[16] p. 22.—“Since the earliest infancy of human civilisation.”
In all tropical countries we find the cultivation of the Banana or Plantain established from the earliest times with which tradition or history make us acquainted. It is certain that in the course of the last few centuries African slaves have brought new varieties to America, but it is equally certain that Plantains were cultivated in the new world before its discovery by Columbus. The Guaikeri Indians at Cumana assured us that on the Coast of Paria, near the Golfo Triste, when the fruits were allowed to remain on the tree till ripe, the plantain sometimes produced seeds which would germinate; and in this manner plantains are occasionally found growing wild in the recesses of the forest, from ripe seeds conveyed thither by birds. Perfectly formed seeds have also sometimes been found in plantain fruits at Bordones, near Cumana. (Compare my Essai sur la Géographie des Plantes, p. 29; and my Relat. hist. T. i. pp. 104 and 587, T. ii. pp. 355 and 367.)
I have already remarked elsewhere (Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 191; English edition, p. 156), that Onesicritus and the other companions of Alexander, while they make no allusion to the tall arborescent ferns, speak of the fan-leaved umbrella palm, and of the delicate and always fresh verdure of the cultivated plantains or bananas. Among the Sanscrit names given by Amarasinha for the plantain or banana (the Musa of botanists) there are bhanu-phala (sun-fruit), varana-buscha, and moko. Phala signifies fruit in general. Lassen explains the words of Pliny (xii. 6), “arbori nomen palæ, pomo arienæ” thus: “The Roman mistook the word pala, fruit, for the name of the tree; and varana (in the mouth of a Greek ouarana) became transformed into ariena. The Arabic mauza may have been formed from moko, and hence our Musa. Bhanu-fruit is not far from banana-fruit.” (Compare Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 262, with my Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, T. ii. p. 382, and Rel. hist. T. i. p. 491.)
[17] p. 22—“The form of Malvaceæ.”
Larger malvaceous forms begin to appear as soon as we have crossed the Alps; at Nice and in Dalmatia, Lavatera arborea; and in Liguria, Lavatera olbia. The dimensions of the Baobab, monkey-bread tree, have been mentioned above, (Vol. ii. p. [90].) To this form are attached the also botanically allied families of the Byttneriaceæ (Sterculia, Hermannia, and the large-leaved Theobroma Cacao, in which the flowers spring from the bark both of the trunk and the roots); the Bombaceæ (Adansonia, Helicteres, and Cheirostemon); and lastly the Tiliaceæ (Sparmannia Africana.) I may name more particularly as superb representatives of the Mallow-form, our Cavanillesia platanifolia, of Turbaco near Carthagena in South America, and the celebrated Ochroma-like Hand-tree, the Macpalxochiquahuitl of the Mexicans, (from macpalli, the flat hand), Arbol de las Manitas of the Spaniards, our Cheirostemon platanoides; in which the long curved anthers project beyond the fine purple blossom, causing it to resemble a hand or claw. Throughout the Mexican States this one highly ancient tree is the only existing individual of this extraordinary race: it is supposed to be a stranger, planted about five centuries ago by the kings of Toluca. I found the height above the sea where the Arbol de las Manitas stands to be 8280 French (8824 English) feet. Why is there only a single individual, and from whence did the kings of Toluca procure either the young tree or the seed? It seems no less difficult to account for Montezuma not having possessed it in his botanical gardens of Huaxtepec, Chapoltepec, and Iztapalapan, of which Hernandez, the surgeon of Philip II., was still able to avail himself, and of which some traces remain even to the present day; and it seems strange that it should not have found a place among the representations of objects of natural history which Nezahualcoyotl, king of Tezcuco, caused to be drawn half a century before the arrival of the Spaniards. It is asserted that the Hand-tree exists in a wild state in the forests of Guatimala. (Humboldt and Bonpland, Plantes équinoxiales, T. i. p. 82, pl. 24; Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Esp., T. i. p. 98.) At the equator we have seen two Malvaceæ, Sida Phyllanthos (Cavan), and Sida pichinchensis, ascend, on the mountain of Antisana and the Volcano Rucu-Pichincha, to the great elevations of 12600 and 14136 French (13430 and 15066 English) feet. (See our Plantes équin., T. ii. p. 113, pl. 116.) Only the Saxifraga boussingaulti (Brongn.) reaches, on the slope of the Chimborazo, an altitude six or seven hundred feet higher.
