294 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



other species or its foreign exrtraction. Sloane,^ in the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century, quotes several of his 

 contemporaries, who mention that it was taken from the 

 West Indies into Asia and Africa. Forster had not seen 

 it in the plantations of the Pacific Isles at the time of 

 Cook's voyages. Loureiro,^ in the middle of the eigh- 

 teenth century, had seen it in cultivation in China, 

 Cochin- China, and Zanzibar. So useful and so striking 

 a plant would have been spread throughout the old 

 world for thousands of years if it had existed there. 

 Everything leads to the belief that it was introduced 

 on the coasts of Africa and Asia after the discovery of 

 America. 



All the species of the family are American. This one- 

 seems to have been cultivated from Brazil to the West 

 Indies, and in Mexico before the arrival of the Europeans, 

 since the earliest writers on the productions of the new 

 world mention it.^ 



Marcgraf had often seen the male plant (always com- 

 moner than the female) in the forests of Brazil, while the 

 female plants were in gardens. Clusius, who was the 

 first to give an illustration of the plant, says * that his 

 drawing was made in 1607, in the bay of Todos Santos 

 (province of Bahia). I know of no modern author who 

 has confirmed the habitation in Brazil. Martins does 

 not mention the species in his dictionary of the names of 

 fruits in the langiiage of the Tupis.^ It is not given as 

 wild in Guiana and Columbia. P. Browne ^ asserts, on 

 the other hand, that it is wild in Jamaica, and before his 

 time Ximenes and Hernandez said the same for St. 

 Domingo and Mexico. Oviedo '^ seems to have seen the 

 papaw in Central America, and he gives the common 



^ SloaBe, Jamaica, p. 165. '^ Loureiro, Fl. Cocli., p. 772. 



^ Marcgraf, BrasiL, p. 103, and Piso, p. 159, for Brazil ; Ximenes in 

 Marcgraf and Hernandez, Thesaurus, p. 99, for Mexico ; and the last for 

 St. Domingo and Mexico. 



* Clusins, CurcB Posteriores, pp. 79, 80. 



^ Martins, Beitr. z. Ethnogr., ii. p. 418. 



« P. Browne, Jamaica, edit. 2, p. 360. The first edition is of 1756. 



' The passage of Oviedo is translated into English by Correa de 

 Mello and Spruce, in their paper on the Proceedings of the Linncean 

 Society, x. p. 1. 



