ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 343 



As to early history and aboriginal nomenclature, Monardes 

 (De SImplicibus Medic, c. Q6) says that the Granadilla was 

 spontaneous in Peru, and that the fruit was highly esteemed 

 by the Indians and by the Spaniards. Cie^a de Leon (Chron. 

 del Peru, c. 28), about 1550, saw it growing in the valley of 

 the Kio Lile, near Cali (now in Colombia), and in the coun- 

 try about Pasto. The flower and fruit are mentioned by J. 

 de Acosta (Nat. and Moral Hist, of the Indies, b. ii. c. 38) 

 — "the fruit sweet, and too sweet, in the opinion of some." 

 Lery (1557-8) does not appear to have found it in Brazil, 

 but it was common there before the middle of the 17th cen- 

 tury. Piso and Marcgrav (Hist. Nat. Brasil., 1648, pp. 70, 

 106) reckon nine species or more, of which four were culti- 

 vated — two especially for their fruits. The Tupi (Brazilian) 

 name was " Mburucuia " (" Montoya," 1639), which Piso and 

 Marcgrav, l. c, wrote " Murbcuia " ; the species which was 

 generally cultivated for its fruit was " Mburucuia-guacu " 

 (i. e., great " Murucuya "). Father R. Breton (Diet. Ca- 

 raibe, 1665) gives " Merecoya " as the Carib name of the 

 fruit ; but this seems to have been adopted from the Tupi — 

 for in that language " Mburucuia " denotes the " fruit of a 

 vine." 



It is remarkable that the Tupi (and Carib) name went with 

 the plant and its fruit to the country of the Algonkins before 

 the coming of Europeans. One species QPassiflora incar- 

 natd) was cultivated by the Indians of Virginia. " They 

 plant also Maracocks, a wild fruit like a lemon, which also 

 increase infinitely " (Capt. John Smith, Gen. Hist., p. 29) : 

 and, again (p. 25), Smith mentions the " fruit which the in- 

 habitants call ' Maracocks ' — pleasant, wholesome fruit " — 

 among "things which are naturally in Virginia."' Strachey 

 (Travaile into Virginia, 72, 119) describes the "fruit called 

 by the natives a ' maracock,' which the Indians plant," etc. 



Although no longer planted, the fruit of the spontaneous 

 plant is still eaten in the southern Atlantic States ; and its 

 popular name, " May-pop," is probably the last stage of the 

 Tupi original. 



Now our Passiflora incarnata is so like P. eduUs (well 



