Origin of Cultivated Plants. Alphonse de Candolle

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type="note">357 that it grows in India to the height of five thousand feet in the Himalayas. He also mentions having found in the north-west of India the variety with upright stem, which is cultivated together with the common species in Europe. I find nothing positive about the localities in Persia, but so many are mentioned, and in countries so little cultivated, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus, and even in the south of Russia,358 that it is difficult not to admit that the plant is indigenous in that central region whence the Asiatic peoples overran Europe. In Greece the plant is wild as well as cultivated.359 Further to the west, in Italy, etc., we begin to find it indicated in floras, but only growing in fields, gardens, rubbish-heaps, and other suspicious localities.360

      Thus the evidence of philology and botany alike show that the species is indigenous in the whole of the region which extends from the western Himalayas to the south of Russia and Greece.

      New Zealand Spinach—Tetragonia expansa, Murray.

      This plant was brought from New Zealand at the time of Cook’s famous voyage, and cultivated by Sir Joseph Banks, and hence its name. It is a singular plant from a double point of view. In the first place, it is the only cultivated species which comes from New Zealand; and secondly, it belongs to an order of usually fleshy plants, the Ficoideæ, of which no other species is used. Horticulturists361 recommend it as an annual vegetable, of which the taste resembles that of spinach, but which bears drought better, and is therefore a resource in seasons when spinach fails.

      Since Cook’s voyage it has been found wild chiefly on the sea coast, not only in New Zealand but also in Tasmania, in the south and west of Australia, in Japan, and in South America.362 It remains to be discovered whether in the latter places it is not naturalized, for it is found in the neighbourhood of towns in Japan and Chili.363

      Garden Celery—Apium graveolens, Linnæus.

      Like many Umbellifers which grow in damp places, wild celery has a wide range. It extends from Sweden to Algeria, Egypt, Abyssinia, and in Asia from the Caucasus to Beluchistan, and the mountains of British India.364

      It is spoken of in the Odyssey under the name of selinon, and in Theophrastus; but later, Dioscorides and Pliny365 distinguish between the wild and cultivated celery. In the latter the leaves are blanched, which greatly diminishes their bitterness. The long course of cultivation explains the numerous garden varieties. The one which differs more widely from the wild plant is that of which the fleshy root is eaten cooked.

      Chervil—Scandix cerefolium, Linnæus; Anthriscus cerefolium, Hoffmann.

      Not long ago the origin of this little Umbellifer, so common in our gardens, was unknown. Like many annuals, it sprang up on rubbish-heaps, in hedges, in waste places, and it was doubted whether it should be considered wild. In the west and south of Europe it seems to have been introduced, and more or less naturalized; but in the south-east of Russia and in western temperate Asia it appears to be indigenous. Steven366 tells us that it is found “here and there in the woods of the Crimea.” Boissier367 received several specimens from the provinces to the south of the Caucasus, from Turcomania and the mountains of the north of Persia, localities of which the species is probably a native. It is wanting in the floras of India and the east of Asia.

      Greek authors do not mention it. The first mention of the plant by ancient writers occurs in Columella and Pliny,368 that is, at the beginning of the Christian era. It was then cultivated. Pliny calls it cerefolium. The species was probably introduced into the Greco-Roman world after the time of Theophrastus, that is in the course of the three centuries which preceded our era.

      Parsley—Petroselinum sativum, Mœnch.

      This biennial Umbellifer is wild in the south of Europe, from Spain to Turkey. It has also been found at Tlemcen in Algeria, and in Lebanon.369

      Dioscorides and Pliny speak of it under the names of Petroselinon and Petroselinum,370 but only as a wild medicinal plant. Nothing proves that it was cultivated in their time. In the Middle Ages Charlemagne counted it among the plants which he ordered to be cultivated in his gardens.371 Olivier de Serres in the sixteenth century cultivated parsley. English gardeners received it in 1548.372 Although this cultivation is neither ancient nor important, it has already developed two varieties, which would be called species if they were found wild; the parsley with crinkled leaves, and that of which the fleshy root is edible.

      Smyrnium, or Alexanders—Smyrnium olus-atrum, Linnæus.

      Of all the Umbellifers used as vegetables, this was one of the commonest in gardens for nearly fifteen centuries, and it is now abandoned. “We can trace its beginning and end. Theophrastus spoke of it as a medicinal plant under the name of Ipposelinon, but three centuries later Dioscorides373 says that either the root or the leaves might be eaten, which implies cultivation. The Latins called it olus-atrum, Charlemagne olisatum, and commanded it to be sown in his farms.374 The Italians made great use of it under the name macerone.375 At the end of the eighteenth century the tradition existed in England that this plant had been formerly cultivated; later English and French horticulturists do not mention it.376

      The Smyrnium olus-atrum is wild throughout Southern Europe, in Algeria, Syria, and Asia Minor.377

      Corn Salad, or Lamb’s Lettuce—Valerianella olitoria, Linnæus.

      Frequently cultivated as a salad, this annual, of the Valerian family, is found wild throughout temperate Europe to about the sixtieth degree of latitude, in Southern Europe, in the Canary Isles, Madeira, and the Azores, in the north of Africa, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus.378 It often grows in cultivated ground, near villages, etc., which renders it somewhat difficult to know where it grew before cultivation. It is mentioned, however, in Sardinia and Sicily, in the meadows and mountain pastures.379 I suspect that it is indigenous only in these islands, and that everywhere else it is introduced or naturalized. The grounds for this opinion are the fact that no name which it seems possible to assign to this plant has been found in Greek or Latin authors. We cannot even name any botanist of the Middle Ages or of the sixteenth century who has spoken of it. Neither is it mentioned among the vegetables used in France in the seventeenth century, either by the Jardinier Français of 1651, or by Laurenberg’s work, Horticultura (Frankfurt, 1632). The cultivation and even the use of this salad appear to be modern, a fact which has not been noticed.

      Cardoon—Cynara cardunculus, Linnæus.

      Artichoke—Cynara scolymus, Linnæus; C. cardunculus, var. sativa, Moris.

      For a long time botanists have held the opinion that the artichoke is probably a form obtained by cultivation from the wild cardoon.380 Careful observations have lately proved this hypothesis. Moris,381 for instance, having cultivated, in the garden at Turin, the wild Sardinian plant side by side

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