1890.] History of Garden Vegetables. 725 
Moors carried to Spain, from which it gradually spread to the 
rest of Europe.” The first notice I find is its occurrence in 
China in the seventh or eighth century,® and one of its names is 
Po-ssu-ts'ao, Persian herb.* In the Nabathean agriculture in 
Spain, in the twelfth century, it is called by /én-al-awan, the 
prince of vegetables.” Albertus Magnus, who lived in Bavaria 
in the thirteenth century, describes the sfinachia with spiny 
seed. Ammonius,” a Bavarian physician writing in 1539, says it 
was mentioned by Avicenna, an Arab author born in Persia in 
981, and is perhaps the aspenach of Serapio, another Arab 
author of the same period. In 1536 Ruellius says it was called 
spinacia in France, and sfinachia by the modern Greeks. In 
England it is mentioned by Turner ? in 1538, who calls it Atriplex 
hispaniensis of some, spinachia of the English. It was new in 
Italy in 1558, according to Matthiolus.” We thus find its pres- 
ence universal in Europe in the early part of the sixteenth 
century. Indeed its use has become for some time so extended 
as to supplant many other vegetables formerly grown as pot 
herbs. 
Two races are now known in our gardens ; the one with 
_ prickly seed, and the other with smooth seed. These have been 
described as species. 
Spinacia spinosa Moench. 
Spinachia. Alb. Mag., 13th Cent., Jessen Ed., 563 ; Fuchsius, 
1542, 666, cum ic; Dod., 1616, 619, cum ic. 
Binetsch, Spinat, Spinacia. Roszlin, 1550, cum ic. 
Olsus hispanicus. Trag., 1552, 325, cum ic. 
Spinacia. Matth., 1570, 342, cum ic; Lob. Obs., 1576, 129, 
cum ic., 1591; ic, 1591, L, 257; Lugd., 1587, 544, cum ic.; Ger., 
1597, 260, cum ic. 
52 Targioni-Tozzetti. Hort. Trans., 1854, 148. 
53 Bretschneider. Bot. Sin., 79. 
54 Bretschneider. On the Study, etc., 16. 
5 Heuze. Les Pl. Alim., I., IV. > 
56 Albertus Magnus. De Veg., Jessen Ed., 1867, 563. 
or a. Med. Herb., 1539, 323. 
55 Turner. Libellus, 1538. 
M abiha, Com., 1558, 246. 