[18] p. 22.—“The Mimosa form.”
The finely feathered or pinnated leaves of Mimosas, Acacias, Schrankias, and species of Desmanthus, are most truly forms of tropical vegetation. Yet there are some representations of this form beyond the tropics; in the northern hemisphere in the Old Continent I can indeed cite but one, and that only in Asia, and a low-growing shrub, the Acacia Stephaniana, according to Kunth’s more recent investigations a species of the genus Prosopis. It is a social plant, covering the arid plains of the province of Shirwan, on the Kur (Cyrus), as far as the ancient Araxes. Olivier also found it near Bagdad. It is the Acacia foliis bipinnatis mentioned by Buxbaum, and extends as far north as 42° of latitude. (Tableau des Provinces situées sur la Côte occidentale de la Mer Caspienne, entre les fleuves Terek et Kour, 1798, pp. 58 and 120.) In Africa the Acacia gummifera of Willdenow advances as far as Mogador, or to 32° north latitude.
On the New Continent, the banks of the Mississipi and the Tennessee, as well as the savannahs of Illinois, are adorned with Acacia glandulosa (Michaux), and A. brachyloba (Willd). Michaux found the Schrankia uncinata extend northwards from Florida into Virginia, or to 37° N. latitude. Gleditschia tricanthos is found, according to Barton, on the east side of the Alleghany mountains, as far north as the 38th parallel, and on the west side even as far as the 41st parallel. Gleditschia monosperma ceases two degrees farther to the south. These are the limits of the Mimosa form in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere we find beyond the tropic of Capricorn simple leaved Acacias as far as Van Diemen Island; and even the Acacia cavenia, described by Claude Gay, grows in Chili between the 30th and 37th degrees of south latitude. (Molina, Storia Naturale del Chili, 1782, p. 174.) Chili has no true Mimosa, but it has three species of Acacia. Even in the north part of Chili the Acacia cavenia only grows to a height of twelve or thirteen feet; and in the south, near the sea coast, it hardly rises a foot above the ground. In South America, north of the equator, the most excitable Mimosas were (next to Mimosa pudica), M. dormiens, M. somnians, and M. somniculosa. Theophrastus (iv. 3) and Pliny (xii. 10) mention the irritability of the African sensitive plant; but I find the first description of the South American sensitive plants (Dormideras) in Herrera, Decad. II. lib. iii. cap. 4. The plant first attracted the attention of the Spaniards in 1518, in the savannahs on the isthmus near Nombre de Dios: “parece como cosa sensible;” and it was said that the leaves (“de echura de una pluma de pajaros”) only contracted on being touched with the finger, and not if touched with a piece of wood. In the small swamps which surround the town of Mompox on the Magdalena, we discovered a beautiful aquatic Mimosacea (Desmanthus lacustris). It is figured in our Plantes équinoxiales, T. i. p. 55, pl. 16. In the Andes of Caxamarca we found two Alpine Mimoseæ (Mimosa montana and Acacia revoluta), 8500 and 9000 French (about 9060 and 9590 English) feet above the surface of the Pacific.
Hitherto no true Mimosa (in the sense established by Willdenow), or even Inga, has been found in the temperate zone. Of all Acacias, the Oriental Acacia julibrissin, which Forskål has confounded with Mimosa arborea, is that which supports the greatest degree of cold. In the botanic garden of Padua there is in the open air a tree of this species with a stem of considerable thickness, although the mean temperature of Padua is below 10.°5 Reaumur (55°.6 Fahr.)
[19] p. 23—“Heaths.”