Chapter IV: Plants Cultivated for Their Fruits.816 (2)

It had been recently introduced into the eastern islands of the Amboyna group when Rumphius was living there,[967] 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]

+Cashew+—_Anacardium occidentale_, Linnæus.

The most erroneous assertions about the origin of this species were formerly made,[969] and in spite of what I said on the subject in 1855,[970] 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] 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] Dr. Ernst[973] 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] 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] 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]

It is yet more doubtful that the tree is indigenous in Africa, indeed it is easy to disprove the assertion. Loureiro[977] 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] 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] 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]

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] 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] 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] 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] 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] 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]

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] 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] 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]

+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] 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] 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] 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] to the mountain ranges in the south; in Madeira, Spain, Sicily, and in Greece.[994] It is also found in Asia, from Armenia and the north of Syria[995] to Dahuria. The strawberries of the Himalayas and of Japan,[996] which several authors have attributed to this species, do not perhaps belong to it,[997] and this makes me doubt the assertion of a missionary[998] that it is found in China. It is wild in Iceland,[999] in the north-east of the United States,[1000] round Fort Cumberland, and on the north-west coast,[1001] perhaps even in the Sierra-Nevada of California.[1002] 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]

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] but it already existed in the south, and in England.[1005]

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] in Mauritius,[1007] 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] 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 _Jardin Fruitier 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] was introduced into English gardens in 1629.[1010] 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] 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] 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] It even exists in Algeria.[1014]

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] It cannot be doubted that it was thus naturalized, from cultivation, in the north of India,[1016] in many of the plains of the south of Europe, in Madeira,[1017] and here and there in the United States;[1018] 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] 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] 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] 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 “terra-mare” of Parma.[1022] 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]

Hohenacker[1024] saw _Prunus cerasus_ at Lenkoran, near the Caspian Sea, and Koch[1025] 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] Grisebach[1027] 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]

In the north of India, _P. cerasus_ exists only as a cultivated plant.[1029] 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] only saw it cultivated; and Rehmann[1031] 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] In Dalmatia,[1033] 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] and in the centre of France,[1035] 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] in Theophrastus, Pliny, and other ancient authors appear to apply to _P. cerasus_.[1037] 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] 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] 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]

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] 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.

+Cultivated Plums.+

Pliny[1042] speaks of the immense quantity of plums known in his time: _ingens turba prunorum_. Horticulturists now number more than three hundred. Some botanists have tried to attribute these to distinct wild species, but they have not always agreed, and judging from the specific names especially they seem to have had very different ideas. This diversity is on two heads; first as to the descent of a given cultivated variety, and secondly as to the distinction of the wild forms into species or varieties.

I do not pretend to classify the innumerable cultivated forms, and I think that labour useless when dealing with the question of geographical origin, for the differences lie principally in the shape, size, colour, and taste of the fruit, in characters, that is to say, which it has been the interest of horticulturists to cultivate when they occur, and even to create as far as it was in their power to do so. It is better to insist upon the distinction of the forms observed in a wild state, especially upon those from which man derives no advantage, and which have probably remained as they were before the existence of gardens.

It is probably only for about thirty years that botanists have given really comparative characters for the three species or varieties which exist in nature.[1043] They may be summed up as follows:—

_Prunus domestica_, Linnæus. Tree or tall shrub, without thorns; young branches glabrous; flowers appearing with the leaves, their peduncles usually downy; fruit pendulous, ovoid and of a sweet flavour.

_Prunus insititia_, Linnæus. Tree or tall shrub, without thorns; young shoots covered with a velvet down; flowers appearing with the leaves, with peduncles covered with a fine down, or glabrous; fruit pendulous, round or slightly elliptical, of a sweet flavour.

_Prunus spinosa,_ Linnæus. A thorny shrub, with branches spreading out at right angles; young shoots downy; flowers appearing before the leaves; pedicles glabrous; fruit upright, round, and very sour.

