ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. oil 



DE CANDOLLE'S ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



M. Alphonse De Candolle's " Geographie Botanique 

 Raisonnee," in two volumes of nearly 700 pages each, was 

 published in the year 1855, and has been for several years 

 out of print. It is not surprising that the now venerable but 

 still well-busied author should decline the labor of preparing 

 a new edition, involving, as it would, the re-discussion of cer- 

 tain questions under changed points of view, and the colloca- 

 tion of a vast amount of widely scattered new materials which 

 the last quarter of a century has brought to us. 



Happily, the chapter on the geographical origin of the 

 species of plants generally cultivated for food, and for other 

 economical uses, could be detached. This, the author has 

 sedulously studied anew ; and the present volume ^ is the re- 

 sult. As yet we have it only in the original French ; but it 

 is said that an English translation is in preparation. So, if 

 the work is not already in the hands of botanists and other 

 scholars generally, we may expect that it soon will be ; and, 

 contenting ourselves with a mere mention of its plan and 

 scope, we may proceed to remark, here and there, upon points 

 which strike our attention.^ We may expect this to be for 



^ Origine des Plantes Cultive'es. Par Alphonse De Candolle. Paris, 

 1883. (Bibl. Seientifique Internationale, XLIII.) (American Journal of 

 Science and Arts, 3 ser., xxv. 241, 370 ; xxvi. 128 ; with J. Hammond 

 Trumbull.) 



^ To avoid repetition, it may be mentioned here that, in the follow- 

 ing annotations, the " Relations of the Voyages " of Columbus are cited 

 from Navarrete's " Coleccion de los Viajes,'' etc. (Madrid, 1858, and 1827- 

 37) ; references to Peter Martyr d'Anghiera's first three Decades " De 

 Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe " (written before 1517) are to the Cologne 

 edition of 1574 ; references to Oviedo's " Historia General y Natural de las 

 Indias " -r- of which the first nineteen books, published in 1535, included a 

 revised and enlarged edition of his " Relacion suraaria de la Nat. Historia de 

 las Indias," printed in 1526 — are to the edition published by the Royal 

 Academy of History of Madrid, 1851-55 ; Jean de Lery's " Histoire 

 d'un Voyage faict en la terre du Brasil " (in 1557-8) is referred to in his 

 revised edition in Latin, " Historia Navigationis in Brasiliam " (Genevse, 

 1586) ; Fr. Hernandez, "Nova Plantarum, etc., Historia," in the edition of 



