Origin of Cultivated Plants / The International Scientific Series Volume XLVIII

by Alphonse de Candolle

The Greeks, accustomed to olive oil, neglected the walnut until they received from Persia a better variety, called karuon basilikon,[2136] or Persikon.[2137] The Romans cultivated the walnut from the time of their kings; they considered it of Persian origin.[2138] They had an old custom of throwing nuts in the celebration of weddings.

Archæology confirms these details. The only nuts which have hitherto been found under the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, or Italy are confined to a single locality near Parma, called Fontinellato, in a stratum of the iron age.[2139] Now, this metal, very rare at the time of the Trojan war, cannot have come into general use among the agricultural population of Italy until the fifth or sixth century before Christ, an epoch at which even bronze was perhaps still unknown to the north of the Alps. In the station at Lagozza, walnuts have been found in a much higher stratum, and not ancient.[2140] Evidently the walnuts of Italy, Switzerland, and France are not descended from the fossil plants of the quaternary tufa of which I spoke just now.

It is impossible to say at what period the walnut was first planted in India. It must have been early, for there is a Sanskrit name, akschôda, akhoda, or akhôta. Chinese authors say that the walnut was introduced among them from Thibet, under the Han dynasty, by Chang-kien, about the year 140-150 B.C.[2141] This was perhaps a perfected variety. Moreover, it seems probable, from the actual records of botanists, that the wild walnut is rare in the north of China, and is perhaps wanting in the east. The date of its cultivation in Japan is unknown.

The walnut tree and walnuts had an infinite number of names among ancient peoples, which have exercised the science and imagination of philologists,[2142] but the origin of the species is so clear that we need not stay to consider them.

Areca—Areca Catechu, Linnæus.

The areca palm is much cultivated in the countries where it is a custom to chew betel, that is to say throughout Southern Asia. The nut, or rather the almond which forms the principal part of the seed contained in the fruit, is valued for its aromatic taste; chopped, mixed with lime, and enveloped in a leaf of the pepper-betel, it forms an agreeable stimulant, which produces a flow of saliva and blackens the teeth to the satisfaction of the natives.

The author of the principal work on the order Palmaceæ, de Martius,[2143] says of the origin of this species, “Its country is uncertain (non constat); probably the Sunda Isles.” We may find it possible to affirm something positive by referring to more modern authors.

On the continent of India, in Ceylon and Cochin-China, the species is always indicated as cultivated.[2144] So in the Sunda Isles, the Moluccas, etc., to the south of Asia. Blume,[2145] in his work entitled Rumphia, says that the “habitat” of the species is the Malay Peninsula, Siam, and the neighbouring islands. Yet he does not appear to have seen the indigenous plants of which he speaks.] Dr. Bretschneider[2146] believes that the species is a native of the Malay Archipelago, principally of Sumatra, for he says those islands and the Philippines are the only places where it is found wild. The first of these facts is not confirmed by Miquel, nor the second by Blanco,[2147] who lived in the Philippines. Blume’s opinion appears the most probable, but we must still say with Martius, “The country is not proved.” The existence of a number of Malay names, pinang, jambe, etc., and of a Sanskrit name, gouvaka, as well as very numerous varieties, show the antiquity of cultivation. The Chinese received it, 111 B.C., from the south, with the Malay name, pin-lang. The Telinga name, arek, is the origin of the botanical name Areca.

Elæis—Elæis guineensis, Jacquin.

Travellers who visited the coast of Guinea in the first half of the sixteenth century[2148] already noticed this palm, from which the negroes extracted oil by pressing the fleshy part of the fruit. The tree is indigenous on all that coast.[2149] It is also planted, and the exportation of palm-oil is the object of an extensive trade. As it is also found wild in Brazil and perhaps in Guiana,[2150] a doubt arose as to the true origin. It seems the more likely to be American that the only other species which with this one constitutes the genus Elæis belongs to New Granada.[2151] Robert Brown, however, and the authors who have studied the family of palms, are unanimous in their belief that Elæis guineensis was introduced into America by the negroes and slave-traders in the traffic between the Guinea coast and the coast of America. Many facts confirm this opinion. The first botanists who visited Brazil, Piso and Marcgraf and others, do not mention the Elæis. It is only found on the littoral, from Rio di Janeiro to the mouth of the Amazon, never in the interior. It is often cultivated, or has the appearance of a species escaped from the plantations. Sloane,[2152] who explored Jamaica in the seventeenth century, relates that this tree was introduced in his time into a plantation which he names, from the coast of Guinea. It has since become naturalized in some of the West India Islands.[2153]