This third form, so common in our hedges (sloe or blackthorn), is very different from the other two. Therefore, unless we interpret by hypothesis what may have happened before all observation, it seems to me impossible to consider the three forms as constituting one and the same species, unless we can show transitions from one to the other in those organs which have not been modified by cultivation, and hitherto this has not been done. At most the fusion of the two first categories can be admitted. The two forms with naturally sweet fruit occur in few countries. These must have tempted cultivators more than _Prunus spinosa_, whose fruit is so sour. It is, therefore, in these that we must seek to find the originals of cultivated plums. For greater clearness I shall speak of them as two species.[1044]

+Common Plum+—_Prunus domestica_, Linnæus; _Zwetchen_ in German.

Several botanists[1045] have found this variety wild throughout Anatolia, the region to the south of the Caucasus and Northern Persia, in the neighbourhood of Mount Elbruz, for example.

I know of no proof for the localities of Kashmir, the country of the Kirghis and of China, which are mentioned in some floras. The species is often doubtful, and it is probably rather _Prunus insititia_; in other cases it is its true and ancient wild character which is uncertain, for the stones have evidently been dispersed from cultivation. Its area does not appear to extend as far as Lebanon, although the plums cultivated at Damascus (damascenes, or damsons) have a reputation which dates from the days of Pliny. It is supposed that this was the species referred to by Dioscorides[1046] under the name of _Syrian coccumelea_, growing at Damascus. Karl Koch relates that the merchants trading on the borders of China told him that the species was common in the forests of the western part of the empire. It is true that the Chinese have cultivated different kinds of plums from time immemorial, but we do not know them well enough to judge of them, and we cannot be sure that they are indigenous. As none of our kinds of plum has been found wild in Japan or in the basin of the river Amur, it is very probable that the species seen in China are different to ours. This appears also to be the result of Bretschneider’s statements.[1047]

It is very doubtful if _Prunus domestica_ is indigenous in Europe. In the south, where it is given, it grows chiefly in hedges, near dwellings, with all the appearance of a tree scarcely naturalized, and maintained here and there by the constant bringing of stones from plantations. Authors who have seen the species in the East do not hesitate to say that it is “subspontaneous.” Fraas[1048] affirms that it is not wild in Greece, and this is confirmed as far as Attica is concerned by Heldreich.[1049] Steven[1050] says the same for the Crimea. If this is the case near Asia Minor, it must be the more readily admitted for the rest of Europe.

In spite of the abundance of plums cultivated formerly by the Romans, no kind is found represented in the frescoes at Pompeii.[1051] Neither has _Prunus domestica_ been found among the remains of the lake-dwellings of Italy, Switzerland, and Savoy, where, however, stones of _Prunus insititia_ and _spinosa_ have been discovered. From these facts, and the small number of words attributable to this species in Greek authors, it may be inferred that its half-wild or half-naturalized state dates in Europe from two thousand years at most.

Prunes and damsons are ranked with this species.

+Bullace+—_Prunus insititia_, Linnæus;[1052] _Pflauenbaum_ and _Haferschlehen_ in German.

This kind of plum grows wild in the south of Europe.[1053] It has also been found in Cilicia, Armenia, to the south of the Caucasus, and in the province of Talysch near the Caspian Sea.[1054] It is especially in Turkey in Europe and to the south of the Caucasus that it appears to be truly wild. In Italy and in Spain it is perhaps less so, although trustworthy authors who have seen the plant growing have no doubt about it. In the localities named north of the Alps, even as far as Denmark, it is probably naturalized from cultivation. The species is commonly found in hedges not far from dwellings, and apparently not truly wild.

All this agrees with archæological and historical data. The ancient Greeks distinguished the _Coccumelea_ of their country from those of Syria,[1055] whence it is inferred that the former were _Prunus insititia_. This seems the more likely that the modern Greeks call it _coromeleia_.[1056] The Albanians say _corombile_,[1057] which has led some people to suppose an ancient Pelasgian origin. For the rest, we must not insist upon the common names of the plum which each nation may have given to one or another species, perhaps also to some cultivated variety, without any rule. The names which have been much commented upon in learned works generally, appear to me to apply to any plum or plum tree without having any very defined meaning.

