116 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



such indications of origin sometimes are. Witness the 

 so-called Turkey wheat, which comes from America. 



Swartz, who is an excellent botanist, says that the 

 plant grows in the dry cultivated pastures of the West 

 Indies, where it is also wild, which may imply that it 

 has become naturalized in places where it was formerly 

 cultivated. I cannot find it anywhere asserted that it is 

 really wild in the West Indies. It is otherwise in BraziJ. 

 From data collected by de Martius and studied by Nees,^ 

 data afterwards increased and more carefully studied by 

 Doell,^ Fanicum r/iaximum grows in the clearings of 

 the forests of the Amazon valley, near Santarem, in the 

 provinces of Balria, Ceara, Rio de Janeiro, and Saint Paul. 

 Although the plant is often cultivated in these countries, 

 the localities given, by their number and nature, prove 

 that it is indigenous. Doell has also seen specimens from 

 French Guiana and New Granada. 



With respect to Afiica, Sir William Hooker^ men- 

 tioned specimens brought from Sierra Leone, from 

 Aguapim, from the banks of the Quorra, and from the 

 Island of St. Thomas, in Western Africa. Nees * indicates 

 the species in several districts of Cape Colony, even in 

 the bush and in mountainous country. Richard ^ men- 

 tions places in Abyssinia, which also seem to be beyond 

 the limits of cultivation, but he owns to being not very 

 sure of the species. Anderson, on the contrary, posi- 

 tively asserts that Panicum maximum was brought 

 from the banks of the Mozambique and of the Zambesi 

 rivers by the traveller Peters.^ 



The species is known to have been introduced into 

 Mauritius by the Governour Labourdonnais,*^ and to have 

 become naturalized from cultivation as in Rodriguez 

 and the Seychelles Isles. Its introduction into Asia 



* Nees, in Martins, Fl. Brasil., in 8vo, vol. ii. p. 166. 



* Doell, in Fl. Brasil., in fol., vol. ii. part 2. 

 s Sir W. Hooker, Niger Fl, p. 560. 



* Nees, FlorcB Africce Austr. GraminecBf p. 8& 



* A. Richard, Ahyssinie, ii. p. 373. 



* Peters, Reise BotaniTc, p. 546. 



* Bojer, HortxLs Maurit.y p. 565. 



