The origin of cultivated plants in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Cultivated plants represent man's most important heritage, and we cannot afford to loose sight of this fact even in an age of great and rapid technological advancement. Among the world's major problems, none is more urgent than an increase in food crops production. Intellectually, our knowledge of the origins of cultivated plants and their role in the early history of mankind is of interest. Without considering cultivated plants, we cannot hope to understand the nature of conditions under which civilizations arose. A study of the origins of cultivated plants is interdisciplinary, intimately concerned with history, geography, archaeology, anthropology, ethnology, and linguistics. It is, however, basically botanical. Modern plant taxonomy began with Linnaeus, whose classic work, Species Plantarum (1753), is an attempt, though a highly premature one, to present a world flora. He included both spontaneous and cultivated plants, assigning a geographical origin to most of the plants that he treated. There were few facts to guide him. Even his knowledge of geography was often inadequate. Several authors in the early 19th Century worked on this subject, but source material then was based generally on classical writings and statements of the herbalists. The beginning of scientific studies on origins of cultivated plants stems from the work of Alphonso de Candolle, specifically from his Geographie botanique raisonnee (1855). The latest botanical methods were employed