74 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANT& 



Hindu languages — in Bengali, for instance.* In Ceylon 

 the wild plant is styled gahala, the cultivated plant 

 Tcandalla? The Malay names are helady^ tallua, tallas, 

 tales, or taloes,* from which perhaps comes the well- 

 known name of the Otahitans and New Zealanders — tallo 

 or tarro^ dalo^ in the Fiji Islands. The Japanese have 

 a totally distinct name, iTnio,'' which shows an existence 

 of long duration either indigenous or cultivated. 



European botanists first knew the colocasia in Egypt, 

 where it has perhaps not been very long cultivated. The 

 monuments of ancient Egypt furnish no indication of 

 it, but Pliny ^ spoke of it as the Arum Mgyptium. 

 Prosper Alpin saw it in the sixteenth century, and 

 speaks of it at length.* He says that its name in its 

 country is culcas, which Delile-^" writes qolJcas, and 

 koulkas. It is clear that this Arab name of the 

 Egyptian arum has some analogy with the Sanskrit 

 kvAihoo, which is a confirmation of the hypothesis, 

 sufficiently probable, of an introduction from India or 

 Ceylon. De I'Ecluse ^^ had seen the plant cultivated in 

 Portugal, as introduced from Africa, under the name 

 alcoleaz, evidently of Arab origin. In some parts of the 

 south of Italy, where the plant has become naturalized, 

 it is, according to Parlatore, called aro di Egitto.^ 



The name colocasia, given by the Greeks to a plant 

 of which the root was used by the Egyptians, may 

 evidently come from colcas, but it has been transferred 

 to a plant differing from the true colcas. Indeed, 

 Dioscorides applies it to the Egyptian bean, or ndumho}^ 

 which has a large root, or rather rhizome, rather stringy 



' Eoxburgh, M. Ind. 



' Thwaites, Enum. Plant. Zeylan. ' Eumphins, Amhoin. 



' Miqael, Swmatra, p. 258 ; Hasskarl, Cat. Horti. Bogor. Alter., p. 55. 



• Porater, De Plantis Bscvi., p. 58. ' Seemann, Mora Vitimsis. 



' Franohet and Savatier, Enum. ' Pliny, Hist., 1. 19, o. 5. 



' AlpinuB, Hist. .Mgypt. Natwralis, edit. 2, toI. i, p. 166 j ii. p. 192. 



" Delile, Fl. .Sgypt. III., p. 28 ; De la Colocase des Anciens, in Svo, 

 1846. 



" Olnsins, Historia, ii. p. 75. " Parlatore, Fl. Ital, ii. p. 255. 



" Prosper Alpinua, Hist. Mgypt. Naturalis ; Columna j Delile, Ann. 

 d/u Mus., i. p. 375 j De la Colocase des Anciens j Be;^iuer, Ecnnomie des 

 Egyptiens, p. 331, 



