Origin of Cultivated Plants

The jujube tree is now wild in dry places from Egypt to Marocco, in the south of Spain, Terracina, and the neighbourhood of Palermo.[958 - Desfontaines, Fl. Atlant., i. p. 200; Munby, Catal. Alger., edit. 2, p. 9; Ball, Spicilegium, Fl. Maroc., p. 301; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 481; Bertoloni, Fl. Ital., ii. p. 664.] In isolated Italian localities it has probably escaped from cultivation.

Indian Jujube[959 - This name, which is little used, occurs in Bauhin, as Jujuba Indica.]—Zizyphus jujube, Lamarck; ber among the Hindus and Anglo-Indians, masson in the Mauritius.

This jujube is cultivated further south than the common kind, but its area is equally extensive. The fruit is sometimes like an unripe cherry, sometimes like an olive, as is shown in the plate published by Bouton in Hooker’s Journal of Botany, i. pl. 140. The great number of known varieties indicates an ancient cultivation. It extends at the present day from Southern China, the Malay Archipelago, and Queensland, through Arabia and Egypt as far as Marocco, and even to Senegal, Guinea, and Angola.[960 - Sir J. Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 632; Brandis, Forest Fl., i. 87; Bentham, Fl. Austral., i. p. 412; Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 13; Oliver, Fl. of Trop. Afr., i. p. 379.] It grows also in Mauritius, but it does not appear to have been introduced into America as yet, unless perhaps into Brazil, as it seems from a specimen in my herbarium.[961 - Received from Martius, No. 1070, from the Cabo frio.] The fruit is preferable to the common jujube, according to some writers.

It is not easy to know what was the habitation of the species before all cultivation, because the stones sow themselves readily and the plant becomes naturalized outside gardens.[962 - Bouton, in Hooker’s Journ. of Bot.; Baker, Fl. of Mauritius, p. 61; Brandis.] If we are guided by its abundance in a wild state, it would seem that Burmah and British India are its original abode. I have in my herbarium several specimens gathered by Wallich in the kingdom of Burmah, and Kurz has often seen it in the dry forests of that country, near Ava and Prome.[963 - Kurz, Forest Flora of Burmah, i. p. 266.] Beddone admits the species to be wild in the forests of British India, but Brandis had only found it in the neighbourhood of native settlements.[964 - Beddone, Forest Flora of India, i. pl. 149 (representing the wild fruit, which is smaller than that of the cultivated plant); Brandis.] In the seventeenth century Rheede[965 - Rheede, iv. pl. 141.] described this tree as wild on the Malabar coast, and botanists of the sixteenth century had received it from Bengal. In support of an Indian origin, I may mention the existence of three Sanskrit names, and of eleven other names in modern Indian languages.[966 - Piddington, Index.]

It had been recently introduced into the eastern islands of the Amboyna group when Rumphius was living there,[967 - Rumphius, Amboyna, ii. pl. 36.] and he says himself that it is an Indian species. It was perhaps originally in Sumatra and in other islands near to the Malay Peninsula. Ancient Chinese authors do not mention it; at least Bretschneider did not know of it. Its extension and naturalization to the east of the continent of India appear, therefore, to have been recent.

Its introduction into Arabia and Egypt appears to be of yet later date. Not only no ancient name is known, but Forskal, a hundred years ago, and Delile at the beginning of the present century, had not seen the species, of which Schweinfurth has recently spoken as cultivated. It must have spread to Zanzibar from Asia, and by degrees across Africa or in European vessels as far as the west coast. This must have been quite recently, as Robert Brown (Bot. of Congo) and Thonning did not see the species in Guinea.[968 - Zizyphus abyssinicus, Hochst, seems to be a different species.]

Cashew—Anacardium occidentale, Linnæus.

The most erroneous assertions about the origin of this species were formerly made,[969 - Tussac, Flore des Antilles, iii. p. 55 (where there is an excellent figure, pl. 13). He says that it is an East Indian species, thus aggravating Linnæus’ mistake, who believed it to be Asiatic and American.] and in spite of what I said on the subject in 1855,[970 - Géogr. Bot. Rais., p. 873] 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 - Piso and Marcgraf, Hist. rer. Natur. Brasil, 1648, p. 57.] 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 - Vide Piso and Marcgraf; Aublet, Guyane, p. 392; Seemann, Bot. of the Herald, p. 106; Jacquin, Amér., p. 124; Macfadyen, Pl. Jamaic., p. 119; Greisbach, Fl. of Brit. W. Ind., p. 176.] Dr. Ernst[973 - Ernst in Seemann, Journ. of Bot., 1867, p. 273.] 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 - Rheede, Malabar, iii. pl. 54.] 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 - Rumphius, Herb. Amboin., i. pp. 177, 178.] 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 - Beddone, Flora Sylvatica, t. 163; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 20.]

