12 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol,. I., No. 1. 



water. The salt prevents the solution of the blood- 

 globules and consequent diffusion of the red haema- 

 globin. J. Amoky Jeffries. 



THE ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Origine des plantes cuUivi;es, par Alph. dk Can- 

 D07LE. {Bibliotlieque sc. internat., torn, xliii.) 

 Paris: Bailliere & Cie., 1883. 8vo. 



It is a common saying, that the plants with 

 which man has most to do, and which have 

 rendered him the greatest service, are those of. 

 which botanists know the least. That this 

 should hold true of the plants of immemorial 

 cultivation, as regards both their limitation in 

 species and their sources, is not to be wondered 

 at. The reason whj' manj' of these cannot be 

 identified with wild originals is because, in .all 

 probability, the originals have long been ex- 

 tinct. Even w^hen spontaneous examples have 

 been found, it is sometimes far more probable 

 that these are the ofi'spring of the cultivated 

 plant relapsed into w'ildness, than that they 

 are vestiges of an original stock. Indeed, 

 plants of comparatively recent acquisition to 

 Europe are still puzzles ; of not a few the 

 question is still open whether they originated 

 in the new or in the old world. The herbal- 

 ists and ante-Linneau botanists gave little 

 attention to the original sources of the plants 

 they described, and Linne still less. Follow- 

 ing erroneous indications, he assigned the 

 common sunflower to Peru ; and its relative, 

 the tubers of which we call artichokes, to 

 Brazil ; when he might have Icnown that they 

 both were sent to Europe from Canada. It is 

 only within the present century that any con- 

 siderable attempts have been made to solve 

 such problems. Robert Brown, Humboldt, 

 and the elder De Candolle opened the wa}- ; 

 and Alphonse De Candolle, who has particular 

 aptitude for this class of investigations, is one 

 of the few who have undertaken to discuss 

 this subject systematically. Almost thirty 

 3'ears ago, in his Geographic botanique rai- 

 sonee (2 vols. 8vo, 1855), just before the Dar- 

 winian deluge, which swept away some of the 

 old landmarks, and changed the face of many 

 things, De Candolle discussed in detail the 

 changes which have taken place in the habita- 

 tion of species, and has a long chapter on 

 the geographical origin of cultivated plants. 

 In this the then existing knowledge is well 

 brought up to date, systematized, and criticalh' 

 treated. 



This book is out of print. Greatlj- as it is 

 needed, the author, who is older than he was, 

 recoils before the labor of a new etlition of 

 the whole work. But he has taken up the 



subject of the origin of cultivated plants anew, 

 and the present volume is the result. 



The number of species of cultivated plants 

 here passed in review seems at first sight to 

 be wonderfull)' small, viz., onlj' 247, or, redu- 

 cing certain races to their supposed types, 

 little over 240. But species cultivated for or- 

 nament and for medicine or. for perfume are 

 rigidl3' excluded ; while, on the other hand, so 

 insignificant a foi'age-plant as spurrey, so poor 

 and weedy a pottage-plant as purslane, a plant 

 which we know only in ornamental culture 

 and for its medicinal product, castor-oil, and 

 a fruit-tree of such slight pomological impor- 

 tance as the American pei'simmon, are in- 

 cluded. The latter and its old-world analogue 

 are, indeed, only enumerated ; but no one cul- 

 tivates persimmons in this country. It is said 

 that no plant of established field-culture has 

 ever gone out of cultivation, at least in modern 

 times, except perhaps woad ; but, thanks to 

 the chemists, madder is doomed already, and 

 indigo is to follow. 



Although Humboldt could aflflrm, so late as 

 in the j'ear 1807, that the original country of 

 the vegetables most useful to man remains an 

 impenetrable secret, so great progress seems 

 to have been since made that De Candolle is 

 able to assort his 247 species into 199 fur- 

 nished bj' the old world, 45 b}- America, and 

 only three which are still doubtful in this 

 regard. Here the chestnut, the red currant, 

 the common, mushroom, and the strawberry 

 are counted as of European, properlj' enough ; 

 since they were first cultivated in the old 

 world, although indigenous to North America 

 as well. The latter country makes a poor 

 show indeed, when it is said that its onl}- 

 indigenous nutritive plants worth cultivating 

 are the sunflower-artichoke and a pumpkin, 

 though Indian rice (Zizania) might have been 

 turned to account if it were not for the true 

 rice. We are not so clear as to any original 

 inferioritj', nor that these numbers might not 

 have been more nearly equal if civilization had 

 begun as early in the new as in the old world. 

 Europe had the great advantage of Ij'iug adja- 

 cent to two other continents, and of being 

 colonized from them by races which were al- 

 ready agricultural. 



As respects the three plants of doubtful 

 country, two are species of Cucurbita (mos- 

 chata and ficifolia). comparatively unimportant 

 and little known, whicii have reached I-Curope 

 only recently, the latter within thirty or forty 

 years ; and the third is Phaseolus vulgaris, the 

 liean of the Americans, whose right to it we 

 propose to claim. And we would suggest that 



