Alphonse Candolle - Origin of Cultivated Plants

Clusius, Hist. , ii. p. 77.

Ajes was a name for the yam (Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne ).

Humboldt, ibid.

Oviedo, Ramusio’s translation, vol. iii. pt. 3.

Rumphius, Amboin. , v. p. 368.

Forskal, p. 54; Delile, Ill.

D’Hervey Saint-Denys, Rech. sur l’Agric. des Chin. , 1850, p. 109.

Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works , p. 13.

Thunberg, Flora Japon. , p. 84.

Forster, Plantæ Escul. , p. 56.

Hooker, Handbook of New Zealand Flora , p. 194.

Seemann, Journal of Bot. , 1866, p. 328.

Roxburgh, edit. Wall., ii. p. 69.

Piddington, Index .

Wallich, Flora Ind.

Roxburgh, edit. 1832, vol. i. p. 483.

Rheede, Mal. , vii. p. 95.

Meyer, Primitiœ Fl. Esseq. , p. 103.

R. Brown, Bot. Congo , p. 55.

Schumacher and Thonning, Besk. Guin.

Wallich, in Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. , ii. p. 63.

Sloane, Jam. , i. p. 152.

Several Convolvulaceæ have large roots, or more properly root-stocks, but in this case it is the base of the stem with a part of the root which is swelled, and this root-stock is always purgative, as in the Jalap and Turbith, while in the sweet potato it is the lateral roots, a different organ, which swell.

No. 701 of Schomburgh, coll. 1, is wild in Guiana. According to Choisy, it is a variety of the Batatas edulis ; according to Bentham (Hook, Jour. Bot. , v. p. 352), of the Batatas paniculata . My specimen, which is rather imperfect, seems to me to be different from both.

Clusius, Hist. , ii. p. 77.

A. de Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Raisonné , pp. 1041-1043, and pp. 516-518.

Dr. Bretschneider, after having read the above, wrote to me from Pekin that the cultivated sweet potato is of origin foreign to China, according to Chinese authors. The handbook of agriculture of Nung-chang-tsuan-shu, whose author died in 1633, asserts this fact. He speaks of a sweet potato wild in China, called chu , the cultivated species being kan-chu . The Min-shu , published in the sixteenth century, says that the introduction took place between 1573 and 1620. The American origin thus receives a further proof.

Moquin-Tandon, in Prodromus , vol. xiii. pt. 2, p. 55; Boissier, Flora Orientalis , iv. p. 898; Ledebour, Fl. Rossica , iii. p. 692.

Roxburgh, Flora Indica , ii. p. 59; Piddington, Index .

Theophrastus and Dioscorides, quoted by Lenz, Botanik der Griechen und Römer , p. 446; Fraas, Synopsis Fl. Class. , p. 233.

Heldreich, Die Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands , p. 22.

Alawâm, Agriculture nabathéenne , from E. Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik , iii. p. 75.

Notice sur l’Amélioration des Plantes par le Semis , p. 15.

Pohl, Plantarum Brasiliæ Icones et Descriptiones , in fol., vol. i.

J. Müller, in Prodromus , xv., sect. 2, pp. 1062-1064.

Sagot, Bull. de la Soc. Bot. de France , Dec. 8, 1871.

I give the essentials of the preparation; the details vary according to the country. See on this head: Aublet, Guyane , ii. p. 67; Decourtilz, Flora des Antilles , iii. p. 113; Sagot, etc.

R. Brown, Botany of the Congo , p. 50.

Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne , edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 398.

Hist. de l’Acad. des Sciences , 1824.

Guillemin, Archives de Botanique , i. p. 239.

Acosta, Hist. Nat. des Indes , French trans., 1598, p. 163.

Thomas, Statistique de Bourbon , ii. p. 18.

The catalogue of the botanical gardens of Buitenzorg, 1866, p. 222, says expressly that the Manihot utilissima comes from Bourbon and America.

Aypi , mandioca , manihot , manioch , yuca , etc., in Pohl, Icones and Desc. , i. pp. 30, 33. Martius, Beiträge z. Ethnographie, etc., Braziliens , ii. p. 122, gives a number of names.

Thonning (in Schumacher, Besk. Guin. ), who is accustomed to quote the common names, gives none for the manioc.

J. Müller, in Prodromus , xv., sect. 1, p. 1057.

Kunth, in Humboldt and B., Nova Genera , ii. p. 108.

Pohl, Icones et Descr. , i. p. 36, pl. 26.

Müller, in Prodromus .

De Martius, Beiträge zur Ethnographie , etc., i. pp. 19, 136.

Piso, Historia Naturalis Braziliæ , in folio, 1658, p. 55, cum icone .

Jatropia Sylvestris Vell. Fl. Flum. , 16, t. 83. See Müller, in D. C. Prodromus , xv. p. 1063.

Kunth, Enum. , iv. p. 381.

Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Aufzählung , p. 294.

Ledebour, Flora Altaica , ii. p. 4; Flora Rossica , iv. p. 162.

Regel, Allior. Monogr. , p. 44.

Baker, in Journal of Bot. , 1874, p. 295.

Bretschneider, Study and Value , etc., pp. 15, 4, and 7.

Thunberg, Fl. Jap. ; Franchet and Savatier, Enumeratio , 1876, vol. ii.

Unger, Pflanzen des Alten Ægyptens , p. 42.

Piddington, Index .

Hiller, Hierophyton ; Rosenmüller, Bibl. Alterthum , vol. iv.

De Charencey, Actes de la Soc. Phil. , 1st March, 1869.

Davies, Welsh Botanology .

All these common names are found in my dictionary compiled by Moritzi from floras. I could have quoted a larger number, and mentioned the probable etymologies, as given by philologists – Hehn, for instance, in his Kulturpflanzen aus Asien , p. 171 and following; but this is not necessary to show its origin and early cultivation in several different countries.