It is yet more doubtful that the tree is indigenous in Africa, indeed it is easy to disprove the assertion. Loureiro[977 - Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 304.] had seen the species on the east coast of this continent, but he supposed it to have been of American origin. Thonning had not seen it in Guinea, nor Brown in Congo.[978 - Brown, Congo, pp. 12, 49.] It is true that specimens from the last-named country and from the islands in the Gulf of Guinea were sent to the herbarium at Kew, but Oliver says it is cultivated there.[979 - Oliver, Fl. of Trop. Afr., i. p. 443.] A tree which occupies such a large area in America, and which has become naturalized in several districts of India within the last two centuries, would exist over a great extent of tropical Africa if it were indigenous in that quarter of the globe.

Mango—Mangifera indica, Linnæus.

Belonging to the same order as the Cashew, this tree nevertheless produces a true fruit, something the colour of the apricot.[980 - See plate 4510 of the Botanical Magazine.]

It is impossible to doubt that it is a native of the south of Asia or of the Malay Archipelago, when we see the multitude of varieties cultivated in these countries, the number of ancient common names, in particular a Sanskrit name,[981 - Roxburgh, Flora Indica, edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 435; Piddington, Index.] its abundance in the gardens of Bengal, of the Dekkan Peninsula, and of Ceylon, even in Rheede’s time. Its cultivation was less diffused in the direction of China, for Loureiro only mentions its existence in Cochin-China. According to Rumphius,[982 - Rumphius, Herb. Amboin., i. p. 95.] it had been introduced into certain islands of the Asiatic Archipelago within the memory of living men. Forster does not mention it in his work on the fruits of the Pacific Islands at the time of Cook’s expedition. The name common in the Philippine Isles, manga,[983 - Blanco, Fl. Filip., p. 181.] shows a foreign origin, for it is the Malay and Spanish name. The common name in Ceylon is ambe, akin to the Sanskrit amra, whence the Persian and Arab amb,[984 - Rumphius; Forskal, p. cvii.] the modern Indian names, and perhaps the Malay, mangka, manga, manpelaan, indicated by Rumphius. There are, however, other names used in the Sunda Islands, in the Moluccas, and in Cochin-China. The variety of these names argues an ancient introduction into the East Indian Archipelago, in spite of the opinion of Rumphius.

The Mangifera which this author had seen wild in Java, and Mangifera sylvatiea which Roxburgh had discovered at Silhet, are other species; but the true mango is indicated by modern authors as wild in the forests of Ceylon, the regions at the base of the Himalayas, especially towards the east, in Arracan, Pegu, and the Andaman Isles.[985 - Thwaites, Enum. Plant. Ceyl., p. 75; Brandis, Forest Flora, p. 126; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 13; Kurz, Forest Flora Brit. Burmah, i. p. 304.] Miquel does not mention it as wild in any of the islands of the Malay Archipelago. In spite of its growing in Ceylon, and the indications, less positive certainly, of Sir Joseph Hooker in the Flora of British India, the species is probably rare or only naturalized in the Indian Peninsula. The size of the stone is too great to allow of its being transported by birds, but the frequency of its cultivation causes a dispersion by man’s agency. If the mango is only naturalized in the west of British India, this must have occurred at a remote epoch, as the existence of a Sanskrit name shows. On the other hand, the peoples of Western Asia must have known it late, since they did not transport the species into Egypt or elsewhere towards the west.

It is cultivated at the present day in tropical Africa, and even in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where it has become to some extent naturalized in the woods.[986 - Oliver, Flora of Trop. Afr., i. p. 442; Baker, Fl. of Maur. and Seych., p. 63.]