No stones of _P. insititia_ have yet been found in the _terra-mare_ of Italy, but Heer has described and given illustrations of some which were found in the lake-dwellings of Robenhausen.[1058] The species does not seem to be now indigenous in this part of Switzerland, but we must not forget that, as we saw in the history of flax, the lake-dwellers of the canton of Zürich, in the age of stone, had communications with Italy. These ancient Swiss were not hard to please in the matter of food, for they also gathered the berries of the blackthorn, which are, as we think, uneatable. It is probable that they ate them cooked.

+Apricot+—_Prunus armeniaca_, Linnæus; _Armenica vulgaris_, Lamarck.

The Greeks and Romans received the apricot about the beginning of the Christian era. Unknown in the time of Theophrastus, Dioscorides[1059] mentions it under the name of _mailon armeniacon_. He says that the Latins called it _praikokion_. It is, in fact, one of the fruits mentioned briefly by Pliny,[1060] under the name of _præcocium_, so called from the precocity of the species.[1061] Its Armenian origin is indicated by the Greek name, but this name might mean only that the species was cultivated in Armenia. Modern botanists have long had good reason to believe that the species is wild in that country. Pallas, Guldenstadt, and Hohenacker say they found it in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus Mountains, on the north, on the banks of the Terek, and to the south between the Caspian and Black Seas.[1062] Boissier[1063] admits all these localities, but without saying anything about the wild character of the species. He saw a specimen gathered by Hohenacker, near Elisabethpol. On the other hand, Tchihatcheff[1064] who has crossed Anatolia and Armenia several times, does not seem to have seen the wild apricot; and what is still more significant, Karl Koch, who travelled through the region to the south of the Caucasus, in order to observe facts of this nature, expresses himself as follows:[1065] “Native country unknown. At least, during my long sojourn in Armenia, I nowhere found the apricot wild, and I have rarely seen it even cultivated.”

A traveller, W. J. Hamilton,[1066] said he found it wild near Orgou and Outch Hisar in Anatolia: but this assertion has not been verified by a botanist. The supposed wild apricot of the ruins of Baalbek, described by Eusèbe de Salle[1067] is, from what he says of the leaf and fruit, totally different to the common apricot. Boissier, and the different collectors who sent him plants from Syria and Lebanon, do not appear to have seen the species. Spach[1068] asserts that it is indigenous in Persia, but he gives no proof. Boissier and Buhse[1069] do not mention it in their list of the plants of Transcaucasia and Persia. It is useless to seek its origin in Africa. The apricots which Reynier[1070] says he saw, “almost wild,” in Upper Egypt must have sprung from stones grown in cultivated ground, as is seen in Algeria.[1071] Schweinfurth and Ascherson,[1072] in their catalogue of the plants of Egypt and Abyssinia, only mention the species as cultivated. Besides, if it had existed formerly in the north of Africa it would have been early known to the Hebrews and the Romans. Now there is no Hebrew name, and Pliny says its introduction at Rome took place thirty years before he wrote.

Carrying our researches eastward, we find that Anglo-Indian botanists[1073] are agreed in considering that the apricot, which is generally cultivated in the north of India and in Thibet, is not wild in those regions; but they add that it has a tendency to become naturalized, and that it is found upon the site of ruined villages. Messrs. Schlagintweit brought specimens from the north-west provinces of India, and from Thibet, which Westmael verified,[1074] but he was kind enough to write to me that he cannot affirm that it was wild, since the collector’s label gives no information on that head.

Roxburgh,[1075] who did not neglect the question of origin, says, speaking of the apricot, “native of China as well as the west of Asia.” I read in Dr. Bretschneider’s curious little work,[1076] drawn up at Pekin, the following passage, which seems to me to decide the question in favour of a Chinese origin:—“_Sing_, as is well known, is the apricot (_Prunus armeniaca_). The character (a Chinese sign printed on p. 10) does not exist as indicating a fruit, either in the _Shu-king_, or in the _Shi-king_, _Cihouli_, etc., but the _Shan-hai-king_ says that several _sings_ grow upon the hills (here a Chinese character). Besides, the name of the apricot is represented by a particular sign which may show that it is indigenous in China.” The _Shan-hai-king_ is attributed to the Emperor Yü, who lived in 2205-2198 B.C. Decaisne,[1077] who was the first to suspect the Chinese origin of the apricot, has recently received from Dr. Bretschneider some specimens accompanied by the following note:—“No. 24, apricot wild in the mountains of Pekin, where it grows in abundance; the fruit is small (an inch and a quarter in diameter), the skin red and yellow; the flesh salmon colour, sour, but eatable. No. 25, the stone of the apricot cultivated round Pekin. The fruit is twice as large as that of the wild tree.”[1078] Decaisne adds, in the letter he was good enough to write to me, “In shape and surface the stones are exactly like those of our small apricots; they are smooth and not pitted.” The leaves he sent me are certainly those of the apricot.

