The common names may tell us something with regard to the origin of the species and to its cultivation.
No Greek or Latin name is known. Spergula, in Italian spergola, seems to be a common name long in use in Italy. Another Italian name, erba renaiola, indicates only its growth in the sand (rena). The French (spargoule), Spanish (esparcillas), Portuguese (espargata), and German (Spark), have all the same root. It seems that throughout the south of Europe the species was taken from country to country by the Romans, before the division of the Latin languages. In the north the case is very different. There is a Russian name, toritsa;[552] several Danish names, humb or hum, girr or kirr;[553] and Swedish, knutt, fryle, nägde, skorff.[554] This great diversity shows that attention had long been drawn to this plant in this part of Europe, and argues an ancient cultivation. It was cultivated in the neighbourhood of Montbelliard in the sixteenth century,[555] and it is not stated that it was then of recent introduction. Probably it arose in the south of Europe during the Roman occupation, and perhaps earlier in the north. In any case, its original home must have been Europe.
Agriculturists distinguish a taller variety of spergula,[556] but botanists are not agreed with them in finding in it sufficient characteristics of a distinct species, and some do not even make it a variety.
Guinea Grass—Panicum maximum, Jacquin.[557]
This perennial grass has a great reputation in countries lying between the tropics as a nutritious fodder, easy of cultivation. With a little care a meadow of guinea grass will last for twenty years.[558]
Its cultivation appears to have begun in the West Indies. P. Browne speaks of it in his work on Jamaica, published in the middle of the last century, and it is subsequently mentioned by Swartz.
The former mentions the name guinea grass, without any remarks on the original home of the species. The latter says, “formerly brought from the coast of Africa to the Antilles.” He probably trusted to the indication given by the common name; but we know how fallacious such indications of origin sometimes are. Witness the so-called Turkey wheat, which comes from America.
Swartz, who is an excellent botanist, says that the plant grows in the dry cultivated pastures of the West Indies, where it is also wild, which may imply that it has become naturalized in places where it was formerly cultivated. I cannot find it anywhere asserted that it is really wild in the West Indies. It is otherwise in Brazil. From data collected by de Martius and studied by Nees,[559] data afterwards increased and more carefully studied by Dœll,[560] Panicum maximum grows in the clearings of the forests of the Amazon valley, near Santarem, in the provinces of Balria, Ceara, Rio de Janeiro, and Saint Paul. Although the plant is often cultivated in these countries, the localities given, by their number and nature, prove that it is indigenous. Dœll has also seen specimens from French Guiana and New Granada.
With respect to Africa, Sir William Hooker[561] mentioned specimens brought from Sierra Leone, from Aguapim, from the banks of the Quorra, and from the Island of St. Thomas, in Western Africa. Nees[562] indicates the species in several districts of Cape Colony, even in the bush and in mountainous country. Richard[563] mentions places in Abyssinia, which also seem to be beyond the limits of cultivation, but he owns to being not very sure of the species. Anderson, on the contrary, positively asserts that Panicum maximum was brought from the banks of the Mozambique and of the Zambesi rivers by the traveller Peters.[564]
The species is known to have been introduced into Mauritius by the Governour Labourdonnais,[565] and to have become naturalized from cultivation as in Rodriguez and the Seychelles Isles. Its introduction into Asia must be recent, for Roxburgh and Miquel do not mention the species. In Ceylon it is only cultivated.[566]