PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 63 



no doubt of their American origin. If he had observed 

 a wild variety identical with those which are cultivated, 

 he would not have suggested the hypothesis that the 

 manioc is obtained from his Manihot pusilla^ of the 

 province of Goyaz, a plant of small size, and considered 

 as a true species or as a variety of Manihot pahnata.^ 

 Martins declared in 1867, that is after having received a 

 quantity of information of a later date than his journey, 

 that the plant was not known in a wild state.^ An early 

 traveller, usually accurate, Piso,* speaks of a wild mandi- 

 hoca, of which the Tapuyeris, the natives of the coast 

 to the north of Rio Janeiro, ate the roots. "It is," he 

 says, " very like the cultivated plant ; " but the illustra- 

 tion he gives of it appears unsatisfactory to authors who 

 have studied the maniocs. Polil attributes it to his 

 M. aipi, and Dr. Miiller passes it over in silence. For 

 my part, I am disposed to believe what Piso says, and 

 his figure does not seem to me entirely unsatisfactory. 

 It is better than that by Vellozo, of a wild manioc which 

 is doubtfully attributed to M, aipi} If we do not 

 accept the origin in eastern tropical Brazil, we must 

 have recourse to two hypotheses : either the cultivated 

 maniocs are obtained from one of the wild species 

 modified by cultivation, or they are varieties which 

 exist only by the agency of man after the disappearance 

 of their fellows from modern wild vegetation. 



Garlic — Allium sativum, Linnaeus. 



Linnaeus, in his Species Plantarum,, indicates Sicily 

 as the home of the common garlic; but in his Hortus 

 Cliffortianus, where he is usually more accurate, he does 

 not give its origin. The fact is that, according to all the 

 most recent and complete floras of Sicily, Italy, Greece, 

 France, Spain, and Algeria, garlic is not considered to be 

 indigenous, although specimens have been gathered here 

 and there which had more or less the appearance of 



* Pohl, Icones et Descr., i. p. 36, pi. 26. * Miiller, in Prodromus, 



* De Martins, Beitrage zur Ethnographie, etc., i. pp. 19, 136. 



* Piso, Historia Naturalis BrazilioB, in folio, 1658, p. 55, cum icone. 



' Jairopia Sylvestris Veil. Ft. Flum., 16, t. 83. See Miiller, ia 

 D. C. Frodromus, xt. p. 1063. 