In the new world it was first introduced into Brazil, for the seeds were brought thence to Barbados in the middle of the last century.[987 - Hughes, Barbados, p. 177.] A French vessel was carrying some young trees from Bourbon to Saint Domingo in 1782, when it was taken by the English, who took them to Jamaica, where they succeeded wonderfully. When the coffee plantations were abandoned, at the time of the emancipation of the slaves, the mango, whose stones the negroes scattered everywhere, formed forests in every part of the islands, and these are now valued both for their shade and as a form of food.[988 - Macfadyen, Fl. of Jam., p. 221; Sir J. Hooker, Speech at the Royal Institute.] It was not cultivated in Cayenne in the time of Aublet, at the end of the eighteenth century, but now there are mangoes of the finest kind in this colony. They are grafted, and it is observed that their stones produce better fruit than that of the original stock.[989 - Sagot, Jour. de la Soc. Centr. d’Agric. de France, 1872.]

Tahiti Apple—Spondias dulcis, Forster.

This tree belongs to the family of the Anacardiaceæ, and is indigenous in the Society, Friendly, and Fiji Islands.[990 - Forster, De Plantis Esculentis Insularum Oceani Australis, p. 33; Seemann, Flora Vitiensis, p. 51; Nadaud, Enum. des Plantes de Taïti, p. 75.] The natives consumed quantities of the fruit at the time of Cook’s voyage. It is like a large plum, of the colour of an apple, and contains a stone covered with long hooked bristles.[991 - There is a good coloured illustration in Tussac’s Fl. des Antilles, iii. pl. 28.] The flavour, according to travellers, is excellent. It is not among the fruits most widely diffused in tropical colonies. It is, however, cultivated in Mauritius and Bourbon, under the primitive Polynesian name evi or hevi,[992 - Boyer, Hortus Mauritianus, p. 81.] and in the West Indies. It was introduced into Jamaica in 1782, and thence into Saint Domingo. Its absence in many of the hot countries of Asia and Africa is probably owing to the fact that the species was discovered, only a century ago, in small islands which have no communications with other countries.

Strawberry—Fragaria vesca, Linnæus.

Our common strawberry is one of the most widely diffused plants, partly owing to the small size of its seeds, which birds, attracted by the fleshy part on which they are found, carry to great distances.

It grows wild in Europe, from Lapland and the Shetland Isles[993 - H. C. Watson, Compendium Cybele Brit., i. p. 160; Fries, Summa Veg. Scand., p. 44.] to the mountain ranges in the south; in Madeira, Spain, Sicily, and in Greece.[994 - Lowe, Man. Fl. of Madeira, p. 246; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 224; Moris, Fl. Sardoa, ii. p. 17.] It is also found in Asia, from Armenia and the north of Syria[995 - Boissier, Fl. Orient.] to Dahuria. The strawberries of the Himalayas and of Japan,[996 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 64.] which several authors have attributed to this species, do not perhaps belong to it,[997 - Gay; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 344; Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Pl. Japon., i. p. 129.] and this makes me doubt the assertion of a missionary[998 - Perny, Propag. de la Foi, quoted in Decaisne’s Jardin Fruitier du Mus., p. 27. Gay does not give China.] that it is found in China. It is wild in Iceland,[999 - Babington, Journ. of Linnæan Society, ii. p. 303; J. Gay.] in the north-east of the United States,[1000 - Asa Gray, Botany of the Northern States, edit. 1868, p. 156.] round Fort Cumberland, and on the north-west coast,[1001 - Sir W. Hooker, Fl. Bor. Amer., i. p. 184.] perhaps even in the Sierra-Nevada of California.[1002 - A. Gray, Bot. Calif., i. p. 176.] Thus its area extends round the north pole, except in Eastern Siberia and the basin of the river Amur, since the species is not mentioned by Maximowicz in his Primitiæ Floræ Amurensis. In America its area is extended along the highlands of Mexico; for Fragaria mexicana, cultivated in the Jardin des Plantes, and examined by Gay, is F. vesca. It also grows round Quito, according to the same botanist, who is an authority on this question.[1003 - J. Gay, in Decaisne, Jardin Fruitier du Muséum, Fraisier, p. 30.]

The Greeks and Romans did not cultivate the strawberry. Its cultivation was probably introduced in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Champier, in the sixteenth century, speaks of it as a novelty in the north of France,[1004 - Le Grand d’Aussy, Hist. de la Vie Privée des Français, i. pp. 233 and 3.] but it already existed in the south, and in England.[1005 - Olivier de Serres, Théâtre d’Agric., p. 511; Gerard, from Phillips, Pomarium Britannicum, p. 334.]