The apricot is not mentioned in Japan, or in the basin of the river Amoor.[1079] Perhaps the cold of the winter is too great. If we recollect the absence of communication in ancient times between China and India, and the assertions that the plant is indigenous in both countries, we are at first tempted to believe that the ancient area extended from the north-west of India to China. However, if we wish to adopt this hypothesis, we must also admit that the culture of the apricot spread very late towards the West.[1080] For no Sanskrit or Hebrew name is known, but only a Hindu name, _zard alu_, and a Persian name, _mischmisch_, which has passed into Arabic.[1081] How is it to be supposed that so excellent a fruit, and one which grows in abundance in Western Asia, spread so slowly from the north-west of India towards the Græco-Roman world? The Chinese knew it two or three thousand years before the Christian era. Chang-kien went as far as Bactriana, a century before our era, and he was the first to make the West known to his fellow-countrymen.[1082] It was then, perhaps, that the apricot was introduced in Western Asia, and that it was cultivated and became naturalized here and there in the north-west of India, and at the foot of the Caucasus, by the scattering of the stones beyond the limits of the plantations.

+Almond+—_Amygdalus communis_, Linnæus; _Pruni species_, Baillon; _Prunus Amygdalus_, Hooker.

The almond grows apparently wild or half wild in the warm, dry regions of the Mediterranean basin and of western temperate Asia. As the nuts from cultivated trees naturalize the species very easily, we must have recourse to various indications to discern its ancient home.

We may first discard the notion of its origin in Eastern Asia. Japanese floras make no mention of the almond. That which M. de Bonge saw cultivated in the north of China was the _Persica Davidiana_.[1083] Dr. Bretschneider,[1084] in his classical work, tells us that he has never seen the almond cultivated in China, and that the compilation entitled _Pent-sao_, published in the tenth or eleventh century of our era, describes it as a tree of the country of the Mahometans, which signifies the north-west of India, or Persia.

Anglo-Indian botanists[1085] say that the almond is cultivated in the cool parts of India, but some add that it does not thrive, and that many almonds are brought from Persia.[1086] No Sanskrit name is known, nor even any in the languages derived from Sanskrit. Evidently the north-west of India is not the original home of the species.

On the other hand, there are many localities in the region extending from Mesopotamia and Turkestan to Algeria, where excellent botanists have found the almond tree quite wild. Boissier[1087] has seen specimens gathered in rocky ground in Mesopotamia, Aderbijan, Turkestan, Kurdistan, and in the forests of the Anti-Lebanon. Karl Koch[1088] has not found it wild to the south of the Caucasus, nor Tchihatcheff in Asia Minor. Cosson[1089] found natural woods of almond trees near Saida in Algeria. It is also regarded as wild on the coasts of Sicily and of Greece;[1090] but there, and still more in the localities in which it occurs in Italy, Spain, and France, it is probable, and almost certain, that it springs from the casual dispersal of the nuts from cultivation.

The antiquity of its existence in Western Asia is proved by Hebrew names for the almond tree—_schaked_, _luz_ or _lus_ (which recurs in the Arabic _louz_), and _schekedim_ for the nut.[1091] The Persians have another name, _badam_, but I do not know how old this is. Theophrastus and Dioscorides[1092] mention the almond by an entirely different name, _amugdalai_, translated by the Latins into _amygdalus_. It may be inferred from this that the Greeks did not receive the species from the interior of Asia, but found it in their own country, or at least in Asia Minor. The almond tree is represented in several frescoes found at Pompeii.[1093] Pliny[1094] doubts whether the species was known in Italy in Cato’s time, because it was called the Greek nut. It is very possible that the almond was introduced into Italy from the Greek islands. Almonds have not been found in the _terra-mare_ of the neighbourhood of Parma, even in the upper layers.

