Origin of Cultivated Plants

The cultivation of saffron, of which the conditions are given in the Cours d’Agriculture by Gasparin, and in the Bulletin de la Société d’Acclimatation for 1870, is becoming more and more rare in Europe and Asia.[815 - Jacquemont, Voyage, vol. iii. p. 238.] It has sometimes had the effect of naturalizing the species for a few years at least in localities where it appears to be wild.

CHAPTER IV.

PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS.[816 - The word fruit is here employed in the vulgar sense, for any fleshy part which enlarges after the flowering. In the strictly botanical sense, the Anonaceæ, strawberries, cashews, pine-apples, and breadfruit are not fruits.]

Sweet Sop, Sugar Apple[817 - A. squamosa is figured in Descourtilz, Flore des Antilles, ii. pl. 83; Hooker’s Bot. Mag., 3095; and Tussac, Flore des Antilles, iii. pl. 4.]—Anona squamosa, Linnæus. (In British India, Custard Apple; but this is the name of Anona muricata in America.)

The original home of this and other cultivated Anonaceæ has been the subject of doubts, which make it an interesting problem. I attempted to resolve them in 1855. The opinion at which I then arrived has been confirmed by the subsequent observations of travellers, and as it is useful to show how far probabilities based upon sound methods lead to true assertions, I will transcribe what I then said,[818 - A. de Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Rais., p. 859.] mentioning afterwards the more recent discoveries.

“Robert Brown proved in 1818 that all the species of the genus Anona, excepting Anona senegalensis, belong to America, and none to Asia. Aug. de Saint-Hilaire says that, according to Vellozo, A. squamosa was introduced into Brazil, that it is known there under the name of pinha, from its resemblance to a fir-cone, and of ata, evidently borrowed from the names attoa and atis, which are those of the same plant in Asia, and which belong to Eastern languages. Therefore, adds de Saint-Hilaire,[819 - Aug. de Saint-Hilaire, Plantes usuelles des Brésiliens, bk. vi. p. 5.] the Portuguese transported A. squamosa from their Indian to their American possessions, etc.”

Having made in 1832 a review of the family of the Anonaceæ,[820 - Alph. de Candolle, Mem. Soc. Phys. et d’Hist. Nat. de Genève.] I noticed how Mr. Brown’s botanical argument was ever growing stronger; for in spite of the considerable increase in the number of described Anonaceæ, no Anona, nor even any species of Anonaceæ with united ovaries, had been found to be a native of Asia. I admitted[821 - Ibid., p. 19 of Mem. printed separately.] the probability that the species came from the West Indies or from the neighbouring part of the American continent; but I inadvertently attributed this opinion to Mr. Brown, who had merely indicated an American origin in general.[822 - See Botany of Congo, and the German translation of Brown’s works, which has alphabetical tables.]

Facts of different kinds have since confirmed this view.