Transported into gardens in the colonies, the strawberry has become naturalized in a few cool localities far from dwellings. This is the case in Jamaica,[1006 - Purdie, in Hooker’s London Journal of Botany, 1844, p. 515.] in Mauritius,[1007 - Bojer, Hortus Mauritianus, p. 121.] and in Bourbon, where some plants had been placed by Commerson on the table-land known as the Kaffirs’ Plain. Bory Saint-Vincent relates that in 1801 he found districts quite red with strawberries, and that it was impossible to cross them without staining the feet red with the juice, mixed with volcanic dust.[1008 - Bory Saint-Vincent, Comptes Rendus de l’Acad. des. Sc. Nat., 1836, sem. ii. p. 109.] It is probable that similar cases of naturalization may be seen in Tasmania and New Zealand.

The genus Fragaria has been studied with more care than many others, by Duchesne (fils), the Comte de Lambertye, Jacques Gay, and especially by Madame Eliza Vilmorin, whose faculty of observation was worthy of the name she bore. A summary of their works, with excellent coloured plates, is published in the JardinFruitier du Muséum by Decaisne. These authors have overcome great difficulties in distinguishing the varieties and hybrids which are multiplied in gardens from the true species, and in defining these by well-marked characters. Some strawberries whose fruit is poor have been abandoned, and the finest are the result of the crossing of the species of Virginia and Chili, of which I am about to speak.

Virginian Strawberry—Fragaria virginiana, Ehrarht.

The scarlet strawberry of French gardens. This species, indigenous in Canada and in the eastern States of America, and of which one variety extends west as far as the Rocky Mountains, perhaps even to Oregon,[1009 - Asa Gray, Manual of Botany of the Northern States, edit. 1868, p. 155; Botany of California, i. p. 177.] was introduced into English gardens in 1629.[1010 - Phillips, Romar. Brit., p. 335.] It was much cultivated in France in the last century, but its hybrids with other species are now more esteemed.

Chili Strawberry—Fragaria Chiloensis, Duchesne.

A species common in Southern Chili, at Conception, Valdivia, and Chiloe,[1011 - Cl. Gay, Hist. Chili, Botanica, ii. p. 305.] and often cultivated in that country. It was brought to France by Frezier in the year 1715. Cultivated in the Museum of Natural History in France, it spread to England and elsewhere. The large size of the berry and its excellent flavour have produced by different crossings, especially with F. virginiana, the highly prized varieties Ananas, Victoria, Trollope, Rubis, etc.

Bird-Cherry—Prunus avium, Linnæus; Süsskirschbaum in German.

I use the word cherry because it is customary, and has no inconvenience when speaking of cultivated species or varieties, but the study of allied wild species confirms the opinion of Linnæus, that the cherries do not form a separate genus from the plums.

All the varieties of the cultivated cherry belong to two species, which are found wild: 1. Prunus avium, Linnæus, tall, with no suckers from the roots, leaves downy on the under side, the fruit sweet; 2. Prunus cerasus, Linnæus, shorter, with suckers from the roots, leaves glabrous, and fruit more or less sour or bitter.

The first of these species, from which the white and black cherries are developed, is wild in Asia; in the forest of Ghilan (north of Persia), in the Russian provinces to the south of the Caucasus and in Armenia;[1012 - Ledebour. Fl. Ross., ii. p. 6; Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 649.] in Europe in the south of Russia proper, and generally from the south of Sweden to the mountainous parts of Greece, Italy, and Spain.[1013 - Ledebour, ibid.; Fries, Summa Scand., p. 46; Nyman, Conspec. Fl. Eur., p. 213; Boissier. ibid.; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 245.] It even exists in Algeria.[1014 - Munby, Catal. Alger., edit. 2, p. 8.]

As we leave the district to the south of the Caspian and Black Seas, the bird-cherry becomes less common, less natural, and determined more perhaps by the birds which seek its fruit and carry the seeds from place to place.[1015 - As the cherries ripen after the season when birds migrate, they disperse the stones chiefly in the neighbourhood of the plantations.] It cannot be doubted that it was thus naturalized, from cultivation, in the north of India,[1016 - Sir J. Hooker, Fl. of Brit. India.] in many of the plains of the south of Europe, in Madeira,[1017 - Lowe, Manual of Madeira, p. 235.] and here and there in the United States;[1018 - Darlington, Fl. Cestrica, edit. 3, p. 73.] but it is probable that in the greater part of Europe this took place in prehistoric times, seeing that the agency of birds was employed before the first migrations of nations, perhaps before there were men in Europe. Its area must have extended in this region as the glaciers diminished.

