I was taught that Mexico is part of North America; it has always been part of the North American continent; it did not attach like the rest of Central America. As to fauna, I believe the major migration was from North America southward. ________________________________ From: "Lysne, Mark (Wyle)" <LYSNEM@ONR.NAVY.MIL> To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org Sent: Fri, March 19, 2010 5:47:43 AM Subject: Re: [pbs] pbs Digest, Vol 86, Issue 32 Message: 13 Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:41:06 -0400 From: "Jim McKenney" <jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com> Subject: Re: [pbs] Native N American crops To: "'Pacific Bulb Society'" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Message-ID: <6FCE6BF68FB44DDD81C5574016E506A8@Library> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Well Leo and Alberto, I think the answer to this one depends on how you divide up the Americas! For those who divide things up into North America and South America, then both of you are right. I was thinking in terms of North America, Mesoamerica and South America. That division is I think more common in biological discussions because of the huge differences introduced by the Mesoamerican fauna. I'm pretty sure corn is known only as a cultivated plant; it is assumed to be of southern Mexican origin (Mesoamerican in my division of the Americas and thus not North American to my thinking). Tobacco is trickier. More than one species of Nicotiana has been called tobacco. There is a species native to North America, N. rustica, which has been used for smoking. But the tobacco of modern commerce is derived from N. tabacum, a plant of South American origin. Alberto mentioned cocoa and manihot. I would use the same argument for cocoa ( or vanilla or Capsicum) as I used for corn: Mesoamerican in origin (some of the Capsicum might have originated farther south), not North American. Manihot (Manihot esculenta, tapioca, cassava, yuca - not to be confused with yucca) is believed to be of Brazilian, or at least tropical South American origin. The USDA Plants Profile map shows it naturalized in AL, FL, HI, MS, TX, PR and the VI. As long as one accepts the division of the Americas into north, meso- and south, then I?m on firm ground. Jim McKenney