“Anona squamosa has been found wild in Asia, apparently as a naturalized plant; in Africa, and especially in America, with all the conditions of an indigenous plant. In fact, according to Dr. Royle,[823 - Royle, Ill. Himal., p. 60.] the species has been naturalized in several parts of India; but he only saw it apparently growing wild on the side of the mountain near the fort of Adjeegurh in Bundlecund, among teak trees. When so remarkable a tree, in a country so thoroughly explored by botanists, has only been discovered in a single locality beyond the limits of cultivation, it is most probable that it is not indigenous in the country. Sir Joseph Hooker found it in the isle of St. Iago, of the Cape Verde group, forming woods on the hills which overlook the valley of St. Domingo.[824 - Webb, in Fl. Nigr., p. 97.] Since A. squamosa is only known as a cultivated plant on the neighbouring continent;[825 - Ibid., p. 204.] as it is not even indicated in Guinea by Thonning,[826 - Thonning, Pl. Guin.] nor in Congo,[827 - Brown, Congo, p. 6.] nor in Senegambia,[828 - Guillemin, Perrottet, and Richard, Tentamen Fl. Seneg.] nor in Abyssinia and Egypt, which proves a recent introduction into Africa; lastly, as the Cape Verde Isles have lost a great part of their primitive forests, I believe that this is a case of naturalization from seed escaped from gardens. Authors are agreed in considering the species wild in Jamaica. Formerly the assertions of Sloane[829 - Sloane, Jam., ii. p. 168.] and Brown[830 - P. Brown, Jam., p. 257.] might have been disregarded, but they are confirmed by Macfadyen.[831 - Macfadyen, Fl. Jam., p. 9.] Martius found the species wild in the virgin forests of Para.[832 - Martius, Fl. Bras., fasc. ii. p. 15.] He even says, ‘Sylvescentem in nemoribus paraensibus inveni,’ whence it may be inferred that these trees alone formed a forest. Splitgerber[833 - Splitgerber, Nederl. Kruidk. Arch., ii. p. 230.] found it in the forests of Surinam, but he says, ‘An spontanea?’ The number of localities in this part of America is significant. I need not remind my readers that no tree growing elsewhere than on the coast has been found truly indigenous at once in tropical Asia, Africa, and America.[834 - A. de Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Rais., chap. x.] The result of my researches renders such a fact almost impossible, and if a tree were robust enough to extend over such an area, it would be extremely common in all tropical countries.

“Moreover, historical and philological facts tend also to confirm the theory of an American origin. The details given by Rumphius[835 - Rumphius, i. p. 139.] show that Anona squamosa was a plant newly cultivated in most of the islands of the Malay Archipelago. Forster does not mention the cultivation of any Anonacea in the small islands of the Pacific.[836 - Forster, Plantæ Esculentæ.] Rheede[837 - Rheede, Malabar, iii. p. 22.] says that A. squamosa is an exotic in Malabar, but was brought to India, first by the Chinese and the Arabs, afterwards by the Portuguese. It is certainly cultivated in China and in Cochin-China,[838 - Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 427.] and in the Philippine Isles,[839 - Blanco, Fl. Filip.] but we do not know from what epoch. It is doubtful whether the Arabs cultivate it.[840 - This depends upon the opinion formed with respect to A. glabra, Forskal (A. Asiatica, B. Dun. Anon., p. 71; A. Forskalii, D. C. Syst., i. p. 472), which was sometimes cultivated in gardens in Egypt when Forskal visited that country; it was called keschta, that is, coagulated milk. The rarity of its cultivation and the silence of ancient authors shows that it was of modern introduction into Egypt. Ebn Baithar (Sondtheimer’s German translation, in 2 vols., 1840), an Arabian physician of the thirteenth century, mentions no Anonacea, nor the name keschta. I do not see that Forskal’s description and illustration (Descr., p. 102. ic. tab. 15) differ from A. squamosa. Coquebert’s specimen, mentioned in the Systema, agrees with Forskal’s plate; but as it is in flower while the plate shows the fruit, its identity cannot be proved.] It was cultivated in India in Roxburgh’s day;[841 - Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., edit. 1832, v. ii. p. 657.] he had not seen the wild plant, and only mentions one common name in a modern language, the Bengali ata, which is already in Rheede. Later the name gunda-gatra[842 - Piddington, Index, p. 6.] was believed to be Sanskrit, but Dr. Royle[843 - Royle, Ill. Him., p. 60.] having consulted Wilson, the famous author of the Sanskrit dictionary, touching the antiquity of this name, he replied that it was taken from the Sabda Chanrika, a comparatively modern compilation. The names of ata, ati, are found in Rheede and Rumphius.[844 - Rheede and Rumphius, i. p. 139.] This is doubtless the foundation of Saint-Hilaire’s argument; but a nearly similar name is given to Anona squamosa in Mexico. This name is ate, ahate di Panucho, found in Hernandez[845 - Hernandez, pp. 348, 454.] with two similar and rather poor figures which may be attributed either to A. squamosa, as Dunal[846 - Dunal, Mem. Anon., p. 70.] thinks, or to A. cherimolia, according to Martius.[847 - Martius, Fl. Bras., fasc. ii. p. 15.] Oviedo uses the name anon.[848 - Hence the generic name Anona, which Linnæus changed to Annona (provision), because he did not wish to have any savage name, and did not mind a pun.] It is very possible that the name ata was introduced into Brazil from Mexico and the neighbouring countries. It may also, I confess, have come from the Portuguese colonies in the East Indies. Martius says, however, that the species was imported from the West India Islands.[849 - Martius, Fl. Bras., fasc. ii. p. 15.] I do not know whether he had any proof of this, or whether he speaks on the authority of Oviedo’s work, which he quotes and which I cannot consult. Oviedo’s article, translated by Marcgraf,[850 - Marcgraf, Brazil, p. 94.] describes A. squamosa without speaking of its origin.

