WILD AND CULTIVATED FORMS 



DIOSCOREA 



Cultivation 



imilier, tlie hteni prickly l>eln\v and sometime* hulbiferoiu. It afford* 

 . dilile Mil'.-!-, that art* oaten practically all OVOT India, e.-,p.-eially with the 

 dis i.i' the Knnkan, the Savarahs of (ianjani and tlm Lepchaa of Sikkiin. 

 The tlouerinK stems and young leaves are also eaten, especially in time*.. 

 Hut it is -aid to afford both poisonous and innm-unuM forms, the latter 

 made edit <le hy repeated boiling and washing. It is apparently, ho\\ 

 never culti\atcil in India, except perhaps in I'midichorry. [f'f. G'trc. 

 '.'./</. Ceylon, 1905, iii., 10-7; Achart, Quinze Cents. PI. dans I. 

 I '.HI;,. 206.] 



D. spinosa, ftuxb. Thi* plant has l>e<>n confused with if. fiiHt-trnintii and 

 ,!,, ,1,,. linn. It is, in fact, placed by Prain (I.e. 10HO) as a variety of J>. 

 ...'!>/<> /<i. Its most generally accepted names are madhvdlu in Sanskrit and 

 n-nlu in Bengali, but those are also assigned to it. //. Linn., so that it 

 ms probable the two plants are often confused by the people of India as 

 h\ most botanists. The tubers are largely eaten in the countries where 

 procurable. 



CULTIVATION. Of the yams above briefly indicated three species are 

 cry generally grown in India as subsidiary foods. These are />. u/dfa, 

 Ihi/'frti and />. ftifn-n-iiliita. Under each of these species, however, 

 ere are several varieties and even a large assortment of cultivated races, 

 that the yams are not only varied but abundant plants. It is, in fact, 

 ly within the very driest tracts (such as some portions of Rajputana, 

 the Western Panjab and the Deccan) that yams are not to be 

 utitl. Wild yams are also very prevalent and constitute an impor- 

 nt article of food with the poor, more especially the inhabitants of 

 cultivated tracts, and in times of famine they often become of the 

 greatest possible value. Lewin (Wild Races S.E. Ind., 1870, 27) says 

 that in the hills of that country wild yams are so plentiful that no man, 

 able to search for food, need starve. Speaking in general terms, a line 

 drawn from Khatmandu and Lucknow to Ahmedabad would sever India 

 into two portions the Southern (more especially its south-eastern tracts) 

 might be described as the yam-producing area of India, and the Northern 

 (more especially its north-western tracts) the non-yam-producing division. 

 Through Bengal and Assam the yam country extends to Burma, Siam, 

 the Malaya (Peninsula and Archipelago) to China and Japan. 



In the Dictionary a few passages from De Candolle were quoted 

 and the contention advanced that the historic importance of the Indian 

 ultivated yams had been depreciated owing to no work of sufficient 

 erit having recorded their Sanskrit and vernacular names. "Roxburgh," 

 ,ys De Candolle (I.e. 77), " enumerates several Dioscorece cultivated 

 India ; but he found none of them wild, and neither he nor Piddington 

 entions Sanskrit names. This last point argues a recent cultivation 

 r one of originally small extent, in India, arising either from indigenous 

 >ecies as yet undefined, or from foreign species cultivated elsewhere." . . . 

 " The absence of distinct names in each province also argues a recent 

 ultivation." A very extensive assortment of vernacular names for each 

 ecies has been recorded, however, by Prain and Burkill, and these 

 plify materially the names given in the Dictionary. They thus abun- 

 atly substantiate the opinion of India being one of the great centres of 

 iginal production (if not the chief Asiatic centre) for yams. It seems 

 ely that both the sweet-potato and the ordinary potato, being more tract- 

 able, have not only largely supplanted the yams but usurped their classic 

 names and history. 



Asa Gray (Scient. Papers, i., 322) says that Columbus when he dis- 

 covered Cuba and St. Domingo found the Natives cultivating two kinds 



495 



Subsidiary 

 Foods. 



F.UIlilie Fool*. 



Yam Area 

 of India. 



Asiatic 



Ihll'itMt. 



History. 



American 

 Habitat. 



