226 THE PI.ANT WORI.D 



although it does not flourish equally in all parts of the warm portions of 

 the earth. 



As an indication of the distribution of the breadfruit in former times 

 may be mentioned the records of its occurrence in the geological forma- 

 tions of Greenland and of its discovery near Denver, Colorado, while a 

 third instance has been reported from California. 



HISTORY. 



While the home of the breadfruit in the Asiatic islands has never 

 been seriously questioned, and the fact of its extensive pre- Magellanic 

 distribution among the islands of the Pacific is undoubted, nevertheless it 

 seems pardonable to briefly trace the growth of knowledge regarding this 

 vegetable curiosity among Europeans. 



The breadfruit was in all probability seen by the Portuguese and 

 Dutch pioneers in the East Indies in the early years of the 16th century. 

 But as it was obliged to compete with the spices and other marketable 

 tropical products of the Moluccas, it did not attract sufiicient attention to 

 be noticed in the published accounts of their voyages. Although the fruit 

 is supposed to be native in the Sunda Islands and the Moluccas, points 

 reached by Europeans at an early date,* nevertheless it does not obtain 

 there any semblance of the importance assumed in the oceanic islands to 

 the east, where it forms one of the principal articles of diet of thousands 

 of natives. In the East Indies, on the other hand, it is overshadowed 

 by a long series of quicker growing and better tasting food products. 



Turning to the Spanish and English voyages from the east it is inter- 

 esting to note the absence of mention of the breadfruit in the journal of 

 the Chevalier Pigafetta,t who accompanied Magellan during the first cir- 

 cumnavigation of the world. Guam, in the Marianne Islands, was visited 

 during this voyage. They observed in the canoes of the natives various 

 products, such as coconuts, bananas, etc., common to the Pacific, but 

 no breadfruit. Drake, the second circumnavigator, visited the same 

 group but did not touch at Guam. He likewise failed to report seeing 

 the fruit, as did also Cavendish, the next to essay circling the globe. 

 From a study of the various accounts of these voyages, however, it may 

 be ascertained that in all three cases the visit was made during the months 

 in which the fruit is not in season in that group. 



♦Between 1505-930 Italian traveler, Varthema, is supposed to have reached the Moluccas and to 

 have told, while on his way back to Europe, the great Indian Viceroy of Portugal, D'Albuerque, of the 

 riches of Ternate and Tidor. In consequence of this information Antonio d'Abreu was dispatched in 

 151 1 to reduce these islands to the commercial domination of the Portuguese trader. This expedition 

 was not immediately followed up and the Spaniards and Dutch found their way to the Spice Islands 

 in time to enter rival claims for possession. The Dutch, however, by persistence and good manage- 

 ment got the upper hand, and by the end of the 17th century were the undisputed masters of these 

 fruitful islands. 



t " The First Voyage Around the World by .Magellan " (Hakluyt Soc. Ed.). London, 1874. 