“The sum total of the facts is altogether in favour of an American origin. The locality where the species usually appears wild is in the forests of Para. Its cultivation is ancient in America, since Oviedo is one of the first authors (1535) who has written about this country. No doubt its cultivation is of ancient date in Asia likewise, and this renders the problem curious. It is not proved, however, that it was anterior to the discovery of America, and it seems to me that a tree of which the fruit is so agreeable would have been more widely diffused in the old world if it had always existed there. Moreover, it would be difficult to explain its cultivation in America in the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the hypothesis of an origin in the old world.”

Since I wrote the above, I find the following facts published by different authors: —

1. The argument drawn from the fact that there is no Asiatic species of the genus Anona is stronger than ever. A. Asiatica, Linnæus, was based upon errors (see my note in the Géogr. Bot., p. 862). A. obtusifolia (Tussac, Fl. des Antilles, i. p. 191, pl. 28), cultivated formerly in St. Domingo as of Asiatic origin, is also perhaps founded upon a mistake. I suspect that the drawing represents the flower of one species (A. muricata) and the fruit of another (A. squamosa). No Anona has been discovered in Asia, but four or five are now known in Africa instead of only one or two,[851 - See Baker, Flora of Mauritius, p. 3. The identity admitted by Oliver, Fl. Trop. Afr., i. p. 16, of the Anona palustris of America with that of Senegambia, appears to me very extraordinary, although it is a species which grows in marshes; that is, having perhaps a very wide area.] and a larger number than formerly in America.

2. The authors of recent Asiatic floras do not hesitate to consider the Anonæ, particularly A. squamosa, which is here and there found apparently wild, as naturalized in the neighbourhood of cultivated ground and of European settlements.[852 - Hooker, Fl. of Brit. Ind., i. p. 78; Miquel, Fl. Indo-Batava, i. part 2, p. 33; Kurz, Forest Flora of Brit. Burm., i. p. 46; Stewart and Brandis, Forests of India, p. 6.]

3. In the new African floras already quoted, A. squamosa and the others of which I shall speak presently are always mentioned as cultivated species.

4. McNab, the horticulturist, found A. squamosa in the dry plains of Jamaica,[853 - Grisebach, Fl. of Brit. W. I. Isles, p. 5.] which confirms the assertions of previous authors. Eggers says[854 - Eggers, Flora of St. Croix and Virgin Isles, p. 23.] that the species is common in the thickets of Santa Cruz and Virgin Islands. I do not find that it has been discovered wild in Cuba.

5. On the American continent it is given as cultivated.[855 - Triana and Planchon, Prodr. Fl. Novo-Granatensis, p. 29; Sagot, Journ. Soc. d’Hortic., 1872.] However, M. André sent me a specimen from a stony district in the Magdalena valley, which appears to belong to this species and to be wild. The fruit is wanting, which renders the matter doubtful. From the note on the ticket, it is a delicious fruit like that of A. squamosa. Warming[856 - Warming, Symbolæ ad. Fl. Bras., xvi. p. 434.] mentions the species as cultivated at Lagoa Santa in Brazil. It appears, therefore, to be cultivated or naturalized from cultivation in Para, Guiana, and New Granada.

In fine, it can hardly be doubted, in my opinion, that its original country is America, and in especial the West India Islands.

Sour Sop—Anona muricata, Linnæus.

