Origin of Cultivated Plants. Alphonse de Candolle

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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 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 or “subspontaneous,” escaped from former cultivation.85 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 It is the same in the north of Africa.87 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

      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, says89 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 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. Columna91 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. Linnæus92 adopted, on Parkinson’s authority, the opinion of a Canadian origin, of which, however, he had no proof. I pointed out formerly93 that there are no species of the genus Helianthus in Brazil, and that they are, on the contrary, numerous in North America.

      Schlechtendal,94 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. Decaisne95 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.” Lescarbot96 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

      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 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 It frequently escapes from gardens in the west of Europe, and becomes half-naturalized.100

      Commentators101 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 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 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

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