100 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



be owned that spinach has not yet been found in a 

 wild state, unless it be a cultivated modification of 

 Spinacia tetandra, Steven, which is wild to the south of 

 the Caucasus, in Turkestan, in Persia, and in Afghanis- 

 tan, and which is used as a vegetable under the name of 

 schamum} 



Without entering here into a purely botanical dis- 

 cussion, I may say that, after reading the descriptions 

 quoted by Boissier, and looking at Wight's^ plate of 

 Spinacia tetandra, Roxb., cultivated in India, and the 

 specimens of several herbaria, I see no decided differ- 

 ence between this plant and the cultivated spinach with 

 prickly fruit. The term tetandra implies that one of 

 the plants has five and the other four stamens, but the 

 number varies in our cultivated spinach es.^ 



If, as seems probable, the two plants are two varieties, 

 the one cultivated, the other sometimes wild and some- 

 times cultivated, the oldest name, S. oleracea, ought to 

 persist, especially as the two plants are found in the 

 cultivated grounds of their original country. 



The Dutch or great spinach, of which the fruit has no 

 spines, is evidently a garden product. Tragus, or Bock 

 was the first to mention it in the sixteenth century.* 



Amaranth — Amarantus gangeticus, Linnseus. 



Several annual amaranths are cultivated as a green 

 vegetable in Mauritius, Bourbon, and the Seychelles Isles, 

 under the name of hrede de Malabar} This appears 

 to be the principal species. It is much cultivated in 

 India. Anglo-Indian botanists mistook it for a time 

 for Amarantus oleraceus of Linnaeus, and Wight gives 

 an illustration of it under this name,^ but it is now 

 acknowledged to be a different species, and belongs to 

 A. gangeticus. Its numerous varieties, differing in size, 

 colour, etc., are called in the Telinga dialect tota kura, 

 with the occasional addition of an adjective for each. 



* Boissier, Fl. Orient, vi. p. 234. * Wight, Icones, t. 818. 



* Nees, Gen. Plant. Fl. Germ., 1. 7, pi. 15. 



* Bauhin, Bist., ii. p, 965. 



* A. gangeticus, A. tristis, and A. hyhridis of Linnaeus, aocording to 

 Baker, Flora of Mauritius, p. 266. 



* Wight, Icones, p. 715. 



