The most erroneous assertions about the origin of this species were formerly made,[969] and in spite of what I said on the subject in 1855,[970] I find them occasionally reproduced. The French name _Pommier d’acajou_ (mahogany apple tree) is as absurd as it is possible to be. It is a tree belonging to the order of _Terebintaceæ_ or _Anacardiaceæ_, very different from the Rosaceæ and the Meliaceæ, to which the apple and the mahogany belong. The edible part is more like a pear than an apple, and botanically speaking is not a fruit, but the receptacle or support of the fruit, which resembles a large bean. The two names, French and English, are both derived from a name given to it by the natives of Brazil, _acaju_, _acajaiba_, quoted by early travellers.[971] The species is certainly wild in the forests of tropical America, and indeed occupies a wide area in that region; it is found, for example, in Brazil, Guiana, the Isthmus of Panama, and the West Indies.[972] Dr. Ernst[973] believes it is only indigenous in the basin of the Amazon River, although he had seen it also in Cuba, Panama, Ecuador, and New Granada. His opinion is founded upon the absence of all mention of the plant in Spanish authors of the time of the Conquest—a negative proof, which establishes a mere probability. Rheede and Rumphius had also indicated this plant in the south of Asia. The former says it is common on the Malabar coast.[974] The existence of the same tropical arborescent species in Asia and America was so little probable, that it was at first suspected that there was a difference of species, or at least of variety; but this was not confirmed. Different historical and philological proofs have convinced me that its origin is not Asiatic.[975] Moreover, Rumphius, who is always accurate, spoke of an ancient introduction by the Portuguese into the Malay Archipelago from America. The Malay name he gives, _cadju_, is American; that used at Amboyna means Portugal fruit, that of Macassar was taken from the resemblance of the fruit to that of the _jambosa_. Rumphius says that the species was not widely diffused in the islands. Garcia ab Orto did not find it at Goa in 1550, but Acosta afterwards saw it at Couchin, and the Portuguese propagated it in India and the Malay Archipelago. According to Blume and Miquel, the species is only cultivated in Java. Rheede, it is true, says it is abundant (_provenit ubique_) on the coast of Malabar, but he only quotes one name which seems to be Indian, _kapa mava_; all the others are derived from the American name. Piddington gives no Sanskrit name. Lastly, Anglo-Indian colonists, after some hesitation as to its origin, now admit the importation of the species from America at an early period. They add that it has become naturalized in the forests of British India.[976]