We can seldom trust early botanists and travellers on this head. The cotton plant grows sometimes in the neighbourhood of plantations, and becomes more or less naturalized, as the down on the seeds facilitates accidental transport. The usual expression of early writers—such a cotton plant grows in such a country—often means a cultivated plant. Linnæus himself in the eighteenth century often says of a cultivated species, “habitat,” and he even says it sometimes without good ground.[2044] Hernandez, one of the most accurate among sixteenth-century authors, is quoted as having described and figured a wild Gossypium in Mexico, but the text suggests some doubts as to the wild condition of this plant,[2045] which Parlatore believes to be G. hirsutum, Linnæus. Hemsley,[2046] in his catalogue of Mexican plants, merely says of a Gossypium which he calls barbadense, “wild and cultivated.” He gives no proof of the former condition. Macfadyen[2047] mentions three forms wild and cultivated in Jamaica. He attributes specific names to them, and adds that they possibly all may be included in Linnæus’ G. hirsutum. Grisebach[2048] admits that one species, G. barbadense, is wild in the West Indies. As to the specific distinctions, he declares himself unable to establish them with certainty.
With regard to New Grenada, Triana[2049] describes a Gossypium which he calls G. barbadense, Linnæus, and which he says is “cultivated and half wild along the Rio Seco, in the province of Bogota, and in the valley of the Cauca near Cali;” and he adds a variety, hirsutum, growing (he does not say whether spontaneously or no) along the Rio Seco. I cannot discover any similar assertion for Peru, Guiana, and Brazil;[2050] but the flora of Chili, published by Cl. Gay,[2051] mentions a Gossypium, “almost wild in the province of Copiapo,” which the writer attributes to the variety G. peruvianum, Cavanilles. Now, this author does not say the plant is wild, and Parlatore classes it with G. religiosum, Linnæus.
An important variety of cultivation is that of the cotton with long silky down, called by Anglo-Americans sea island, or long staple cotton, which Parlatore ranks with G. barbadense, Linnæus. It is considered to be of American origin, but no one has seen it wild.
In conclusion, if historical records are positive in all that concerns the use of cotton in America from a time far earlier than the arrival of Europeans, the natural wild habitation of the plant or plants which yield this product is yet but little known. We become aware on this occasion of the absence of floras of tropical America, similar to those of the Dutch and English colonies of Asia and Africa.
Mandubi, Pea-nut, Monkey-nut—Arachis hypogæa, Linnæus.
Nothing is more curious than the manner in which this leguminous plant matures its fruits. It is cultivated in all hot countries, either for the seed, or for the oil contained in the cotyledons.[2052] Bentham has given, in his Flora of Brazil, in folio, vol. xv. pl. 23, complete details of the plant, in which may be seen how the flower-stalk bends downwards and plunges the pod into the earth to ripen.
The origin of the species was disputed for a century, even by those botanists who employ the best means to discover it. It is worth while to show how the truth was arrived at, as it may serve as a guide in similar cases. I will quote, therefore, what I wrote in 1855,[2053] giving in conclusion new proofs which allow no possibility of further doubt.
“Linnæus[2054] said of the Arachis, ‘it inhabits Surinam Brazil, and Peru.’ As usual with him, he does not specify whether the species was wild or cultivated in these countries. In 1818, R. Brown[2055] writes: ‘It was probably introduced from China into the continent of India, Ceylon, and into the Malay Archipelago, where, in spite of its now general cultivation, it is thought not to be indigenous, particularly from the names given to it. I consider it not improbable that it was brought from Africa into different parts of equatorial America, although, however, it is mentioned in some of the earliest writings on this continent, particularly on Peru and Brazil. According to Sprengel, it is mentioned by Theophrastus as cultivated in Egypt, but it is not at all evident that the Arachis is the plant to which Theophrastus alludes in the quoted passage. If it had been formerly cultivated in Egypt it would probably still exist in that country, whereas it does not occur in Forskal’s catalogue nor in Delile’s more extended flora. There is nothing very unlikely,’ continues Brown, ‘in the hypothesis that the Arachis is indigenous both in Africa and America; but if it is considered as existing originally in one of these continents only, it is more probable that it was brought from China through India to Africa, than that it took the contrary direction.’ My father in 1825, in the Prodromus (ii. p. 474), returned to Linnæus’ opinion, and admitted without hesitation the American origin. “Let us reconsider the question” (I said in 1855) “with the aid of the discoveries of modern science.
“Arachis hypogœa was the only species of this singular genus known. Six other species, all Brazilian, have since been discovered.[2056] Thus, applying the rule of probability of which Brown first made great use, we incline à priori to the idea of an American origin. We must remember that Maregraf[2057] and Piso[2058] describe and figure the plant as used in Brazil, under the name mandubi, which seems to be indigenous. They quote Monardes, a writer of the end of the sixteenth century, as having indicated it in Peru under a different name, anchic. Joseph Acosta[2059] merely mentions an American name, mani, and speaks of it with other species which are not of foreign origin in America. The Arachis was not ancient in Guiana, in the West Indies, and in Mexico. Aublet[2060] mentions it as a cultivated plant, not in Guiana, but in the Isle of France. Hernandez does not speak of it. Sloane[2061] had seen it only in a garden, grown from seeds brought from Guinea. He says that the slave-dealers feed the negroes with it on their passage from Africa, which indicates a then very general cultivation in Africa. Pison, in his second edition (1638, p. 256), not in that of 1648, gives a figure of a similar fruit imported from Africa into Brazil under the name mandobi, very near to the name of the Arachis, mandubi. From the three leaflets of the plant it would seem to be the Voandzeia, so often cultivated; but the fruit seems to me to be longer than in this genus, and it has two or three seeds instead of one or two. However this may be, the distinction drawn by Piso between these two subterranean seeds, the one Brazilian, the other African, tends to show that the Arachis is Brazilian.
“The antiquity and the generality of its cultivation in Africa is, however, an argument of some force, which compensates to a certain degree its antiquity in Brazil, and the presence of six other Arachis in the same country. I would admit its great value if the Arachis had been known to the ancient Egyptians and to the Arabs; but the silence of Greek, Latin, and Arab authors, and the absence of the species in Egypt in Forskal’s time, lead me to think that its cultivation in Guinea, Senegal,[2062] and the east coast of Africa[2063] is not of very ancient date. Neither has it the marks of a great antiquity in Asia. No Sanskrit name for it is known,[2064] but only a Hindustani one. Rumphius[2065] says that it was imported from Japan into several islands of the Indian Archipelago. It would in that case have borne only foreign names, like the Chinese name, for instance, which signifies only ‘earth-bean.’ At the end of the last century it was generally cultivated in China and Cochin-China. Yet, in spite of Rumphius’s theory of an introduction into the islands from China or Japan, I see that Thunberg does not speak of it in his Japanese Flora. Now, Japan has had dealings with China for sixteen centuries, and cultivated plants, natives of one of the two countries, were commonly early introduced into the other. It is not mentioned by Forster among the plants employed in the small islands of the Pacific. All these facts point to an American, I might even say a Brazilian, origin. None of the authors I have consulted mentions having seen the plant wild, either in the old or the new world. Those who indicate it in Africa or Asia are careful to say the plant is cultivated. Marcgraf does not say so, writing of Brazil, but Piso says the species is planted.”