PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 59 



far as the west of India, whence a specimen was brought 

 by Jaqiiemont, although it is not certain that it was 

 growing wild. Roxburgh's Indian flora, and Aitchison's 

 more recent flora of the Punjab and of the Sindh, only 

 mention the plant as a cultivated species. 



It has no Sanskrit name,^ whence it may be inferred 

 that the Aryans had not brought it from western tem- 

 perate Asia, where it exists. The nations of Aryan race 

 who had previously migrated into Europe probably did 

 not cultivate it, for I find no name common to the Indo- 

 European languages. The ancient Greeks, who used the 

 leaves and roots, called the species teidlion;^ the Romans, 

 beta. Heldreich^ gives also the ancient Greek name 

 sevlde, or sfekelie, which resembles the Arab name selg, 

 silq,^ among the Nabatheans. The Arab name has passed 

 into the Portuguese selga. No Hebrew name is known. 

 Everything shows that its cultivation does not date from 

 more than three or four centuries before the Christian era. 



The red and white roots were known to the ancients, 

 but the number of varieties has greatly increased in 

 modern times, especially since the beetroot has been 

 cultivated on a large scale for the food of cattle and for 

 the production of sugar. It is one of the plants most 

 easily improved by selection, as the experiments of 

 Vilmorin have proved.^ 



Manioc — Manihot utilissima, Pohl; Jatropha ma- 

 nihot, Linnaeus. 



The manioc is a shrub belonging to the Euphorbia 

 family, of which several roots swell in their first year ; 

 they take the form of an irregular ellipse, and contain 

 a fecula (tapioca) with a more or less poisonous juice. 



It is commonly cultivated in the equatorial or tropical 

 regions, especially in America from Brazil to the West 

 Indies. In Africa the cultivation is less general, and seems 

 to be more recent. In certain Asiatic colonies it is 



^ Roxburgh, Flora Indica, ii. p. 59 ; Piddington, Index. 



* Theophrastus and Dioscorides, quoted by Lenz, Botanik der Grie- 

 clien und Earner, p. 446 ; Fraas, Synopsis Fl. Class., p. 233. 



' Heldreich, Die Nutzpjlanzen Griechenlands, p. 22. 



* Alawam, Agriculture nahatheenne, from E. Meyer, Geschichte der 

 BotaniJc, iii. p. 75. 



* Notice sur I' Amdlioration des Plantes par le Semis, p. 15. 



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