DeCandolle’s Origin of Cultivated Plants. 249 
tropics is American, not African. But he leaves unnoticed the 
convincing fact that Manioe and Manihot are Brazilian names, 
slightly corrupted, of a plant cultivated in St. Domingo and 
Cuba before the landing of Columbus, and which became 
known to Spanish and Portuguese discoverers before 1500, by 
its Haytian name, yuca, or hiucca. 
Peter Martyr (1493) describing the food of the islanders, 
and of the preparation of ‘‘Cazabbi” from the root: and he 
states that “there are many kinds of tucca” (p. 263). Oviedo 
Acosta (Hist. of the Indies, transl. by E. G.; Hakluyt Soe. ed., p. 
232), 1588-90, gave a good account of the plant yuca, and the 
Gomara (Hist. gen., ec. 71), Acosta (Hist. nat. y moral de las 
Indias, 1588-90 ; lib. 4, c. 17), Monardes (De Simplicibus medic., 
transl. by L’Ecluse, 1598, p. 4387), and other writers of the 16th 
century gave good descriptions of the plant yuca, and of the 
cagavi or cazabi prepared from the root. By the blunder of 
Kuropean editors, in the last half of the 16th century, the Hay- 
tian name was transferred from the plant to which it belonged 
to one of another order, the Yucca of Linnzus and of modern 
botany. The mistake was pointed out by eb 
Jean de Lery (Hist. Navig. in Brasil., c. 9) describes the two 
Fe that were cultivated in Brazil in 1557—under their 
upi names, Aypi [M. aypi Pohl] and Maniot (A. utilissima]. 
Marcgray (Hist, plant. Bras., p. 65) mentions many varieties of 
both species, and gives Mandioca as the name of the root, Man- 
diiba or Maniiba for the plant. Of the products of the root, 
Cassava retains its Haytian name (cagavi) nearly; Tapioca isa - 
corruption of the Brazilian (Tupi) tproca or tprocus. 
