4.12 OBIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



cultivated in Egypt, but it is not at all evident that tlie 

 Arachis is the plant to which Theophrastus alludes in 

 the quoted passage. If it had been formerly cultivated 

 in Egypt it "would probably still exist in that country, 

 whereas it does not occur in Forskal's catalogue nor in 

 Delile's more extended flora. There is nothing very 

 unlikely,' continues Brown, ' in the hypothesis that the 

 Arachis is indigenous both in Africa and America; but 

 if it is considered as existing originally in one of these 

 continents only, it is more probable that it was brought 

 from China through India to Africa, than that it took 

 the contrary direction.' My father in 1825, in the Pro- 

 dromus (ii. p. 474), returned to Linnaeus' opinion, and 

 admitted without hesitation the American origin. Let 

 us reconsider the question " (I said in 1855) " with the 

 aid of the discoveries of modern science. 



"Arachis hypogcea was the only species of this singular 

 genus known. Six other species, all Brazilian, have 

 since been discovered.^ Thus, applying the rule of pro- 

 bability of which Brown first made great use, we incline 

 d priori to the idea of an American origin. We must 

 remember that Marcgraf * and Piso' describe and figure 

 the plant as used in Brazil, under the name vnandubi, 

 which seems to be indigenous. They quote Monardes, a 

 writer of the end of the sixteenth century, as having 

 indicated it in Peru under a different name, anchic. 

 Joseph Acosta* merely mentions an American name, 

 mam, and speaks of it with other species which are not 

 of foreign origin in America. The Arachis was not 

 ancient in Guiana, in the West Indies, and in Mexico. 

 Aublet ® mentions it as a cultivated plant, not in Guiana, 

 but in the Isle of France. Hernandez does not speak of 

 it. Sloane* had seen it only in a garden, grown from 

 seeds brought from Guinea. He says that the slave- 

 dealers feed the negroes with it on their passage from 



■ Bentham, in Trans. Linn. Soc, xviii. p. 159; Walpers, Repertorium, 

 1. p. 727. 



» Maregiaf and Piso, Brasil., p. 37, edit. 1648. 



' Ibid., edit. 1658, p. 256. 



♦ Acosta, Hist. Nat. Ind., French, trans., 1598, p. 165. 



' Aublet, PI. Gmjan, p. 765. « Sloare, Jamaica, p. 184, 