The late introduction of the species into Italy, and the absence of naturalization in Sardinia and Spain,[1095] incline me to doubt whether it is really indigenous in the north of Africa and Sicily. In the latter countries it was more probably naturalized some centuries ago. In confirmation of this hypothesis, I note that the Berber name of the almond, _talouzet_,[1096] is evidently connected with the Arabic _louz_, that is to say with the language of the conquerors who came after the Romans. In Western Asia, on the contrary, and even in some parts of Greece, it may be regarded as indigenous from prehistoric time. I do not say primitive, for everything was preceded by something else. I remark finally that the difference between bitter and sweet almonds was known to the Greeks and even to the Hebrews.

+Peach+—_Amygdalus persica_, Linnæus; _Persica vulgaris_, Miller; _Prunus persica_, Bentham and Hooker.

I will quote the article in which I formerly[1097] attributed a Chinese origin to the peach, a contrary opinion to that which prevailed at the time, and which people who are not on a par with modern science continue to reproduce. I will afterwards give the facts discovered since 1855.

“The Greeks and Romans received the peach shortly after the beginning of the Christian era. The names _persica_, _malum persicum_, indicate whence they had it. I need not dwell upon those well-known facts.[1098] Several kinds of peach are now cultivated in the north of India,[1099] but, what is remarkable, no Sanskrit name is known;[1100] whence we may infer that its existence and its cultivation are of no great antiquity in these regions. Roxburgh, who is usually careful to give the modern Indian names, only mentions Arab and Chinese names. Piddington gives no Indian name, and Royle only Persian names. The peach does not succeed, or requires the greatest care to ensure success, in the north-east of India.[1101] In China, on the contrary, its cultivation dates from the remotest antiquity. A number of superstitious ideas and of legends about the properties of its different varieties exist in that country.[1102] These varieties are very numerous;[1103] and in particular the singular variety with compressed or flattened fruit,[1104] which appears to be further removed than any other from the natural state of the peach; lastly, a simple name, _to_, is given to the common peach.[1105]

“From all these facts, I am inclined to believe that the peach is of Chinese rather than of western Asiatic origin. If it had existed in Persia or Armenia from all time, the knowledge and cultivation of so pleasant a fruit would have spread earlier into Asia Minor and Greece. The expedition of Alexander probably was the means of making it known to Theophrastus (332 B.C.), who speaks of it as a Persian fruit. Perhaps this vague idea of the Greeks dates from the retreat of the ten thousand (401 B.C.); but Xenophon does not mention the peach. Nor do the Hebrew writings speak of it. The peach has no Sanskrit name, yet the peoples who spoke this language came into India from the north-west; that is to say, from the generally received home of the species. On this hypothesis, how are we to account for the fact that neither the Greeks of the early times of Greece, nor the Hebrews, nor the Sanskrit-speaking peoples, who all radiated from the upper part of the Euphrates valley or communicated with it, did not cultivate the peach? On the other hand, it is very possible that the stones of a fruit tree cultivated in China from the remotest times, should have been carried over the mountains from the centre of Asia into Kashmir, Bokhara, and Persia. The Chinese had very early discovered this route. The importation would have taken place between the epoch of the Sanskrit emigrations and the relations of the Persians with the Greeks. The cultivation of the peach, once established in Persia, would have easily spread on the one side towards the west; on the other, through Cabul towards the north of India, where it is not so very ancient.

“In confirmation of the hypothesis of a Chinese origin, it may be added that the peach was introduced into Cochin-China from China,[1106] and that the Japanese give the Chinese name _Tao_[1107] to the peach. M. Stanislas Julien was kind enough to read to me in French some passages of the Japanese encyclopædia (bk. lxxxvi. p. 7), in which the peach tree _tao_ is said to be a tree of Western countries, which should be understood to mean the interior of China as compared to the eastern coast, since the passage is taken from a Chinese author. The _tao_ occurs in the writings of Confucius in the fifth century before the Christian era, and even in the _Ritual_ in the tenth century before Christ. Its wild nature is not specified in the encyclopædia of which I have just spoken; but Chinese authors pay little attention to this point.”

