AVENA 



SATIVA 



Medicine. 



OATS 



The officinal parts of the plant are its leaves and the dried roots, which are 

 powerfully sedative, anodyne and antispasmodic. The properties of the drug 

 are so well known that it is unnecessary to detail them here. It appears that 

 although the Himalaya might supply the world with belladonna, its cultivation 

 has been but indifferently investigated. [Cf. Leake, Agri. Journ. 2nd., 1907, ii., 

 pt. ii., 210-11; Paulus dEgine ta (Adams, Comment., iii., 240), etc., etc.; Pliar 

 macog. Ind., ii., 572 ; Fluckiger and Hanbury, Pharmacog., 455-9 ; Kept. Ind. 

 Hemp. Drugs Comm., 1894, i., 172; etc., etc.] 



D.E.P., 

 i., 354-0. 

 Oats. 



Porridge. 



Fodder. 



Early Indian 

 Records. 



AVENA SATIVA, Linn. ; Fl. Br. Ind., vii., 275 ; Duthie, Field 

 and Garden Crops, pt. i., 13, pi. iii. ; also Grasses N. W. Ind., 1883, 31 ; and 

 Fodd. Grass., 1888, 51 ; Mukerji, Handbook Ind. Agri., 247-8 ; Mollison, 

 Textbook Ind. Agri., iii., 49-51 ; GRAMIN^E. The Oats and Oat Grass. 



Habitat. There are some 13 species, in addition to the cultivated one met 

 with in India. Of the wild forms all occur on the Himalaya, their area extend- 

 ing from Baluchistan and Afghanistan in the west, through Kashmir, Kumaon 

 and Nepal to the extreme east in Sikkim. The species A. *per, Munro, 

 in addition to its Himalayan habitat, occurs on the Khasia hills, the 

 Nilgiri hills and the mountains of Ceylon. Nowhere are the wild Avenas found 

 abundantly ; a few plants here and there is their usual condition, though 

 several (such as A., fntim, Linn., A., jtrntcnsls, Linn., and A. *>tl>ni>i<-t< fit . Claim.) 

 are widely dispersed, being met with very nearly throughout the temperate 

 Himalaya. 



History. None of the truly indigenous species are ever cultivated in India. 

 And in fact it would seem that the Natives do not recognise them as worthy of 

 distinctive names, hence they do not separately distinguish the species, and the 

 following names may very possibly denote any A ve i including the cultivated 

 A. sntiva : jai, jawi, jei, javi, gandal, ganer, ganhel, gozang, jandel, etc. There 

 would appear to be no well-authenticated classic names for either the plants or the 

 grains in India, Africa, Arabia, Egypt, Persia, China or Japan. The bromos of the 

 Greeks and the avena of the Latins were names given to wild species, but there is 

 no satisfactory evidence that either the Greeks or the Romans cultivated the Oats. 

 Paulus Mgineta (Adams, Comment., iii., 78) says that the chapter in Dioscorides 

 on this subject is spurious, and that ^Egineta simply translated Galen. The plant 

 seems, however, to have been known in Asia Minor during fairly ancient times. 

 Caspar Bauhin (Theat. Bot., 1658, 470-1) describes and figures two forms, viz. 

 alba and muda ; and of the former he says that according to Serapion it is called 

 churtal by the Arabs. A similar reference is made by the Hortus Sanitatis 

 (1491) to Serapion, but I have not been able to verify the passage in question. 

 The reference in Pliny to the Germans who lived on oatmeal porridge, would 

 seem to imply that that was curious and interesting news to the Romans. 

 The ancient Slav ovlsu is connected with the Latin ovis, so that the word 

 avena would therefore mean " sheep -weed." [Cf. Helm, Kulturpfl. und Haust., 

 1894, 539.] De Candolle (Orig. Cult. Plants (Engl. ed.), 373-6) gives the 

 derivation of oats as from the Anglo-Saxon ata or ate. He then concludes his 

 very interesting and instructive account of this plant as follows : " As all 

 the varieties of oats are cultivated, and none have been discovered in a truly 

 wild state, it is very probable that they are all derived from a single prehistoric 

 form, a native of eastern temperate Europe and of Tartary." 



One or two popular writers in India affirm that oats were carried 

 there in the wake of Chungiz Khan, and that they were well known to 

 the Mughal Emperors. In the Ain-i-Akbari, 1590 (Blochmann, transl., 135), 

 mention is made of oats in the chapter on Fodder . It has also been 

 said that Warren Hastings, when Kesident at the Court of Moorshedabad, 

 experimented with oats on the grounds of the Mothu Jheel. Be that 

 statement as it may, the cultivation of oats in India certainly dates 

 from at least the beginning of the 19th century, and though still un- 

 important has been extended all over the country, especially in the vicinity 

 of large towns and stud farms. The grain does not appear to fill sufficiently 

 to justify the attempt being made to introduce it as an article of human 



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