PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 391 



an Arab physician of the thirteenth century, who had 

 travelled through the countries lying between Spain and 

 Persia, indicates no plant which can be supposed to be 

 maize. 



J. Crawfurd,^ having seen maize generally cultivated 

 in the Malay Archipelago under a name jarung, which 

 appears to be indigenous, believed that the species was a 

 native of these islands. But then how is it Rumphius 

 makes no mention of it. The silence of this author points 

 to an introduction later than the seventeenth century. 

 ]\[aize was so little diffused on the continent of India in the 

 last century, that Roxburgh ^ wi'ote in his flora, which 

 was published long after it was drawn up, " Cultivated 

 in different parts of India in gardens, and only as an 

 ornament, but nowhere on the continent of India as an 

 object of cultivation on a large scale." We have seen 

 that thei-e is no Sanskrit name. 



Maize is frequently cultivated in China in modern 

 times, and particularly round Pekin for several genera- 

 tions,^ although most travellers of the last century make 

 no mention of it. Dr. Bretschneider, in his work pub- 

 lished in 1870, does not hesitate to say that maize is not 

 indi<Tenous in China; but some words in his letter of 

 1881 make me think that he now attributes some impor- 

 tance to an ancient Chinese author, of whom Eonafous 

 and afterwards Hance and Makers have said a great deal. 

 This is a work by Li-chi-tchin, entitled Fhen-thsao-kang- 

 mou, or Pen-tsao-kung-inu, a species of treatise on natural 

 history, which Bretschneider^ says was written at the end 

 of the sixteenth centuty. Bcmafous says it was conckde 1 

 in 1578, and the edition which he had seen in the Huzard 

 library was of lGo7. It contains a drawing of maize 

 with the Chinese character. This plate is copied in 

 Bonafous' work, at the beginning of the chapter on the 

 ori-^anal country of the maize. It is cle a- that it repre- 



* Crawfnrd, Bidory of the Indian Archipelago, Edinbui gh, 1820, vol. i,; 

 Journal of Botany, 18G6, p. 326. 



Roxbiu-gh, Flora IiuHca, edit. 1832, voL iii. p. 5G3. 

 ' Bretschueider, Study and Value, etc., pp. 7, 18. 



^ Ibid. 



