European botanists first knew the colocasia in Egypt, where it has perhaps not been very long cultivated. The monuments of ancient Egypt furnish no indication of it, but Pliny[280] spoke of it as the _Arum Ægyptium_. Prosper Alpin saw it in the sixteenth century, and speaks of it at length.[281] He says that its name in its country is _culcas_, which Delile[282] writes _qolkas_, and _koulkas_. It is clear that this Arab name of the Egyptian arum has some analogy with the Sanskrit _kuchoo_, which is a confirmation of the hypothesis, sufficiently probable, of an introduction from India or Ceylon. De l’Ecluse[283] had seen the plant cultivated in Portugal, as introduced from Africa, under the name _alcoleaz_, evidently of Arab origin. In some parts of the south of Italy, where the plant has become naturalized, it is, according to Parlatore, called _aro di Egitto_.[284] The name _colocasia_, given by the Greeks to a plant of which the root was used by the Egyptians, may evidently come from _colcas_, but it has been transferred to a plant differing from the true colcas. Indeed, Dioscorides applies it to the Egyptian bean, or _nelumbo_,[285] which has a large root, or rather rhizome, rather stringy and not good to eat. The two plants are very different, especially in the flower. The one belongs to the _Araceæ_, the other to the _Nymphæaceæ_; the one belongs to the class of _Monocotyledons_, the other to that of the _Dicotyledons_. The nelumbo of Indian origin has ceased to grow in Egypt, while the colocasia of modern botanists has persisted there. If there is any confusion, as seems probable in the Greek authors, it must be explained by the fact that the colcas rarely flowers, at least in Egypt. From the point of view of botanical nomenclature, it matters little that mistakes were formerly made about the plants to which the name colocasia should be applied. Fortunately, modern scientific names are not based upon the doubtful definitions of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and it is sufficient to say now, if the etymology is insisted upon, that colocasia comes from colcas in consequence of an error. +Apé+, or +Large-rooted Alocasia+—_Alocasia macrorrhiza_, Schott; _Arum macrorrhizum_, Linnæus. This araceous plant, which Schott places now in the genus Colocasia, now in the Alocasia, and whose names are far more complicated than might be supposed from those indicated above,[286] is less frequently cultivated than the common colocasia, but in the same manner and nearly in the same countries. Its rhizomes attain the length of a man’s arm. They have a distinctly bitter taste, which it is indispensable to remove by cooking. The aborigines of Otahiti call it _apé_, and those of the Friendly Isles _kappe_.[287] In Ceylon, the common name is _habara_, according to Thwaites.[288] It has other names in the Malay Archipelago, which argues an existence prior to that of the more recent peoples of these regions.