56 MISCELLANEOUS PAPEKS. 



withstanding the variation in habit and number of flowers in the 

 raceme, the small seeds and small, erect jDods of Yigna catjang ap- 

 pear to be constant characters, and two species, Vigna unguieulata 

 {V. sinensis) and V. catjang, therefore are probably concerned in the 

 descriptions of these plants by the above 'authors. 



It is quite possible that Vigna unguieulata and V. catjang may 

 have been grown by the Romans without being distinguished. The 

 cultivation and even knowledge of them, however, appears to have 

 been extremely limited in Europe, and F. unguieulata at least may 

 have first reached central Europe not from Italy, but by way of 

 Russia and Russian Turkestan. 



In 1583 Clusius (Atrebatis Rar. Stirp., 725) described and figured 

 a plant as a kind of phaseolus which is undoubtedly Yigna unguieu- 

 lata, though pods are not shown in the figure. Seeds of this plant 

 were received by Clusius at Vienna in the year 1576, having been sent 

 by Dodoens from Prague, where it was grown in the garden of the 

 castle the previous year. The following year, 1577, seeds of the same 

 plant were also sent by the Spaniards to the Austrian Emperor. 

 These statements are repeated by Clusius, 1601 (Hist. Rar. PL, p. 

 ccxxii), where the same figure, as in the previous work, is reversed 

 and a figure of the pods in addition is given. It would appear 

 from these records that Vigna unguieulata first became known to the 

 botanists of central and northern Europe by its being grown at 

 Prague. 



If seeds had reached Prague from Italy, the plant would probably 

 have been known also at Vienna, which was in the route of trade 

 from Italy northward, and, since Prague is an inland city, the seeds 

 may have been brought overland directly from Persia or India. So 

 long as the Venetians were in control of the trade with India, Austria 

 and southern Germany carried on commerce with Venice. With the 

 acquisition of the Indian trade by the Portuguese, Venice could no 

 longer supply the markets of Europe with the products of the East 

 and European nations apparently soon became jealous of the ad- 

 vantages held by Portugal, for it is stated by Robertson, 1802 (His- 

 torical Disquisition Concerning India, 319), that an attempt was 

 made, in order to diminish the advantages which the Portuguese de- 

 rived from the discovery of a sea passage around the Cape of Good 

 Hope, to induce the Russians to convey Indian and Chinese com- 

 modities through their Empire to some port on the Baltic from which 

 they might be distributed through every part of Europe. This 

 author also gives a brief account of the trade thus established. 

 Yeats, 1872 (The Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce, 155), 

 states that Kazan was the chief entrepot of the trade of northern 

 and central Asia. Russian trade with other European nations ap- 



102— VI 



