I do not know, however, why Ritter and every one else has neglected an assertion of Loureiro, in his _Flora of Cochin-China_,[760] “Habitat, et colitur abundantissime in omnibus provinciis regni Cochin-Chinensis: simul in aliquibus imperii sinensis, sed minori copia.” The word _habitat_, separated by a comma from the rest, is a distinct assertion. Loureiro could not have been mistaken about the _Saccharum officinarum_, which he saw cultivated all about him, and of which he enumerates the principal varieties. He must have seen plants wild, at least in appearance. They may have spread from some neighbouring plantation, but I know nothing which makes it unlikely that the plant should be indigenous in this warm moist district of the continent of Asia.
Forskal[761] mentions the species as wild in the mountains of Arabia, under a name which he believes to be Indian. If it came from Arabia, it would have spread into Egypt long ago, and the Hebrews would have known it.
Roxburgh had received in the botanical gardens of Calcutta in 1796, and had introduced into the plantations in Bengal, a _Saccharum_ to which he gave the name of _S. sinense_, and of which he published an illustration in his great work _Plantæ Coromandelianæ_, vol. iii. pl. 232. It is perhaps only a form of _S. officinarum_, and moreover, as it is only known in a cultivated state, it tells nothing about the primitive country either of this or of any other variety.
A few botanists have asserted that the sugar-cane flowers more often in Asia than in America or Africa, and even that it produces seed[762] on the banks of the Ganges, which they regard as a proof that it is indigenous. Macfadyen says so without giving any proof. It was an assertion made to him in Jamaica by some traveller; but Sir W. Hooker adds in a note, “Dr. Roxburgh, in spite of his long residence on the banks of the Ganges, has never seen the seeds of the sugar-cane.” It rarely flowers, and still more rarely bears fruit, as is commonly the case with plants propagated by buds or suckers, and if any variety of sugar-cane were disposed to seed, it would probably be less productive of sugar and would soon be abandoned. Rumphius, a better observer than many modern botanists, has given a good description of the cultivated cane in the Dutch colonies, and makes an interesting remark.[763] “It never produces flowers or fruit unless it has remained several years in a stony place.” Neither he, nor any one else to my knowledge, has described or drawn the seed. The flower, on the contrary, has often been figured, and I have a fine specimen from Martinique.[764] Schacht is the only person who has given a good analysis of the flower, including the pistil; he had not seen the seed ripe.[765] De Tussac,[766] who gives a poor analysis, speaks of the seed, but he only saw it young in the ovary.