PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 391 



an Arab physician of the thirteenth century, who had 

 travelled through the countries lying between Spain and 

 Persia, indicates no plant which can be supposed to be 

 maize. 



J. CraAvfurd,^ having seen maize generally cultivated 

 in the Malay Archipelago under a name jarung, which 

 appears to be indigenous, believed that the species was a 

 native of these islands. But then how is it Rumphius 

 makes no mention of it. The silence of this author points 

 to an introduction later than the seventeenth century. 

 Maize was so little diffused on the continent of India in the 

 last century, that Roxburgh ^ wrote in his flora, which 

 was published long after it was drawn up, " Cultivated 

 in different parts of India in gardens, and only as an 

 ornament, but nowhere on the continent of India as an 

 object of cultivation on a large scale." We have seen 

 that there is no Sanskrit name. 



Maize is frequently cultivated in China in modern 

 times, and particularly round Pekin for several genera- 

 tions,^ although most travellers of the last century make 

 no mention of it. Dr. Bretschneider, in his work pub- 

 lished in 1870, does not hesitate to say that maize is not 

 indigenous in China; but some words in his letter of 

 1881 make me think that he now attributes some impor- 

 tance to an ancient Chinese author, of whom Bonafous 

 and afterwards Hance and Mayers have said a great deal. 

 This is a work by Li-chi-tchin, entitled Phen-thsao-kang- 

 niou, or Pen-tsao-kung-niu, a species of treatise on natural 

 history, which Bretschneider ^ says was written at the end 

 of the sixteenth century. Bonafous says it was concluded 

 in 1578, and the edition which he had seen in the Huzard 

 library was of 1637. It contains a drawing of maize 

 with the Chinese character. This plate is copied in 

 Bonafous' work, at the beginning of the chapter on the 

 original country of the maize. It is clear that it repre- 



^ CrsLwiurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, Edinburgh, 1820, vol. i. ; 

 Journal of Botany, 1866, p. 326. 



2 Roxburgh, Flora Indica, edit. 1832, vol. iii. p. 568. 

 ' Bretschneider, Study and Value, etc., pp. 7, 18. 

 * Ibid. 