The common names in ancient languages have been the subject of a learned article by Adolphe Pictet,[1019 - Ad. Pictet, Origines Indo-Europ., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 281.] but nothing relative to the origin of the species can be deduced from them; and besides, the different species and varieties have often been confused in popular nomenclature. It is far more important to know whether archæology can tell us anything about the presence of the bird-cherry in Europe in prehistoric times.

Heer gives an illustration of the stones of Prunus avium, in his paper on the lake-dwellings of Western Switzerland.[1020 - Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten, p. 24, figs. 17, 18, and p. 26.] From what he was kind enough to write to me, April 14, 1881, these stones were found in the peat formed above the ancient deposits of the age of stone. De Mortillet[1021 - In Perrin, Études Préhist. sur la Savoie, p. 22.] found similar cherry-stones in the lake-dwellings of Bourget belonging to an epoch not very remote, more recent than the stone age. Dr. Gross sent me some from the locality, also comparatively recent, of Corcelette on Lake Neuchâtel, and Strobel and Pigorini discovered some in the “terramare” of Parma.[1022 - Atte Soc. Ital. Sc. Nat., vol. vi.] All these are settlements posterior to the stone age, and perhaps belonging to historic time. If no more ancient stones of this species are found in Europe, it will seem probable that naturalization took place after the Aryan migrations.

Sour Cherry—Prunus cerasus, Linnæus; Cerasus vulgaris, Miller; Baumweichsel, Sauerkirschen, in German.

The Montmorency and griotte cherries, and several other kinds known to horticulturists, are derived from this species.[1023 - For the numerous varieties which have common names in France, varying with the different provinces, see Duhamel, Traité des Arbres, edit. 2, vol. v., in which are good coloured illustrations.]

Hohenacker[1024 - Hohenacker, Plantæ Talysch., p. 128.] saw Prunus cerasus at Lenkoran, near the Caspian Sea, and Koch[1025 - Koch, Dendrologie, i. p. 110.] in the forests of Asia Minor, that is to say, in the north-east of that country, as that was the region in which he travelled. Ancient authors found it at Elisabethpol and Erivan, according to Ledebour.[1026 - Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 6.] Grisebach[1027 - Grisebach, Spicil. Fl. Rumel., p. 86.] indicates it on Mount Olympus of Bithynia, and adds that it is nearly wild on the plains of Macedonia. The true and really ancient habitation seems to extend from the Caspian Sea to the environs of Constantinople; but in this very region Prunus avium is more common. Indeed, Boissier and Tchihatcheff do not appear to have seen P. cerasus even in the Pontus, though they received or brought back several specimens of P. avium.[1028 - Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 649; Tchihatcheff, Asie Mineure, Bot., p. 198.]

In the north of India, P. cerasus exists only as a cultivated plant.[1029 - Sir J. Hooker, Fl. of Brit. India, ii, p. 313.] The Chinese do not appear to have been acquainted with our two kinds of cherry. Hence it may be assumed that it was not very early introduced into India, and the absence of a Sanskrit name confirms this. We have seen that, according to Grisebach, P. cerasus is nearly wild in Macedonia. It was said to be wild in the Crimea, but Steven[1030 - Steven, Verzeichniss Halbinselm, etc., p. 147.] only saw it cultivated; and Rehmann[1031 - Rehmann, Verhandl. Nat. Ver. Brunn, x. 1871.] gives only the allied species, P. chamæcerasus, Jacquin, as wild in the south of Russia. I very much doubt its wild character in any locality north of the Caucasus. Even in Greece, where Fraas said he saw this tree wild, Heldreich only knows it as a cultivated species.[1032 - Heldreich, Nutzpfl. Griech., p. 69; Pflanzen d’Attisch. Ebene., p. 477.] In Dalmatia,[1033 - Viviani, Fl. Dalmat., iii. p. 258.] a particular variety or allied species, P. Marasca, is found really wild; it is used in making Maraschino wine. P. cerasus is wild in mountainous parts of Italy[1034 - Bertoloni, Fl. Ital., v. p. 131.] and in the centre of France,[1035 - Lecoc and Lamotte, Catal. du Plat. Centr. de la France, p. 148.] but farther to the west and north, and in Spain, the species is only found cultivated, and naturalized here and there as a bush. P. cerasus, more than the bird-cherry, evidently presents itself in Europe, as a foreign tree not completely naturalized.

