CULTIVATED PLANTS. ] 43 



vegetable, the part eaten beiug the petioles of the leaves. In 

 Italy the first record of tlie artichoke cultivated for the sake of 

 the head, or rather the receptacle of the flower, was at Naples, 

 in the beginning or middle of the 15th century. It was 

 thence carried to Florence, in 1466; and at Venice, Ermolao 

 Barbaro, who died as late as 1493, only knew of a single plant 

 grown as a novelty in a private garden, although it soon after 

 became a staple article of food over a great part of the 

 Peninsula. 



Lettuces, Chicory and Endive, appear all to have been in 

 cultivation ever since the times of the ancient Greeks and 

 Romans, without any record of their first introduction. The 

 numerous varieties of the Lettuce have been referred by modern 

 botanists to three supposed species, (Lactuca sativa, L. capitata, and 

 L. crispa), and, as no plants so characterised are now to be found 

 wild in our own quarter of the globe, their origin is vaguely 

 assigned, as usual, to East India. That country may, however, 

 be well ransacked before cabbage- or cos-lettuces are met with 

 growing wild in the mountains. Their prototypes may be sought 

 for with much better chance of success amongst the common wild 

 LactuccB of the Mediterranean region, but can only be determined 

 with any degree of probability by a more correct knowledge of the 

 changes pi'oduced by luxuriant cultivation on their foliage thqn 

 we now possess. The cultivated Chicory is universally acknow- 

 ledged to be but a slightly altered variety of the wild plant 

 (Cichorium intybus) so common over a great part of Europe ; 

 the Endive, on the contrary, is always enumerated as a distinct 

 species (Cichoiium endivia) of unknown origin, unless it be " East 

 India." We fear it must share the fate of the Lettuces, be 

 erased from the list of botanical species, and reduced to the rank 

 of a cultivated variety of the Chicory. 



UmhcllifercB abound in the hot regions which surround the 

 Mediterranean, and the strong flavour which pervades every part 

 of many species has brought several of them into use in very 

 early ages, eitlier as condiments, or as articles of food. Some of 

 them, either from inattention, or from not being considered of 

 sufiicieut value to cultivate, have remained unaltered, and their 

 use has not been extended beyond the limited circles in which 

 they are found wild, whilst in others man has succeeded in pro- 

 ducing such a development of the tap-root, or of the lower part 

 of the stem and leaves, with a corresponding softening down of 

 the asperity of the flavour, as to supply excellent culinary 



