The Pre-Columbian Cultivated Plants of Mexico:

In recent years many important papers have been published dealng with cultivated plants, their origins and their relationships to human cultures. These studies have served to increase greatly our knowledge and understanding both of the plants and of the people by whom they were used, as well as to point out some of the areas where further research is most urgently needed.

Middle America, especially from central Mexico to Guatemala, was one of the two great centers of agriculture in the New World, the other being the Andean area, and a very considerable variety of cultivated plants were to the peoples of this region. It now seems, therefore, worthwhile to attempt an enumeration of the plants which were cultivated in this area, with a discussion of the pertinent botanical literature as to their origins, distributions and importance.