A Botanical and Economic Study. 157 



felix Arabia, because we accustom so many foreign plants to 

 our soil, from day to day, among which the large walsch-korn 

 is not the least important." Italy probably obtained seed 

 from Sicily and Spain, and Sicily from Spain and the Amer- 

 icas. The confusion of names is great. Maize is called in 

 Lorraine and in the Vosges, Roman corn ; in Tuscany, Sicilian 

 corn ; in Sicily, Indian corn ; in the Pyrenees, Spanish corn ; 

 in Provence, Barbary or Guinea corn. The Turks call it 

 Egyptian corn, and the Egyptians, Syrian dhourrah. But the 

 widest spread name was Turkish wheat, which came from a 

 misconceived notion as to its origin. Ruellius uses it first in 

 1536' All that can be said with certainty, however, is that 

 Indian corn reached northern and central Europe from the 

 countries bordering on the Mediterranean. It was introduced 

 into Africa by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, and 

 is cultivated more or less from the Middle Sea and the Libyan 

 Desert to the Cape of Good Hope." It is particularly deserv- 

 ing of attention that the greater number of the plants culti- 

 vated on the Congo, and among them nearly all of the most 

 important species, have been introduced from other parts of 

 the world — maize, manioc, or cassava, and pine-apple.'' 



Maize early reached India and Burmah. Baden Powell 

 observes in his " Punjaub Products," that maize grows every- 

 where throughout the hills, and appears to flourish as well in 

 a temperate as in a tropical climate at 7000 feet or more. It 

 is the favorite crop of the people, and for six months of the 

 year forms their common food. It is supplanted in the val- 

 leys by rice, but even here there is always a little plot of 

 maize about the cottages of the peasant classes. 



The Chinese used it early after the discovery of America, 

 for the Portuguese reached Java in 1496, and China in 15 16.' 

 Mayers"' believes that it was introduced into China from 

 Lower Mongolia in the sixteenth century. The introduction 

 through Mongolia is highly improbable, but the date of a 



1 Ruellius. Ue Xatura Stirpium, 428. 



- Simmonds, Tropical Agriculture, 187;, 295. 



3 Brown, Robert, Miscellaneous Botanical Works of, Ray Soc. 1, 155. 



4 Malte Brun, Geographie, I, 493. 



: ' Mayers, Journ. Bot., Seeman's, 1S71, 62. 



