PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN TARTS. 41 



it is cultivated, but I do not find in any author a positive 

 assertion of the fact. The existing descriptions are drawn 

 from cultivated stocks. Grisebach indeed says that he 

 has seen (presumably in the herbarium at Kew) specimens 

 gathered in New Granada, in Peru, and in Trinidad,^ but 

 he does not say whether they were wild. The other 

 species of the same genus, to the number of a dozen, grow 

 in the same districts of America, which renders the above- 

 mentioned origin more probable. 



The introduction of the arracacha into Europe has 

 been attempted several times without success. The damp 

 climate of England accounts for the failure of Sir William 

 Hooker's attempts ; but ours, made at two different times, 

 under very different conditions, have met with no better 

 success. The lateral bulbs did not form, and the central 

 bulb died in the house where it was placed for the winter. 

 The bulbs presented to different botanical gardens in 

 France and Italy and elsewhere shared the same fate. lb 

 is clear that if the plant is in America really equal to the 

 potato in productiveness and taste, this will never be the 

 case in Europe. Its cultivation does not in America 

 spread as far as Chili and Mexico, like that of the potato 

 and sweet potato, which confirms the difficulty of pro- 

 pagation observed elsewhere. 



Madder — Ruhia tinctorum, Linnaeus. 



The madder is certainly wild in Italy, Greece, the 

 Crimea, Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, Ai^menia, and near 

 Lenkoran.^ As we advance westward in the south of 

 Europe, the wild, indigenous nature of the plant becomes 

 more and more doubtful. There is uncertainty even in 

 France. In the north and east the plant appears to be 

 " naturalized in hedges and on walls," ^ or " subspon- 

 taneous," escaped from former cultivation.* In Provence 

 and Languedoc it is more spontaneous or wild, but here 

 also it may have spread from a somewhat extensive 



* Grisebach, Flora of British West. India Islands. 



* Bertoloni, Flora Italica, ii. p. 146 ; Decaisne, Recherches sxtr la 

 Garance, p. 68 ; Boissier, Flo7-a Orientalis, iii. p. 17 ; Ledebour, Flora 

 Bossica, ii. p. 405. 



' Cosson and Germain, Flore des Environs de Paris, ii. p. 3G5. 



* Kirschleger, Flore d' Alsace, i. p. 359. 



