In conclusion, I would call attention to the remarkable way in which the distribution of varieties favours the opinion of a single species—an opinion adopted, purely from the botanical point of view, by Roxburgh, Desvaux, and R. Brown. If there were two or three species, one would probably be represented by the varieties suspected to be of American origin, the other would belong, for instance, to the Malay Archipelago or to China, and the third to India. On the contrary all the varieties are geographically intermixed, and the two which are most widely diffused in America differ sensibly the one from the other, and each is confounded with or approaches very nearly to Asiatic varieties.
Pine-Apple—Ananassa sativa, Lindley; Bromelia Ananas, Linnæus.
In spite of the doubts of a few writers, the pine-apple must be an American plant, early introduced by Europeans into Asia and Africa.
Nana was the Brazilian name,[1550] which the Portuguese turned into ananas. The Spanish called it pinas, because the shape resembles the fruit of a species of pine.[1551] All early writers on America mention it.[1552] Hernandez says that the pine-apple grows in the warm regions of Haiti and Mexico. He mentions a Mexican name, matzatli. A pine-apple was brought to Charles V., who mistrusted it, and would not taste it.
The works of the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs make no allusion to this species, which was evidently introduced into the old world after the discovery of America. Rheede[1553] in the seventeenth century was persuaded of this; but Rumphius[1554] disputed it later, because he said the pine-apple was cultivated in his time in every part of India, and was found wild in Celebes and elsewhere. He notices, however, the absence of an Asiatic name. That given by Rheede for Malabar is evidently taken from a comparison with the jack-fruit, and is in no sense original. It is doubtless a mistake on the part of Piddington to attribute a Sanskrit name to the pine-apple, as the name anarush seems to be a corruption of ananas. Roxburgh knew of none, and Wilson’s dictionary does not mention the word anarush. Royle[1555] says that the pine-apple was introduced into Bengal in 1594. Kircher[1556] says that the Chinese cultivated it in the seventeenth century, but it was believed to have been brought to them from Peru.
Clusius[1557] in 1599 had seen leaves of the pine-apple brought from the coast of Guinea. This may be explained by an introduction there subsequent to the discovery of America. Robert Brown speaks of the pine-apple among the plants cultivated in Congo; but he considers the species to be an American one.
Although the cultivated pine-apple bears few seeds or none at all, it occasionally becomes naturalized in hot countries. Examples are quoted in Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Rodriguez Island,[1558] in India,[1559] in the Malay Archipelago, and in some parts of America, where it was probably not indigenous—the West Indies, for instance.
It has been found wild in the warm regions of Mexico (if we may trust the phrase used by Hernandez), in the province of Veraguas[1560] near Panama, in the upper Orinoco valley,[1561] in Guiana[1562] and the province of Bahia.[1563]