The species of the genus are distributed nearly equally in the warm regions of Asia, Africa, and America; consequently the origin of each cannot be guessed. It must be sought in floras and herbaria, with the help of historical and other data.
Corchorus capsularis is commonly cultivated in the Sunda Islands, in Ceylon, in the peninsula of Hindustan, in Bengal, in Southern China, in the Philippine Islands,[624] generally in Southern Asia. Forster does not mention it in his work on the plants in use among the inhabitants of the Pacific, whence it may be inferred that at the time of Cook’s voyages, a century ago, its cultivation had not spread in that direction. It may even be suspected from this fact that it does not date from a very remote epoch in the isles of the Indian Archipelago.
Blume says that Corchorus capsularis grows in the marshes of Java near Parang,[625] and I have two specimens from Java which are not given as cultivated.[626] Thwaites mentions it as “very common” in Ceylon.[627]
On the continent of Asia, authors speak more of it as a plant cultivated in Bengal and China. Wight, who gives a good illustration of the plant, does not mention its native place. Edgeworth,[628] who has studied on the spot the flora of the district of Banda, says that it is found in “the fields.” In the Flora of British India, Masters, who drew up the article on the Tiliaceæ from the herbarium at Kew, says “in the hottest regions of India, cultivated in most tropical countries.”[629] I have a specimen from Bengal which is not given as cultivated. Loureiro says “wild, and cultivated in the province of Canton in China,”[630] which probably means wild in Cochin-China, and cultivated in Canton. In Japan the plant grows in cultivated soil.[631] In conclusion, I am not convinced that the species exists in a truly wild state north of Calcutta, although it may perhaps have spread from cultivation and have sown itself here and there.
C. capsularis has been introduced into various parts of tropical Africa and even of America, but it is only cultivated on a large scale for the production of jute thread in Southern Asia, and especially in Bengal.
C. olitorius is more used as a vegetable than for its fibres. Out of Asia it is employed exclusively for the leaves. It is one of the commonest of culinary plants among the modern Egyptians and Syrians, who call it in Arabic melokych, but it is not likely that they had any knowledge of it in ancient times, as we know of no Hebrew name.[632] The present inhabitants of Crete cultivate it under the name of mouchlia,[633] evidently derived from the Arabic, and the ancient Greeks were not acquainted with it.
According to several authors[634] this species of Corchorus is wild in several provinces of British India. Thwaites says it is common in the hot districts of Ceylon; but in Java, Blume only mentions it as growing among rubbish (in ruderatis). I cannot find it mentioned in Cochin-China or Japan. Boissier saw specimens from Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, Syria, and Anatolia, but gives as a general indication, “culta, et in ruderatis subspontanea.” No Sanskrit name for the two cultivated species of Corchorus is known.[635]
Touching the indigenous character of the plant in Africa, Masters, in Oliver’s Flora of Tropical Africa (i. p. 262), says, “wild, or cultivated as a vegetable throughout tropical Africa.” He attributes to the same species two plants from Guinea which G. Don had described as different, and as to whose wild nature he probably knew nothing. I have a specimen from Kordofan gathered by Kotschy, No. 45, “on the borders of the fields of sorghum.” Peters, as far as I know, is the only author who asserts that the plant is wild. He found C. olitorius “in dry places, and also in the meadows in the neighbourhood of Sena and Tette.” Schweinfurth only gives it as a cultivated plant in the whole Nile Valley.[636] This is also the case in the flora of Senegambia by Guillemin, Perrottet, and Richard.
To sum up, C. olitorius seems to be wild in the moderately warm regions of Western India, of Kordofan, and probably of some intermediate countries. It must have spread from the coast of Timor, and as far as Northern Australia, into Africa and towards Anatolia, in the wake of a cultivation not perhaps of earlier date than the Christian era, even at its origin.
In spite of the assertions made in various works, the cultivation of this plant is rarely indicated in America. I note, however, on Grisebach’s authority,[637] that it has become naturalized in Jamaica from gardens, as often happens in the case of cultivated annuals.