•22 REVIEWS. 



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their Tupi names, " Aypi " \M. a#^i,Pohl] and " Maniot " 

 [J/, utilissima]. Marcgrav (Hist, plant. Bras., p. 65) men- 

 tions many varieties of both species, and gives " Mandioca " 

 as the name of the root ; " Mandiiba " or " Maniiba " for the 

 plant. Of the products of the root, Cassava retains its Hay- 

 tian name (" cacavi ") nearly ; Tapioca is a corruption of the 

 Brazilian (Tupi) "tipioca" or " tijnocui." 



Dioscorea sativa, alata, etc. Yam. — De Candolle informs 

 us that these species, or their allies, are wholly unknown to 

 botanists in a wild state : that, although cultivated in the 

 East Indies, they have no Sanscrit names ; that they seem not 

 to have been widely cultivated in Africa, but that the authors 

 of the 17th and 18th centuries speak of them as widely dif- 

 fused over the south Pacific islands, from Tahiti to New Cale- 

 donia and the Moluccas. In the summary they are assigned 

 to southern Asia (Malabar? Ceylon? Java?), and to the 

 eastern Asiatic archipelago. Although a large part of the 

 genus is indigenous to tropical America, it is thought that 

 the cultivated species were probably introduced from the Old 

 World. The following presentation of the evidence, as con- 

 cerns America, may set the question in a different light : — 



The natives of Cuba and St. Domingo, when Columbus dis- 

 covered those islands, cultivated two kinds of plants for their 

 roots. These were called in the language of the islanders of 

 St. Domingo, " Ages " or " Ajes," and " Yuca." Neither of 

 these plants was known to the Spaniards. About " Yuca " 

 there is no question ; it was the " Manihot," or " Manioc," of 

 which we have already spoken. It is nearly as certain that 

 the " Ages " was a species of Dioscorea, to which, in their ig- 

 norance of the language of the islands, the Spaniards at first 

 gave the name of "Name," " Niame," "Inhame," or other 

 corruptions of a foreign (probably African) name ; and this 

 name seems to have been occasionally misapplied both to the 

 " Yuca " and the " Batata." 



L'Ecluse, who had traveled in the south of Spain and in 

 Portugal, in 1563, says that the Colocasia (C. antiquorurri) 

 " first brought from Africa, was common in many places in 

 Portugal, near streams of water, that it was sought for by 



