http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0646e/t0646e0p.htm
With this attitude and policy of imposing European
agriculture, crops and methods of consumption on America, the
process of incorporating local agricultural cultivation,
transporting plant species to Spain and assimilating the
ethnobotanical knowledge of the indigenous races took place in a
climate of indifference, randomness and disorganization. Spain
was to prove much more an instrument for extending Europe's
influence in the New World than a channel for American plant
germplasm to reach the Old Continent. Up to the mid-sixteenth
century, plant species reached Europe generally as a result of
private initiatives. It was an activity which began with the
first voyage of Columbus, transporting potatoes or sweet potatoes
(Ipomoea batatas) to ensure provisions for his crew during
the return journey. From then on, a long succession of plants
crossed the Atlantic and were unloaded in Spanish ports, chiefly
in Andalusia. There was a gradual flow of maize (Zea mays), beans
(Phaseolus vulgaris), gourds (Cucurbita spp.),
chili (Capsicum annuum) , upland cotton -trees (Gossypium
hirsutum), cassava (Manihot esculenta), tobacco
(Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica) groundnut (Arachis
hypogaea), maguey (Agave americana), pirú or American
mastic (Schinus molle), pineapple (Ananas comosus), Peruvian
mastic (Bursera simaruba), jalap (Ipomoea purga), black
sapote (Diospyros digyna), sweet gum (Liquidambar
styraciflua), peachwood (Haematoxylon brasiletto), balsam
(Myroxylon balsamum), sea grape (Coccoloba
uvifera), Bumelia persimilis, star apple (Chrysophyllum
cainito), Indian cress, nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus), cocoa
(Theobroma cacao), marigold (Tagetes spp.), tomato (Lycopersicon
esculentum), guaiacum (Guaiacum sanctum), prickly pear
(Opuntia spp. and Nopalea cochenillifera) and
dorstenia (Dorstenia contrajerva), etc.
Details of the arrival of many of these plants will probably
never be known because of the excessive zeal of the Crown in
checking ships' cargoes. For this reason, the ports of Vigo,
Corunna, Santander, Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malaga, Sanlúcar de
Barrameda and Cadiz were frequently used as an alternative to the
port of Seville where unloading was rigorously checked by
officials from the Casa de la Contratación In this way, many
goods were not recorded, including many of these plant species
which in principle did not seem to have a real commercial value.
Hence they were almost always planted and distributed in the
fields before being identified by scholars, so that their first
botanical or ethnobotanical descriptions on European soil were
very much later than their date of arrival on the continent.
The situation changed considerably after the publication in
1574 of Historia medicinal de las cosas que se trace de
nuestras Indias Occidentales by Nicolas Monardes, a doctor
from Seville, who drew attention to the potential of the new
medicinal herbs and their cultivation in Spain. His work was
distributed widely and was of decisive importance for other, more
rigorous and later works such as those of Dodoens, l'Obel and
l'Ecluse at the dawn of the seventeenth century. This is how
species such as the following came to be described: flor de
manita (Chiranthodendron pentadactylon), potato (Solanum
tuberosum), sassafras (Sassafras albidum), white cedar
or American arbor vitae (Thuja occidentalis), sunflower (Helianthus
annuus), thorn apple, Jimson or Jamestown weed (Datura
stramonium), physic nut, purging nut or pulza (Jatropha
curcas), sarsaparilla (Smilax spp.), avocado (Persea
americana), quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), Indian cane (Canna
indica), copal (Protium copal or Bursera spp.),
annato, arnatto or roucou (Bixa orellana), guava (Psidium
guajava), soapberry tree (Sapindus saponatia), soursop
(Annona muricata) and papaw (Carica papaya) etc.
During the seventeenth century this situation persisted while,
at the same time, the European upper class developed a certain
taste for the exotic, which was to the advantage of the
cultivation of many of the species arriving from America as
ornamental plants. After these plants had crossed the Atlantic,
the reasons for their use were forgotten in their area of origin,
and the ethnobotanical information relating to their properties
and applications was completely lost except for a certain
percentage of medicinal plants - and, although important species
for human consumption were involved, the primary and indeed
exclusive use for quite some time in the majority of cases was
ornamental. This phenomenon was so widespread that, out of 146
American species known in Europe at the end of the seventeenth
century, 44 were used in Spain as ornamental plants, while only
one was used as such on the New Continent (Tigridia pavonia, the
Aztec oceloxochitl or tiger flower). Much earlier, in Agricultura
de jardines written by Gregorio de los Rios between 1590
and 1591 and published in 1604, some 200 species used in the
gardens of Castile are mentioned and 16 of them are of American
origin. These include Phaseolus vulgaris Capsicum annuum,
Capsicum frutescens, Helianthus annuus, Lycopersicon esculentum and
others which, at the time, appeared to be only of interest as
ornamental plants.