After a few details about the common names of the peach in different languages, I went on to say, “The absence of Sanskrit and Hebrew names remains the most important fact, whence we may infer an introduction into Western Asia from a more distant land, that is to say, from China.

“The peach has been found wild in different parts of Asia; but it is always a question whether it is indigenous there, or whether it sprang from the dispersion of stones produced by cultivated trees. The question is the more necessary since the stones germinate easily, and several of the modifications of the peach are hereditary.[1108] Apparently wild peach trees have often been found in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus. Pallas[1109] saw several on the banks of the Terek, where the inhabitants give it a name which he calls Persian, _scheptata_.[1110] Its fruit is velvety, sour, not very fleshy, and hardly larger than a walnut; the tree small. Pallas suspects that this tree has degenerated from cultivated peaches. He adds that it is found in the Crimea, to the south of the Caucasus, and in Persia; but Marshall, Bieberstein, Meyer, and Hohenacker do not give the wild peach in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus. Early travellers, Gmelin, Guldenstadt, and Georgi, quoted by Ledebour, mentioned it. C. Koch[1111] is the only modern botanist who said he found the peach tree in abundance in the Caucasian provinces. Ledebour, however, prudently adds, Is it wild? The stones which Brugnière and Olivier brought from Ispahan, which were sown in Paris and yielded a good velvety peach, were not, as Bosc[1112] asserted, taken from a peach tree wild in Persia, but from one growing in a garden at Ispahan.[1113] I do not know of any proof of a peach tree found wild in Persia, and if travellers mention any it is always to be feared that these are only sown trees. Dr. Royle[1114] says that the peach grows wild in several places south of the Himalayas, notably near Mussouri, but we have seen that its culture is not ancient in these regions, and neither Roxburgh nor Don’s _Flora Nepalensis_ mention the peach. Bunge[1115] only found cultivated trees in the north of China. This country has hardly been explored, and Chinese legends seem sometimes to indicate wild peaches. Thus the _Chou-y-ki_, according to the author previously quoted, says, ‘Whosoever eats of the peaches of Mount Kouoliou shall obtain eternal life.’ For Japan, Thunberg[1116] says, _Crescit ubique vulgaris, præcipue juxta Nagasaki. In omni horto colitur ob elegantiam florum._ It seems from this passage that the species grows both in and out of gardens, but perhaps in the first case he only alludes to peaches growing in the open air and without shelter.

“I have said nothing hitherto of the distinction to be established between the different varieties or species of the peach, since most of them are cultivated in all countries—at least the clearly defined kinds, which may be considered as botanical species. Thus the great distinction between the downy and smooth-skinned fruits (peaches proper and nectarines), on which it is proposed to found two species (_Persica vulgaris_, Mill, and _P. levis_, D. C.), exists in Japan[1117] and in Europe, as in most of the intermediate countries.[1118] Less importance is attached to distinctions founded on the adherence or non-adherence of the skin, on the white, yellow, or red colour of the flesh, and on the general form of the fruit. The great division into peaches and nectarines presents most of these modifications in Europe, in Western Asia, and probably in China. It is certain that in the latter country the form of the fruit varies more than elsewhere; for there are as in Europe oval peaches, and also the peaches of which I spoke just now, which are quite flattened, in which the top of the stone is not even covered with flesh.[1119] The colour also varies greatly.[1120] In Europe the most distinct varieties, nectarines and peaches, freestones and clingstones, existed three centuries ago, for J. Bauhin enumerates them very clearly;[1121] and before him Dalechamp, in 1587, also gave the principal ones.[1122] At that time nectarines were called _Nucipersica_, because of their resemblance in shape, size, and colour to the walnut. It is in the same sense that the Italians call them _pescanoce_.