None of the often-quoted passages[1036 - Theophrastes, Hist. Pl., lib. 3, c. 13; Pliny, lib. 15, c. 25, and others quoted in Lenz, Bot. der Alten Gr. and Röm., p. 710.] in Theophrastus, Pliny, and other ancient authors appear to apply to P. cerasus.[1037 - Part of the description of Theophrastus shows a confusion with other trees. He says, for instance, that the nut is soft.] The most important, that of Theophrastus, belongs to Prunus avium, because of the height of the tree, a character which distinguishes it from P. cerasus. Kerasos being the name for the bird-cherry in Theophrastus, as now kerasaia among the modern Greeks, I notice a linguistic proof of the antiquity of P. cerasus. The Albanians, descendants of the Pelasgians, call the latter vyssine, an ancient name which reappears in the German Wechsel, and the Italian visciolo.[1038 - Ad. Pictet quotes forms of the same name in Persian, Turkish, and Russian, and derives from the same source the French word guigne, now used for certain varieties of the cherry.] As the Albanians have also the name kerasie for P. avium, it is probable that their ancestors very clearly distinguished the two species by different names, perhaps before the arrival of the Hellenes in Greece.

Another indication of antiquity may be seen in Virgil (Geor. ii. 17) —

“Pullulat ab radice aliis densissima silva

Ut cerasis ulmisque” —

which applies to P. cerasus, not to P. avium.

Two paintings of the cherry tree were found at Pompeii, but it seems that it cannot be discovered to which of the two species they should be attributed.[1039 - Schouw, Die Erde, p. 44; Comes, Ill. delle Piante, etc., in 4to, p. 56.] Comes calls them Prunus cerasus.

Any archæological discovery would be more convincing. The stones of the two species present a difference in the furrow or groove, which has not escaped the observation of Heer and Sordelli. Unfortunately, only one stone of P. cerasus has been found in the prehistoric settlements of Italy and Switzerland, and what is more, it is not quite certain from what stratum it was taken. It appears that it was a non-archæological stratum.[1040 - Sordelli, Piante della torbiera di Lagozza, p. 40.]

From all these data, somewhat contradictory and sufficiently vague, I am inclined to admit that Prunus cerasus was known and already becoming naturalized at the beginning of Greek civilization, and a little later in Italy before the epoch when Lucullus brought a cherry tree from Asia Minor. Pages might be transcribed from authors, even modern ones, who attribute, after Pliny, the introduction of the cherry into Italy to this rich Roman, in the year 65 B.C. Since this error is perpetuated by its incessant repetition in classical schools, it must once more be said that cherry trees (at least the bird-cherry) existed in Italy before Lucullus, and that the famous gourmet did not need to go far to seek the species with sour or bitter fruit. I have no doubt that he pleased the Romans with a good variety cultivated in the Pontus, and that cultivators hastened to propagate it by grafting, but Lucullus’ share in the matter was confined to this.

From what is now known of Kerasunt and the ancient names of the cherry tree, I venture to maintain, contrary to the received opinion, that it was a variety of the bird-cherry of which the fleshy fruit is of a sweet flavour. I am inclined to think so because Kerasos in Theophrastus is the name of Prunus avium, which is far the commoner of the two in Asia Minor. The town of Kerasunt took its name from the tree, and it is probable that the abundance of Prunus avium in the neighbouring woods had induced the inhabitants to seek the trees which yielded the best fruits in order to plant them in their gardens. Certainly, if Lucullus brought fine white-heart cherries to Rome, his countrymen who only knew the little wild cherry may well have said, “It is a fruit which we have not.” Pliny affirms nothing more.

I must not conclude without suggesting a hypothesis about the two kinds of cherry. They differ but little in character, and, what is very rare, their two ancient habitations, which are most clearly proved, are similar (from the Caspian Sea to Western Anatolia). The two species have spread towards the West, but unequally. That which is commonest in its original home and the stronger of the two (P. avium) has extended further and at an earlier epoch, and has become better naturalized P. cerasus is, therefore, perhaps derived from the other in prehistoric times. I come thus, by a different road, to an idea suggested by Caruel;[1041 - Caruel, Flora Toscana, p. 48.] only, instead of saying that it would perhaps be better to unite them now in one species, I consider them actually distinct, and content myself with supposing a descent, which for the rest it would not be easy to prove.