Egypt220 was held to be so excellent that it received divine honours, to the great amusement of the Romans.221 Modern Egyptians designate A. Cepa by the name of basal222 or bussul,223 whence it is probable that the bezalim of the Hebrews is the same species, as commentators have said.224 There are several distinct names —palandu, latarka, sakandaka,225 and a number of modern Indian names. The species is commonly cultivated in India, Cochin-China, China,226 and even in Japan.227 It was largely consumed by the ancient Egyptians. The drawings on their monuments often represent this species.228 Thus its cultivation in Southern Asia and the eastern region of the Mediterranean