“ It would be interesting to show, moreover, that although in most cases the continent or even the country from which each plant came to Europe, or in which it has been immemorially cultivated, has been fairly well ascertained, their origin or parentage has not. Only one-third of them are really known to botanists in a natural or wild state; and from this number subtraction may be made of such as have been detected only once or twice, and which may merely have run wild: the common tobacco-plant of the new world, and the bean of the old, are in this category. ”

“ Bailiere & Cie., 1883, 8vo.
⁠It is a common saying, that the plants with which man has most to do, and which rendered him the greatest service, are those which botanists know the least. That this should hold true of the plants of immemorial cultivation, as regards both their limitation in species and their sources, is not to be wondered at. The reason why many of these cannot be identified with wild originals is because, in all probability, the originals have long been extinct. ”

“ Europe had the great advantage of lying adjacent to two other continents, and of being colonized from them by races which were already agricultural.
⁠As respects the three plants of doubtful country, two are species of Cucurbita (moschata and ficifolia) , comparatively unimportant and little known, which have reached Europe only recently, the latter within thirty or forty years; and the third is Phascolus vulgaris, the bean of the Americans, whose right to it we propose to claim. ”