Origin of Cultivated Plants. Alphonse de Candolle
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.
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
Boissier,
Hooker,
Zollinger, No. 2556 in my herbarium.
Piddington,
Sobolewski,
Rafn,
Wahlenberg, quoted by Moritzi,
Bauhin,
In Dominica according to Imray, in the
Nees, in Martius,
Dœll, in
Sir W. Hooker,
Nees,
A. Richard,
Peters,
Bojer,
Baker,
Thwaites,