82 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



A species is also cultivated in the West Indies, Ma- 

 ranfa indica, which, Tussac says, was lorought from the 

 East Indies. Kornicke believes that M. ramosissima of 

 Wallich found at SiUet, in India, is the same species, 

 and thinks it is a variety of M. arundinacea. Out of 

 thirty-six more or less known species of the genus 

 Maranta, thirty at least are of American origin. It is 

 therefore unlikely that two or three others should be 

 Asiatic. Until Sir Joseph Hooker's Florcc of British 

 India is completed, these questions on the species of the 

 Scitaminece and their origin will be very obscure. 



Anglo-Indians obtain arrowroot from another plant 

 of the same family, Curcuma angustifolia, Roxburgh, 

 which gTows in the forests of the Deccan and in Mala- 

 bar.-^ I do not know whether it is cultivated. 



* Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., i. p. 31 ; Porter, The Tropical Agriculturalist, 

 p. 241 ; Ainslie, Materia Medica,i. p. 19. 