This fruit-tree,[857 - Figured in Descourtilz, Fl. Med. des. Antilles, ii. pl. 87, and in Tussac, Fl. des Antilles, ii. p. 24.] introduced into all the colonies in tropical countries is wild in the West Indies; at least, its existence has been proved in the islands of Cuba, St. Domingo, Jamaica, and several of the smaller islands.[858 - Richard, Plantes Vasculaires de Cuba, p. 29; Swartz, Obs., p. 221; P. Brown, Jamaica, p. 255; Macfadyen, Fl. of Jam., p. 7; Eggers, Fl. of St. Croix, p. 23; Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. I., p. 4.] It is sometimes naturalized on the continent of South America near dwellings.[859 - Martius, Fl. Brasil, fasc. ii. p. 4; Splitgerber, Pl. de Surinam, in Nederl. Kruidk. Arch., i. p. 226.] André brought specimens from the district of Cauca in New Granada, but he does not say they were wild, and I see that Triana (Prodr. Fl. Granat.) only mentions it as cultivated.

Custard Apple in the West Indies, Bullock’s Heart in the East Indies —Anona reticulata, Linnæus.

This Anona, figured in Descourtilz, Flore Médicale des Antilles, ii. pl. 82, and in the Botanical Magazine, pl. 2912, is wild in Cuba, Jamaica, St. Vincent, Guadeloupe, Santa Cruz, and Barbados,[860 - Richard, Macfadyen, Grisebach, Eggers, Swartz, Maycock, Fl. Barbad., p. 233.] and also in the island of Tobago in the Bay of Panama,[861 - Seemann, Bot. of the Herald, p. 75.] and in the province of Antioquia in New Granada.[862 - Triana and Planchon, Prodr. Fl. Novo-Granat., p. 29.] If it is wild in the last-named localities as well as in the West Indies, its area probably extends into several states of Central America and of New Granada.

Although the bullock’s heart is not much esteemed as a fruit, the species has been introduced into most tropical colonies. Rheede and Rumphius found it in plantations in Southern Asia. According to Welwitsch, it has naturalized itself from cultivation in Angola, in Western Africa,[863 - Oliver, Fl. Trop. Afr., i. p. 15.] and this has also taken place in British India.[864 - Sir J. Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 78.]

Chirimoya—Anona Cherimolia, Lamarck.

The chirimoya is not so generally cultivated in the colonies as the preceding species, although the fruit is excellent. This is probably the reason that there is no illustration of the fruit better than that of Feuillée (Obs., iii. pl. 17), while the flower is well represented in pl. 2011 of the Botanical Magazine, under the name of A. tripetala.

In 1855, I wrote as follows, touching the origin of the species:[865 - De Candolle, Géogr. Bot. Rais., p. 863.] “The chirimoya is mentioned by Lamarck and Dunal as growing in Peru; but Feuillée, who was the first to speak of it,[866 - Feuillée, Obs., iii. p. 23, t. 17.] says that it is cultivated. Macfadyen[867 - Macfadyen, Fl. Jam., p. 10.] says it abounds in the Port Royal Mountains, Jamaica; but he adds that it came originally from Peru, and must have been introduced long ago, whence it appears that the species is cultivated in the higher plantations, rather than wild. Sloane does not mention it. Humboldt and Bonpland saw it cultivated in Venezuela and New Granada; Martius in Brazil,[868 - Martius, Fl. Bras., fasc. iii. p. 15.] where the seeds had been introduced from Peru. The species is cultivated in the Cape Verde Islands, and on the coast of Guinea,[869 - Hooker, Fl. Nigr., p. 205.] but it does not appear to have been introduced into Asia. Its American origin is evident. I might even go further, and assert that it is a native of Peru, rather than of New Granada or Mexico. It will probably be found wild in one of these countries. Meyen has not brought it from Peru.”[870 - Nov. Act. Nat. Cur., xix. suppl. 1.]

