172 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



" The sum total of the facts is altogether in favour of 

 an American origin. The locality where the species 

 usually appears wild is in the forests of Para. Its culti- 

 vation is ancient in America, since Oviedo is one of the 

 first authors (1535) who has written about this country. 

 No doubt its cultivation is of ancient date in Asia like- 

 wise, and this renders the problem curious. It is not 

 proved, however, that it was anterior to the discovery 

 of America, and it seems to me that a tree of which the 

 fruit is so agreeable would have been more widely diffused 

 in the old world if it had always existed there. More- 

 over, it would be difficult to explain its cultivation in 

 America in the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the 

 hypothesis of an origin in the old world." 



Since I wrote the above, I find the following facts 

 published by different authors : 



1. The argument drawn from the fact that there is no 

 Asiatic species of the genus Anona is stronger than ever. 

 A. Asiatica, Linnaeus, was based upon errors (see my 

 note in the Geogr. Bot., p. 862). A. obtusifolia (Tussac, 

 Fl. des Antilles, i. p. 191, pi. 28), cultivated formerly 

 in St. Domingo as of Asiatic origin, is also perhaps 

 founded upon a mistake. I suspect that the drawing 

 represents the flower of one species (A. muricata) and 

 the fruit of another (A. squamosa). No Anona has been 

 discovered in Asia, but four or five are now known in 

 Africa instead of only one or two, 1 and a larger number 

 than formerly in America. 



2. The authors of recent Asiatic floras do not hesi- 

 tate to consider the Anonse, particularly A. squamosa, 

 which is here and there found apparently wild, as 

 naturalized in the neighbourhood of cultivated ground 

 and of European settlements. 2 



1 See Baker, Flora of Mauritius, p. 3. The identity admitted by 

 Oliver, Fl. Trop. Afr., i. p. 16, of the Anona palustris of America with 

 that of Senegambia, appears to me very extraordinary, although it is a 

 species which grows in marshes ; that is, having perhaps a very wide 

 area. 



2 Hooker, Fl. of Brit. Ind., i. p. 78 ; Miquel, Fl. Indo-Batava, i. part 2, 

 p. 33 ; Knrz, Forest Flora of Brit. Burm. t i. p. 46 ; Stewart and Brandis, 

 Forests of India, p. 6. 



