78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PLANTS AND THE PEOPLING OF AMEPJCA.^ 



By otto KUNTZE. 



I HAVE spent some years as a botanist in the tropics of both hemi- 

 spheres, and in the mean time have studied pretty thoroughly the 

 tropical domesticated plants. In America and in Asia the principal 

 domesticated tropical plants are represented by the same species ; for 

 instance, Manihot utilissima, whose roots yield a fine flour, the tarro 

 [Colocasia esculenta), the Spanish or red pepper {Capsicum annuum), 

 which is in far more general use than the black pepper, and whose nu- 

 merous domestic varieties justify the inference that it has been culti- 

 vated from a very early period. This inference is still more valid in the 

 case of the banana [3fusa jyci't'df^'isiaca), called also the pisang, from 

 which 3fusa sapientum is not specifically distinguishable ; its fruits, in 

 the cultivated state, are always seedless, and the varieties of the plant 

 far surpass in number those of our apples and pears. Other cultivated 

 plants found in both hemispheres are the tobacco, maize, cocoanut — 

 the American origin of none of which is at all proved ; then there is the 

 tomato [Lycopersicum esculentiim), and the cultivated bamboo, in which 

 among millions of specimens hardly one has flowers. Thus the bamboo 

 is not propagated by means of seed any more than is the tarro, the ba- 

 nana, the sweet-potato, or paritium. Of fruit-trees common to the Old 

 and New Worlds I would further name the guava {Psidium guava), the 

 melon-tree {Carica papaya), and the Yaa.ngo-iv\xit [Mangifera Indica). 

 Finall}^ I may name Paritium, tiliaceum, a malvaceous plant hardly 

 noticed by Europeans, but very highly prized by the natives of the 

 tropics. This tree, cultivated everywhere in the East and West Indies, 

 South America, and the Malay Archipelago, supplies to the natives all 

 the cordage they require ; but in those countries cordage is not kept in 

 stock as among us. If a rope is needed, a branch is broken off and 

 stripped of its bark ; the latter is divided into strips, which are held be- 

 tween the toes and twisted by the hands. When a load is to be carried 

 from one place to another the natives usually secure it with a fresh cord 

 of this kind to both ends of a bamboo carrying-pole. In the cultivated 

 state this malvaceous tree is neai'ly always sterile, while the paritium- 

 trees, which grow wild in the lagoons of the coast of Farther India, 

 always bear seeds. This rope-tree appears to have existed in America 

 before Columbus's time, for it was at an early period imported thence into 

 the Canaries. What we may only accept as probable concerning this plant 

 we know with certainty concerning the cultivated banana or plantain, 

 which is also seedless. It was generally cultivated in America prior to 

 1492. Now in what way was this plant, which cannot stand a voyage 

 through the temperate zone, carried to America, to the New World, 

 ^ Translated from the German by Dr. H. Hartogh Heys van Zouteneer. 



