Wittmack — Oxer Present Knowledge of Ancient Plants. 9 



and the bitter and the sweet oranges. Schouw concludes, in 

 the words of Goethe: "Italy was at that time not yet the 

 land where the lemons blossom and in the dark groves the 

 golden oranges glow." (" Das Land, wo die Citronen bliihn, 

 ira dunklen Laub die Goldorangen gliihn.") 



We cannot imagine Italy without these trees, nor without 

 corn, tomatoes, agaves and Indian figs [Ojmntia), the two 

 latter now forming the hedges along the railroads. All these 

 plants were introduced recently, relatively speaking. The 

 Cedrat {Citrus medica) perhaps 300 A. D., but according to 

 Victor Helm some hundred years earlier. Pliny, who lived 

 about the year 79 A. D., says that they had in vain tried to 

 introduce the Median apple, which is probably this Citrus 

 medica. The lemons and the bitter oranges were introduced 

 probably by the Moors in the middle ages and the sweet 

 oranges by the Portuguese after they had discovered China 

 (about the year 1550). Therefore the sweet oranges are 

 sometimes called in Naples " Portogalli," and in Germany 

 " Apfelsinen " which means Chinese apples. The corn, the 

 tomatoes, agaves, and Indian figs were introduced from 

 America. 



But you will ask: " What about the golden apples of the 

 Hesperides?" Victor Helm in his famous book " Kultur- 

 pflanzen und Haustiere " says that their existence is but a fable. 

 I hesitate to voice a conclusion so decisive. They may have 

 been simply real yellow apples or perhaps yellow quinces, as 

 one variety of the quince was called golden quince by the 

 Ancients, who made no strong differentiation between quinces 

 and apples. 



After Schouw nearly thirty years elapsed until a new 

 essay on the plants of Pompeii appeared. This was a scien- 

 tific treatise on the plants of the wall-paintings by Prof. 

 Comes, who is still Professor of Botany at the Agricultural 

 High School at Portici, near Naples, and the best connoisseur 

 of the varieties of the tobacco-plant. It is published in the 

 great work issued in commemoration of the 1800th anniver- 

 sary of the destruction of Pompeii, entitled " Pompeii e lare- 

 gione sotterrata del Vesuvio nell anno LXXIX," Napoli, 1879. 