My doubts are now lessened, thanks to a kind communication from M. Ed. André. I may mention first, that I have seen specimens from Mexico gathered by Botteri and Bourgeau, and that authors often speak of finding the species in this region, in the West Indies, in Central America, and New Granada. It is true, they do not say that it is wild. On the contrary, they remark that it is cultivated, or that it has escaped from gardens and become naturalized.[871 - Richard, Plant. Vasc. de Cuba; Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. Is.; Hemsley, Biologia Centr. Am., p. 118; Kunth, in Humboldt and Bonpland, Nova Gen., v. p. 57; Triana and Planchon, Prodr. Fl. Novo-Granat., p. 28.] Grisebach asserts that it is wild from Peru to Mexico, but he gives no proof. André gathered, in a valley in the south-west of Ecuador, specimens which certainly belong to the species as far as it can be asserted without seeing the fruit. He says nothing as to its wild nature, but the care with which he points out in other cases plants cultivated or perhaps escaped from cultivation, leads me to think that he regards these specimens as wild. Claude Gay says that the species has been cultivated in Chili from time immemorial.[872 - Gay, Flora Chil., i. p. 66.] However, Molina, who mentions several fruit trees in the ancient plantations of the country, does not speak of it.[873 - Molina, French trans.]

In conclusion, I consider it most probable that the species is indigenous in Ecuador, and perhaps in the neighbouring part of Peru.

Oranges and Lemons—Citrus, Linnæus.

The different varieties of citrons, lemons, oranges, shaddocks, etc., cultivated in gardens have been the subject of remarkable works by several horticulturists, among which Gallesio and Risso[874 - Gallesio, Traité du Citrus, in 8vo, Paris, 1811; Risso and Poiteau, Histoire Naturelle des Orangers, 1818, in folio, 109 plates.] hold the first rank. The difficulty of observing and classifying so many varieties was very great. Fair results have been obtained, but it must be owned that the method was wrong from the beginning, since the plants from which the observations were taken were all cultivated, that is to say, more or less artificial, and perhaps in some cases hybrids. Botanists are now more fortunate. Thanks to the discoveries of travellers in British India, they are able to distinguish the wild and therefore the true and natural species. According to Sir Joseph Hooker,[875 - Hooker, Fl. of Brit. Ind., i. p. 515.] who was himself a collector in India, the work of Brandis[876 - Brandis, Forest Flora, p. 50.] is the best on the Citrus of this region, and he follows it in his flora. I shall do likewise in default of a monograph of the genus, remarking also that the multitude of garden varieties which have been described and figured for centuries, ought to be identified as far as possible with the wild species.[877 - For a work of this nature, the first step would be to publish good figures of wild species, showing particularly the fruit, which is not seen in herbaria. It would then be seen which forms represented in the plates of Risso, Duhamel, and others, are nearest to the wild types.]

The same species, and perhaps others also, probably grow wild in Cochin-China and in China; but this has not been proved in the country itself, nor by means of specimens examined by botanists. Perhaps the important works of Pierre, now in course of publication, will give information on this head for Cochin-China. With regard to China, I will quote the following passage from Dr. Bretschneider,[878 - Bretschneider, On the Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works, p. 55.] which is interesting from the special knowledge of the writer: – “Oranges, of which there are a great variety in China, are counted by the Chinese among their wild fruits. It cannot be doubted that most of them are indigenous, and have been cultivated from very early times. The proof of this is that each species or variety bears a distinct name, besides being in most cases represented by a particular character, and is mentioned in the Shu-king, Rh-ya, and other ancient works.”

Men and birds disperse the seeds of Aurantiaceæ, whence results the extension of its area, and its naturalization in all the warm regions of the two worlds. It was observed[879 - Acosta, Hist. Nat. des Indes, Fr. trans. 1598, p. 187.] in America from the first century after the conquest, and now groves of orange trees have sprung up even in the south of the United States.

Shaddock—Citrus decumana, Willdenow.

