It is undoubtedly wild in Tartary and Siberia, as far as Dauria;[1757] but Russian botanists have not found it further east, in the basin of the river Amur.[1758]
As this plant came from Tartary into Eastern Europe later than the common buckwheat, it is the latter which bears in several Slav languages the names tatrika, tatarka, or tattar, which would better suit the Tartary buckwheat.
It seems that the Aryan peoples must have known the species, and yet no name is mentioned in the ancient Indo-European languages. No trace of it has hitherto been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland or of Savoy.
Notch-seeded Buckwheat—Polygonum emarginatum, Roth; Fagopyrum emarginatum, Meissner.
This third species of buckwheat is grown in the highlands of the north-east of India, under the name phaphra or phaphar,[1759] and in China.[1760] I find no positive proof that it has been found wild. Roth only says that it “inhabits China,” and that the grain is used for food. Don,[1761] who was the first of Anglo-Indian botanists to mention it, says that it is hardly considered wild. It is not mentioned in floras of the Amur valley, nor of Japan. Judging from the countries where it is cultivated, it is probably wild in the Eastern Himalayas and the north-west of China.
The genus Fagopyrum has eight species, all of temperate Asia.
Quinoa—Chenopodium quinoa, Willdenow.
The quinoa was a staple food of the natives of New Granada, Peru, and Chili, in the high and temperate parts at the time of the conquest. Its cultivation has persisted in these countries from custom, and on account of the abundance of the product.
From all time the distinction has existed between the quinoa with coloured leaves, and the quinoa with green leaves and white seed.[1762] The latter was regarded by Moquin[1763] as a variety of a little known species, believed to be Asiatic; but I believe that I showed conclusively that the two American quinoas are two varieties, probably very ancient, of a single species.[1764] The less coloured, which is also the most farinaceous, is probably derived from the other.
The white quinoa yields a grain which is much esteemed at Lima, according to information furnished by the Botanical Magazine, where a good drawing may be seen (pl. 3641). The leaves may be dressed in the same manner as spinach.[1765]