200 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



cadjw, is American ; that used at Amboyna means Portugal 

 fruit, that of Macassar was taken from the resemblance of 

 the fruit to that of the jainhoscc. Kumphius says that the 

 species was not widely diffused in the islands. Garcia ah 

 Orto did not find it at Goa in 1550, but Acosta after- 

 wards saw it at Couchin, and the Portuguese propagated 

 it in India and the Malay Archipelago. According to 

 Blume and Miquel, the species is only cultivated in Java. 

 Rheede, it is true, says it is abundant {provenit ubiqiie) 

 on the coast of Malabar, but he only quotes one name 

 which seems to be Indian, kajpa onava ; all the others 

 are derived from the American name. Piddinojton gives 

 no Sanskrit name. Lastly, Anglo-Indian colonists, after 

 some hesitation as to its origin, now admit the importation 

 of the species from America at an early period. They 

 add that it has become naturalized in the forests of 

 British India. -^ 



It is yet more doubtful that the tree is indigenous 

 in Africa, indeed it is easy to disprove the assertion. 

 Loureiro ^ had seen the species on the east coast of this 

 continent, but he supposed it to have been of American 

 orio^in. Thonninsj had not seen it in Guinea, nor Brown 

 in Congo.^ It is true that specimens from the last-named 

 country and from the islands in the Gulf of Guinea were 

 sent to the herbarium at Kew, but Oliver says it is cul- 

 tivated there.^ A tree which occupies such a large area 

 in America, and which has become naturalized in several 

 districts of India within the last two centuries, would 

 exist over a great extent of tropical Africa if it were indi- 

 genous in that quarter of the globe. 



Mango — Mangifera indica, Linnreus. 



Belonging to the same order as the CasJieiu, this tree 

 nevertheless produces a true fruit, something the colour 

 of the apricot.^ 



It is impossible to doubt that it is a native of the 

 south of Asia or of the Malay Archij)elago, when we see 



1 Beddone, Flora Sylvaiica, t. 163 ; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 20. 

 ^ Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 30i. ^ Brown, Congo, pp. 12, 49. 



* Oliver, Fl. of Trap. Afr., i. p. 4i3. 

 ® See plate 4510 of the Botanical Magazine. 



