138 DeCandolle’s Origin of Cultivated Plants. 
Hindustani, under the form Loba,: for Phaseolus vulgaris.” 
was translated into Latin in the 15th century.* In a chapter 
(Ixxxi) on “ Zubia, i.e., Faseoli,” he quotes from Dioscorides, 
the description of Smilax hortensis (xmzata aptha&) whose seeds 
some call Lobia”; and it is evident that the name Zubia (as it 
was transliterated from the Arabic text by the translator) was 
transferred to the Arabic from the Greek of Dioscorides. It is 
probable, to say the least, that it has been rightly appropriated 
to Dolichos Lubia Forskal (De Candolle, 278), rather than to 
any species of Phaseolus. 
The | to which our annotations have extended forbids 
all notice of the third part of this book. This, however, is very 
brief. It contains a tabulation of the plants of cultivation, and 
of the results of the preceding discussion of them; also an article 
on the regions in which the principal species have originated or 
have been brought into cultivation, in which it is stated that of 
the 247 species under investigation the Old World has furnished 
199, and America 45, leaving three which are doubtful in this _ 
regard; and the extreme poverty of the southern hemisphere 
beyond the tropics is a striking feature. An article on the 
number and nature of species cultivated at different periods is 
noteworthy. So, also, is the enumeration of the cultivated 
plants which are unknown in a wild state; from which it is 
gathered that 27 species have never been found wild by any 
botanist, 27 more are doubtful in this respect, while 193 are of 
recognizable origi 
Of the “ Reflexions diverses,” at the close, we note only the 
final one, that “In the history of cultivated plants, I have 
found no indication of communications between the inhabitants 
of the Old and New World anterior to the discovery of America 
by Columbus. The Scandinavians, who had carried their 
expeditions to the northern United, States, and the Basques of 
the Middle Ages, who had extended their whaling voyages per- 
haps to America, would appear not to have transported a single 
cultivated species. The Gulf-stream has equally been without 
effect. Between America and Asia two transportations may 
have been effected, one by man (the Badatas), the other either 
by man or by the sea (Cocoa-nut).” 
Perhaps the Banana should be ranked with the Sweet 
Potato in this regard. And we may merely conjecture that 
the Purslain came to our eastern coast with the Scandinavians 
or the Basques. 
* Milan, 1473, and Venice, 1479; but better known to botanists of the 16th 
century in the Strasburg edition of 1531, edited by Otho Brunfels. 