“I have sought in vain for a proof that the nectarine existed in Italy in the time of ancient Rome. Pliny,[1123] who confounds in his compilation peaches, plums, the _Laurus Persea_,[1124] and perhaps other trees, says nothing which can apply to such a fruit. Sometimes people have thought they recognized it in the _tuberes_ of which he speaks. It was a tree imported from Syria in the time of Augustus. There were both red and white tuberes. Others (_tuberes?_ or _mala?_) of the neighbourhood of Verona were downy. Some graceful verses of Petronus, quoted by Dalechamp,[1125] clearly prove that the _tuberes_ of the Romans in Nero’s time were a smooth-skinned fruit; but this might be the jujube (_Zizyphus_), _Diospyros_, or some _Cratægus_, just as well as the smooth-skinned peach. Each author in the time of the Renaissance had his opinion on this point, or criticized that of the others.[1126] Perhaps there were two or three species of _tuberes_, as Pliny says, and one of them which was grafted on plum trees was the nectarine (?)[1127] but I doubt whether this question can ever be cleared up.[1128]

“Even admitting that the _Nucipersica_ was only introduced into Europe in the Middle Ages, we cannot help remarking that in European gardens for centuries, and in Japan from time unknown, there was an intermixture of all the principal kinds of peach. It seems that its different qualities were produced everywhere from a primitive species, which was probably the downy peach. If the two kinds had existed from the beginning, either they would have been in different countries, and their cultivation would have been established separately, or they would have been in the same country, and in this case it is probable that one kind would have been anciently introduced into this country and the other into that.”

I laid stress, in 1855, on other considerations in support of the theory that the nectarine is derived from the common peach; but Darwin has given such a large number of cases in which a branch of nectarine has unexpectedly appeared upon a peach tree, that it is useless to insist longer upon this point, and I will only add that the nectarine has every appearance of an artificial tree. Not only is it not found wild, but it never becomes naturalized, and each tree lives for a shorter time than the common peach. It is, in fact, a weakened form.

“The facility,” I said, “with which our peach trees are multiplied from seed in America, and have produced fleshy fruits, sometimes very fine ones, without the resource of grafting, inclines me to think that the species is in a natural state, little changed by a long cultivation or by hybrid fertilization. In Virginia and the neighbouring states there are peaches grown on trees raised from seed and not grafted, and their abundance is so great that brandy is made from them.[1129] On some trees the fruit is magnificent.[1130] At Juan Fernandez, says Bertero,[1131] the peach tree is so abundant that it is impossible to form an idea of the quantity of fruit which is gathered; it is usually very good, although the trees have reverted to a wild condition. From these instances it would not be surprising if the wild peaches with indifferent fruit found in Western Asia were simply naturalized trees in a climate not wholly favourable, and that the species was of Chinese origin, where its cultivation seems most ancient.”

Dr. Bretschneider,[1132] who at Pekin has access to all the resources of Chinese literature, merely says, after reading the above passages, “_Tao_ is the peach tree. De Candolle thinks that China is the native country of the peach. He may be right.”

The antiquity of the existence of the species and its wild nature in Western Asia have become more doubtful since 1855. Anglo-Indian botanists speak of the peach solely as a cultivated tree,[1133] or as cultivated and becoming naturalized and apparently wild in the north-west of India.[1134] Boissier[1135] mentions specimens gathered in Ghilan and to the south of the Caucasus, but he says nothing as to their wild nature; and Karl Koch,[1136] after travelling through this district, says, speaking of the peach, “Country unknown, perhaps Persia. Boissier saw trees growing in the gorges on Mount Hymettus, near Athens.”

The peach spreads easily in the countries in which it is cultivated, so that it is hard to say whether a given tree is of natural origin and anterior to cultivation, or whether it is naturalized. But it certainly was first cultivated in China; it was spoken of there two thousand years before its introduction into the Greco-Roman world, a thousand years perhaps before its introduction into the lands of the Sanskrit-speaking race.

The group of peaches (genus or subgenus) is composed of five forms, which Decaisne[1137] regards as species, but which other botanists are inclined to call varieties. The one is the common peach; the second the nectarine, which we know to be derived; the third is the flattened peach (_P. platycarpa_, Decaisne) cultivated in China; and the two last are indigenous in China (_P. simonii_, Decaisne, and _P. Davidii_, Carrière). It is, therefore, essentially a Chinese group.