I take this species first, because its botanical character is more marked than that of the others. It is a larger tree, and this species alone has down on the young shoots and the under sides of the leaves. The fruit is spherical, or nearly spherical, larger than an orange, sometimes even as large as a man’s head. The juice is slightly acid, the rind remarkably thick. Good illustrations of the fruit may be seen in Duhamel, Traité des Arbres, edit. 2, vii. pl. 42, and in Tussac, Flore des Antilles, iii. pls. 17, 18. The number of varieties in the Malay Archipelago indicates an ancient cultivation. Its original country is not yet accurately known, because the trees which appear indigenous may be the result of naturalization, following frequent cultivation. Roxburgh says that the species was brought to Calcutta from Java,[880 - Roxburgh, Flora Indica, edit. 1832 iii. p. 393.] and Rumphius[881 - Rumphius, Hortus Ambeinensis, ii. p. 98.] believed it to be a native of Southern China. Neither he nor modern botanists saw it wild in the Malay Archipelago.[882 - Miquel, Flora Indo-Batava, i. pt. 2, p. 526.] In China the species has a simple name, yu; but its written character[883 - Bretschneider, Study and Value, etc.] appears too complicated for a truly indigenous plant. According to Loureiro, the tree is common in China and Cochin-China, but this does not imply that it is wild.[884 - Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., ii. p. 572. For another species of the genus, he says that it is cultivated and non-cultivated, p. 569.] It is in the islands to the east of the Malay Archipelago that the clearest indications of a wild existence are found. Forster[885 - Forster, De Plantis Esculentis Oceani Australis, p. 35.] formerly said of this species, “very common in the Friendly Isles.” Seemann[886 - Seemann, Flora Vitiensis, p. 33.] is yet more positive about the Fiji Isles. “Extremely common,” he says, “and covering the banks of the rivers.”

It would be strange if a tree, so much cultivated in the south of Asia, should have become naturalized to such a degree in certain islands of the Pacific, while it has scarcely been seen elsewhere. It is probably indigenous to them, and may perhaps yet be discovered wild in some islands nearer to Java.

The French name, pompelmouse, is from the Dutch pompelmoes. Shaddock was the name of a captain who first introduced the species into the West Indies.[887 - Plukenet, Almagestes, p. 239; Sloane, Jamaica, i. p. 41.]

Citron, Lemon—Citrus medica, Linnæus.

This tree, like the common orange, is glabrous in all its parts. Its fruit, longer than it is wide, is surmounted in most of its varieties by a sort of nipple. The juice is more or less acid. The young shoots and the petals are frequently tinted red. The rind of the fruit is often rough, and very thick in some subvarieties.[888 - Cedrat à gros fruit of Duhamel, Traité des Arbres, edit. 2, vii. p. 68, pl. 22.]

Brandis and Sir Joseph Hooker distinguish four cultivated varieties: —

1. Citrus medica proper (citron in English, cedratier in French, cedro in Italian), with large, not spherical fruit, whose highly aromatic rind is covered with lumps, and of which the juice is neither abundant nor very acid. According to Brandis, it was called vijapûra in Sanskrit.

2. Citrus medica Limonum (citronnier in French, lemon in English). Fruit of average size, not spherical, and abundant acid juice.

3. Citrus medica acida (C. acida, Roxburgh). Lime in English. Small flowers, fruit small and variable in shape, juice very acid. According to Brandis, the Sanskrit name was jambira.

4. Citrus medica Limetta (C. Limetta and C. Lumia of Risso), with flowers like those of the preceding variety, but with spherical fruit and sweet, non-aromatic juice. In India it is called the sweet lime.

The botanist Wight affirms that this last variety is wild in the Nilgherry Hills. Other forms, which answer more or less exactly to the three other varieties, have been found wild by several Anglo-Indian botanists[889 - Royle, Ill. Himal., p. 129; Brandis, Forest Flora, p. 52; Hooker, Fl. of Brit. Ind., i. p. 514.] in the warm districts at the foot of the Himalayas, from Garwal to Sikkim, in the south-east at Chittagong and in Burmah, and in the south-west in the western Ghauts and the Satpura Mountains. From this it cannot be doubted that the species is indigenous in India, and even under different forms of prehistoric antiquity.

