Garlic has been long cultivated in China under the name of suan. It is written in Chinese by a single sign, which usually indicates a long known and even a wild species.[205] The floras of Japan[206] do not mention it, whence I gather that the species was not wild in Eastern Siberia and Dahuria, but that the Mongols brought it into China.
According to Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians made great use of it. Archæologists have not found the proof of this in the monuments, but this may be because the plant was considered unclean by the priests.[207]
There is a Sanskrit name, mahoushouda,[208] become loshoun in Bengali, and to which appears to be related the Hebrew name schoum or schumin,[209] which has produced the Arab thoum or toum. The Basque name baratchouria is thought by de Charencey[210] to be allied with Aryan names. In support of his hypothesis I may add that the Berber name, tiskert, is quite different, and that consequently the Iberians seem to have received the plant and its name rather from the Aryans than from their probable ancestors of Northern Africa. The Lettons call it kiplohks, the Esthonians krunslauk, whence probably the German Knoblauch. The ancient Greek name appears to have been scorodon, in modern Greek scordon. The names given by the Slavs of Illyria are bili and cesan. The Bretons say quinen,[211] the Welsh craf, cenhinnen, or garlleg, whence the English garlic. The Latin allium has passed into the languages of Latin origin.[212] This great diversity of names intimates a long acquaintance with the plant, and even an ancient cultivation in Western Asia and in Europe. On the other hand, if the species has existed only in the land of the Kirghis, where it is now found, the Aryans might have cultivated it and carried it into India and Europe; but this does not explain the existence of so many Keltic, Slav, Greek, and Latin names which differ from the Sanskrit. To explain this diversity, we must suppose that its original abode extended farther to the west than that known at the present day, an extension anterior to the migrations of the Aryans.
If the genus Allium were once made, as a whole, the object of such a serious study as that of Gay on some of its species,[213] perhaps it might be found that certain wild European forms, included by authors under A. arenarium, L., A. arenarium, Sm., or A. scorodoprasum, L., are only varieties of A. sativum. In that case everything would agree to show that the earliest peoples of Europe and Western Asia cultivated such form of the species just as they found it from Tartary to Spain, giving it names more or less different.
Onion—Allium Cepa, Linnæus.
I will state first what was known in 1855;[214] I will then add the recent botanical observations which confirm the inferences from philological data.
The onion is one of the earliest of cultivated species. Its original country is, according to Kunth, unknown.[215] Let us see if it is possible to discover it. The modern Greeks call Allium Cepa, which they cultivate in abundance, krommunda.[216] This is a good reason for believing that the krommuon of Theophrastus[217] is the same species, as sixteenth-century writers already supposed.[218] Pliny[219] translated the word by cœpa. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew several varieties, which they distinguished by the names of countries: Cyprium, Cretense, Samothraciae, etc. One variety cultivated in Egypt[220] was held to be so excellent that it received divine honours, to the great amusement of the Romans.[221] Modern Egyptians designate A. Cepa by the name of basal[222] or bussul,[223] whence it is probable that the bezalim of the Hebrews is the same species, as commentators have said.[224] There are several distinct names—palandu, latarka, sakandaka,[225] and a number of modern Indian names. The species is commonly cultivated in India, Cochin-China, China,[226] and even in Japan.[227] It was largely consumed by the ancient Egyptians. The drawings on their monuments often represent this species.[228] Thus its cultivation in Southern Asia and the eastern region of the Mediterranean dates from a very early epoch. Moreover, the Chinese, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin names have no apparent connection. From this last fact we may deduce the hypothesis that its cultivation was begun after the separation of the Indo-European nations, the species being found ready to hand in different countries at once. This, however, is not the present state of things, for we hardly find even vague indications of the wild state of A. Cepa. I have not discovered it in European or Caucasian floras; but Hasselquist[229] says, “It grows in the plains near the sea in the environs of Jericho.” Dr. Wallich mentioned in his list of Indian plants, No. 5072, specimens which he saw in districts of Bengal, without mentioning whether they were cultivated. This indication, however insufficient, together with the antiquity of the Sanskrit and Hebrew names, and the communication which is known to have existed between the peoples of India and of Egypt, lead me to suppose that this plant occupied a vast area in Western Asia, extending perhaps from Palestine to India. Allied species, sometimes mistaken for A. Cepa, exist in Siberia.[230]
The specimens collected by Anglo-Indian botanists, of which Wallich gave the first idea, are now better known. Stokes discovered Allium Cepa wild in Beluchistan. He says, “wild on the Chehil Tun.” Griffith brought it from Afghanistan and Thomson from Lahore, to say nothing of other collectors, who are not explicit as to the wild or cultivated nature of their specimens.[231] Boissier possesses a wild specimen found in the mountainous regions of the Khorassan. The umbels are smaller than in the cultivated plant, but there is no other difference. Dr. Regel, jun., found it to the south of Kuldscha, in Western Siberia.[232] Thus my former conjectures are completely justified; and it is not unlikely that its habitation extends even as far as Palestine, as Hasselquist said.
The onion is designated in China by a single sign (pronounced tsung), which may suggest a long existence there as an indigenous plant.[233] I very much doubt, however, that the area extends so far to the east.
Humboldt[234] says that the Americans have always been acquainted with onions, in Mexican xonacatl. “Cortes,” he says, “speaking of the comestibles sold at the market of the ancient Tenochtillan, mentions onions, leeks, and garlic.” I cannot believe, however, that these names applied to the species cultivated in Europe. Sloane, in the seventeenth century, had only seen one Allium cultivated in Jamaica (A. Cepa), and that was in a garden with other European vegetables.[235] The word xonacatl is not in Hernandez, and Acosta[236] says distinctly that the onions and garlics of Peru are of European origin. The species of the genus Allium are rare in America.