Origin of Cultivated Plants

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 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 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 without explanation. Albertus Magnus describes under the name faseolus a leguminous plant which appears to be our dwarf haricot.1706 I notice, on the other hand, that writers in the fifteenth century, such as Pierre Crescenzio1707 and Macer Floridus,1708 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. Rochebrune1709 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 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. Molina1711 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 but I noticed that Tournefort1713 (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 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 Feuillée1715 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 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 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 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 It is not mentioned in Chinese works. Anglo-Indians call it French bean,1720 like the common haricot, which shows how modern is its cultivation.

It is cultivated in nearly all tropical Africa. However, Schweinfurth and Ascherson1721 do not mention it for Abyssinia, Nubia, or Egypt. Oliver1722 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 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 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 at least in the last few years, for Roxburgh,1726 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 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 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 It has become naturalized from cultivation in the Seychelles.1730 The indications of authors are not positive enough to say whether it is wild in Africa.1731

Lubia—Dolichos Lubia, Forskal.

This species, cultivated in Europe under the name of lubia, loubya, loubyé, according to Forskal and Delile,1732 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 Ascherson1733 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 and lobia that of Dolichos sinensis in the same language.1735 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 It remains as loubion in modern Greek, with the same meaning.1737

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 It seems that it is not much grown in America,1739 except in Brazil, where it is called mandubi di Angola.1740

Early writers on Asia do not mention it; its origin must, therefore, be sought in Africa. Loureiro1741 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 Senegambia1742 described it as “cultivated and probably wild” in Galam. Lastly, Schweinfurth and Ascherson1743 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 in Dahuria, and near Lake Baikal.1745 It is also indicated in China and in the mountains of the north of India,1746 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 Bretschneider1747 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 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 buchweitzen1749 (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 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 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 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

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 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

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

Less sensitive to cold than the common buckwheat, but yielding a poorer kind of seed, this species is sometimes cultivated in Europe and Asia – in the Himalayas,1756 for instance; but its culture is recent. Authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries do not mention it, and Linnæus was one of the first to speak of it as of Tartar origin. Roxburgh and Hamilton had not seen it in Northern India in the beginning of this century, and I find no indication of it in China and Japan.

It is undoubtedly wild in Tartary and Siberia, as far as Dauria;1757 but Russian botanists have not found it further east, in the basin of the river Amur.1758

As this plant came from Tartary into Eastern Europe later than the common buckwheat, it is the latter which bears in several Slav languages the names tatrika, tatarka, or tattar, which would better suit the Tartary buckwheat.

It seems that the Aryan peoples must have known the species, and yet no name is mentioned in the ancient Indo-European languages. No trace of it has hitherto been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland or of Savoy.

Notch-seeded Buckwheat—Polygonum emarginatum, Roth; Fagopyrum emarginatum, Meissner.

This third species of buckwheat is grown in the highlands of the north-east of India, under the name phaphra or phaphar,1759 and in China.1760 I find no positive proof that it has been found wild. Roth only says that it “inhabits China,” and that the grain is used for food. Don,1761 who was the first of Anglo-Indian botanists to mention it, says that it is hardly considered wild. It is not mentioned in floras of the Amur valley, nor of Japan. Judging from the countries where it is cultivated, it is probably wild in the Eastern Himalayas and the north-west of China.

The genus Fagopyrum has eight species, all of temperate Asia.

Quinoa—Chenopodium quinoa, Willdenow.

The quinoa was a staple food of the natives of New Granada, Peru, and Chili, in the high and temperate parts at the time of the conquest. Its cultivation has persisted in these countries from custom, and on account of the abundance of the product.

From all time the distinction has existed between the quinoa with coloured leaves, and the quinoa with green leaves and white seed.1762 The latter was regarded by Moquin1763 as a variety of a little known species, believed to be Asiatic; but I believe that I showed conclusively that the two American quinoas are two varieties, probably very ancient, of a single species.1764 The less coloured, which is also the most farinaceous, is probably derived from the other.

The white quinoa yields a grain which is much esteemed at Lima, according to information furnished by the Botanical Magazine, where a good drawing may be seen (pl. 3641). The leaves may be dressed in the same manner as spinach.1765

No botanist has mentioned the quinoa as wild or semi-wild. The most recent and complete work on one of the countries where the species is cultivated, the Flora of Chili, by Cl. Gay, speaks of it only as a cultivated plant. Père Feuillée and Humboldt said the same for Peru and New Granada. It is perhaps due to the insignificance of the plant and its aspect of a garden weed that collectors have neglected to bring back wild specimens.

Kiery—Amarantus frumentaceus, Roxburgh.

This annual is cultivated in the Indian peninsula for its small farinaceous grain, which is in some localities the principal food of the natives.1766 Fields of this species, of a red or golden colour, produce a beautiful effect.1767 From Roxburgh’s account, Dr. Buchanan “discovered it on the hills of Mysore and Coimbatore,” which seems to indicate a wild condition. Amarantus speciosus, cultivated in gardens and figured on pl. 2227 of the Botanical Magazine, appears to be the same species. Hamilton found it in Nepal.1768 A variety or allied species, Amarantus anardana, Wallich,1769 is grown on the slopes of the Himalayas, but has been hitherto ill defined by botanists. Other species are used as vegetables (see p. 100, Amarantus gangeticus).

Chestnut—Castanea vulgaris, Lamarck.

The chestnut, belonging to the order Cupuliferæ, has an extended but disjunctive natural area. It forms forests and woods in mountainous parts of the temperate zone from the Caspian Sea to Portugal. It has also been found in the mountains of Edough in Algeria, and more recently towards the frontier of Tunis (Letourneux). If we take into account the varieties japonica and americana, it exists also in Japan and in the temperate region of North America.1770 It has been sown or planted in several parts of the south and west of Europe, and it is now difficult to know if it is wild or cultivated. However, cultivation consists chiefly in the operation of grafting good varieties on the trees which yield indifferent fruit. For this purpose the variety which produces but one large kernel is preferred to those which bear two or three, separated by a membrane, which is the natural state of the species.