EEMAEKABLE INSTANCES OF PLANT DISPERSION. 



343 



The next in date to allude to it is Professor Viviani, who records it as 

 growing in North Africa, viz. "in pratis Cyrenaica3," in 1824, and named 

 it 0. libyca. 



A. de Candolle says, on the authority of Kelaart ("Fl. Calp." 1846), 

 that it was introduced into Gibraltar in 1826 (" Geographie Botanique," 

 ii. p. 724) ; A. P. de Candolle makes no mention of it in his " Essai 

 elementaire de Geog. Bot.," in "Diet, des Sc. Nat.," vol. xviii. (1820), as 

 occurring in S. Europe. 



The next to notice it is Professor Ch. Stephanus Zerapha, a contem- 

 porary of Giacinto's in Malta, who published his " Florae Melitensis 

 Thesaurus" in 1827. 



It appears to have probably arrived in Egypt about that time, as 

 Youssouf Effendi * is known to have introduced the Mandarin orange 

 from Malta about 1820. It only occurs, at the present time, in the 

 orange-gardens of Cairo and Esneh. 



The above facts would seem to hint at the probability of Malta having 

 been the original source of its diffusion ; and tbe following facts will, 

 I think, establish it. 



We have it on the authority of Zerapha that his contemporary, Dr. 

 Giacinto, brought the plant, which is spoken of as having been cultivated 

 in Malta in 1806, from the Cape of Good Hope, for the information of 

 his pupils ; and Maltese botanists of a later date attribute the spread of 

 it over the island, at least, to this source. Thus J. C. Grech Delicata 

 says of Oxalis cemtia, the "Haxixa ta l'Englisi," or the " English weed," 

 as the Maltese now call it, in his "Flora Melitensis," p. 8 (1853) : — "In 

 campis et agris ubique. Indigena facta ab anno 1811." 



That the subsequent general diffusion has had its origin in Malta 

 appears to be satisfactorily proved by the structure of the plant itself. 

 This species of Oxalis is naturally trimorphic at the Cape, as dried 

 specimens in the Herbaria at Kew and the Natural History Museum fully 

 testify, examples of all three forms, as well as plants with half-ripe fruits, 

 being preserved. On the other hand, it has never been known to bear 

 fruit in the northern hemisphere ; the flowers, with their pedicels, after 

 expansion fall, leaving scars on the peduncle. Moreover, the short-styled 

 form is the only one described as occurring anywhere around the Medi- 

 terranean, and I have satisfied myself by examination of many plants 

 from all parts of the island that this is certainly the only one in Malta. 



Professor Viviani thus describes it in his "Flora? Libyca3 Specimen, 

 sive plantarum enumeratio, Cyrenaicam, Pentapolim, Magna? Syrteos 

 desertum et regionem Tripolitanam incolentium " : — "Oxalis libyca, in 

 pratis Cyrenaicse . . . Capsulam maturam non vidi." He gives a full 

 description as well as a plate (No. XIII.) . The double form also occurs, 

 as it does in Malta and at the Cape, &c. 



Of more modern writers, Moris, "Fl. Sard.," i. p. 363 (1837-1843), 

 speaks of it as growing in Sardinia ; and Munby mentions it as growing 

 in Algeria in 1847. 



Professor F. Parlatore (1848), in his " Flora Italiana," describes it as 

 growing at Castagno, near Naples, in the greater part of Sicily, in Corsica 



* In 1891 an Egyptian was selling Mandarin oranges in Cairo under the name 

 " Youssouf Effendi," which he was shouting in the streets. 



