It is certainly indigenous in the forests of most of the West Indies.[925] Jacquin mentions it also for the neighbouring continent, but I do not find this confirmed by modern authors. The best illustration is that in Tussac’s _Flore des Antilles_, iii. pl. 7, and this author gives a number of details respecting the use of the fruit. +Ochro+, or +Gombo+—_Hibiscus esculentus_, Linnæus. The young fruits of this annual, of the order of Malvaceæ, form one of the most delicate of tropical vegetables. Tussac’s _Flore des Antilles_ contains a fine plate of the species, and gives all the details a _gourmet_ could desire on the manner of preparing the _caloulou_, so much esteemed by the creoles of the French colonies. When I formerly[926] tried to discover whence this plant, cultivated in the old and new worlds, came originally, the absence of a Sanskrit name, and the fact that the first writers on the Indian flora had not seen it wild, led me to put aside the hypothesis of an Asiatic origin. However, as the modern flora of British India[927] mentions it as “probably of native origin,” I was constrained to make further researches. Although Southern Asia has been thoroughly explored during the last thirty years, no locality is mentioned where the _Gombo_ is wild or half wild. There is no indication, even, of an ancient cultivation in Asia. The doubt, therefore, lies between Africa and America. The plant has been seen wild in the West Indies by a good observer,[928] but I can discover no similar assertion on the part of any other botanist, either with respect to the islands or to the American continent. The earliest writer on Jamaica, Sloane, had only seen the species in a state of cultivation. Marcgraf[929] had observed it in Brazilian plantations, and as he mentions a name from the Congo and Angola country, _quillobo_, which the Portuguese corrupted into _quingombo_, the African origin is hereby indicated. Schweinfurth and Ascherson[930] saw the plant wild in the Nile Valley in Nubia, Kordofan, Senaar, Abyssinia, and in the Baar-el-Abiad, where, indeed, it is cultivated. Other travellers are mentioned as having gathered specimens in Africa, but it is not specified whether these plants were cultivated or wild at a distance from habitations. We should still be in doubt if Flückiger and Hanbury[931] had not made a bibliographical discovery which settles the question. The Arabs call the fruit _bamyah_, or _bâmiat_, and Abul-Abas-Elnabati, who visited Egypt long before the discovery of America, in 1216, has distinctly described the _gombo_ then cultivated by the Egyptians.