96 WEsTER: HISTORY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ROSELLE 
The authors consulted from this date or earlier do not speak 
directly of the native habitat of the roselle, not is any mention 
made of the use of any part of the plant, although its acid prop- 
erties are recognized already by L’Obel. The culinary and 
medicinal uses of the plant are first mentioned by Bontius, who 
says that, ‘‘The leaves have a sour taste and are used as a relish 
with fat and glutinous foods. It is cooling; the Malayans, Ben- 
galese and other Moors use it as a vegetable; . . . in high fevers 
and delirium it is also used.”* It is by Bontius described as 
growing in Java and the surrounding islands. The roselle is 
alleged to be described and figured in Hortus Malabaricus 6: 75. 
pl. 44. 1686, under the name of Narinam-Poulli, but a careful 
examination of the lengthy description, aided by the woodcut 
of the plant, shows that this description is undoubtedly that of 
some other plant. Hermann {+ mentions the use of the leaves 
of the roselle for spinach and is the first to speak of its cultivation 
for fiber. 
Not until the beginning of the eighteenth century is the roselle 
reliably reported from the Western Hemisphere and then in 
cultivation; notwithstanding the contention of some authors it 
may therefore be safely assumed that the species is indigenous 
to the tropics of the Old World, probably India and Malaysia. 
From America the roselle was earliest reported from Jamaica by 
Sloane, } who says, ‘It is planted in most gardens in this Island. 
The capsular leaves are made use of for making Tarts, Gellies, and 
Wine, to be used in fevers and hot distempers, to allay heat and 
quench thirst.” It would thus appear that the culinary use of 
the calyces was first recognized in Jamaica. 
There is considerable synonymy of the roselle among ‘the 
pre-Linnean authors using the polynomial nomenclature of the 
period. The name Sabdariffa, as already shown, was connected 
with this plant from the time of its introduction into Europe but 
was also applied to what are undoubtedly other species. It is 
sometimes spelled Sabdarifa. Many of the passages referring to 
the roselle in the botanical literature of this period are merely 
* Bontius, J. Historia Naturalis 113. 1658. 
ft Hermann, P. Catalogus Horti Academici Lugduno-Batavi. 1687. 
Sloane, H. Natural History of Jamaica 1: 224. 170 
er 