I doubt whether its area includes China or the Malay Archipelago. Loureiro mentions Citrus medica in Cochin-China only as a cultivated plant, and Bretschneider tells us that the lemon has Chinese names which do not exist in the ancient writings, and for which the written characters are complicated, indications of a foreign species. It may, he says, have been introduced. In Japan the species is only a cultivated one.[890 - Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Plant. Jap., p. 129.] Lastly, several of Rumphius’ illustrations show varieties cultivated in the Sunda Islands, but none of these are considered by the author as really wild and indigenous to the country. To indicate the locality, he sometimes used the expression “in hortis sylvestribus,” which might be translated shrubberies. Speaking of his Lemon sussu (vol. ii. pl. 25), which is a Citrus medica with ellipsoidal acid fruit, he says it has been introduced into Amboyna, but that it is commoner in Java, “usually in forests.” This may be the result of an accidental naturalization from cultivation. Miquel, in his modern flora of the Dutch Indies,[891 - Miquel, Flora Indo-Batava, i. pt. 2, p. 528.] does not hesitate to say that Citrus medica and C. Limonum are only cultivated in the archipelago.

The cultivation of more or less acid varieties spread into Western Asia at an early date, at least into Mesopotamia and Media. This can hardly be doubted, for two varieties had Sanskrit names; and, moreover, the Greeks knew the fruit through the Medes, whence the name Citrus medica. Theophrastus[892 - Theophrastus, l. 4, c. 4.] was the first to speak of it under the name of apple of Media and of Persia, in a phrase often repeated and commented on in the last two centuries.[893 - Bodæus, in Theophrastus, edit. 1644, pp. 322, 343; Risso, Traité du Citrus, p. 198; Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 196.] It evidently applies to Citrus medica; but while he explains how the seed is first sown in vases, to be afterwards transplanted, the author does not say whether this was the Greek custom, or whether he was describing the practice of the Medes. Probably the citron was not then cultivated in Greece, for the Romans did not grow it in their gardens at the beginning of the Christian era.

Dioscorides,[894 - Dioscorides, i. p. 166.] born in Cilicia, and who wrote in the first century, speaks of it in almost the same terms as Theophrastus. It is supposed that the species was, after many attempts,[895 - Targioni, Cenni Storici.] cultivated in Italy in the third or fourth century. Palladius, in the fifth century, speaks of it as well established.

The ignorance of the Romans of the classic period touching foreign plants has caused them to confound, under the name of lignum citreum, the wood of Citrus, with that of Cedrus, of which fine tables were made, and which was a cedar, or a Thuya, of the totally different family of Coniferæ.

The Hebrews must have known the citron before the Romans, because of their frequent relations with Persia, Media and the adjacent countries. The custom of the modern Jews of presenting themselves at the synagogue on the day of the Feast of Tabernacles, with a citron in their hand, gave rise to the belief that the word hadar in Leviticus signified lemon or citron; but Risso has shown, by comparing the ancient texts, that it signifies a fine fruit, or the fruit of a fine tree. He even thinks that the Hebrews did not know the citron or lemon at the beginning of our era, because the Septuagint Version translates hadar by fruit of a fine tree. Nevertheless, as the Greeks had seen the citron in Media and in Persia in the time of Theophrastus, three centuries before Christ, it would be strange if the Hebrews had not become acquainted with it at the time of the Babylonish Captivity. Besides, the historian Josephus says that in his time the Jews bore Persian apples, malum persicum, at their feasts, one of the Greek names for the citron.

The varieties with very acid fruit, like Limonum and acida, did not perhaps attract attention so early as the citron, however the strongly aromatic odour mentioned by Dioscorides and Theophrastus appears to indicate them. The Arabs extended the cultivation of the lemon in Africa and Europe. According to Gallesio, they transported it, in the tenth century of our era, from the gardens of Oman into Palestine and Egypt. Jacques de Vitry, in the thirteenth century, well described the lemon which he had seen in Palestine. An author named Falcando mentions in 1260 some very acid “lumias” which were cultivated near Palermo, and Tuscany had them also towards the same period.[896 - Targioni, p. 217.]