1G2 IIISTOBICAL NOTES ON 



either omitted, or inserted as doubtful natives or escaped from 

 cultivation ; or if in some instances positive native stations are 

 given for the P. insititia, it is generally some variety of the 

 P. spinosa that has been mistaken for it. 



Several varieties of the garden plum were introduced by the 

 ancient Romans from the P]ast, as we are informed by Pliny, 

 since the days of Cato, who was born two hundred and thirty-two 

 vears before the Christian era. Such was, for instance, the davisnn 

 or damascene jjlton, corrupted into moscive by the Italians, which 

 came from Damascus in Syria, and was very early cultivated by 

 the Romans. This was probably the early or summer damson, 

 not known in Tuscany in the time of Micheli ; but another similar 

 variety, much cultivated in Liguria, the autumn or winter 

 damson, was brought there from the I^ast by the Genoese 

 returning from the Crusades. Muratori says that the Italian 

 name for the plum, Siislne, was derived from Susa in Persia, whence 

 it had been introduced into Italy. But the most ancient Latin 

 name was primus, and with the Greeks coccymela. 



Pliny enumerates eleven varieties of plums, amongst which the 

 ceriva, mentioned also by Virgil and Ovid, is, according to Fee, 

 the Mirabelle ; the j)!f»7)!f)w/, is said to be the inyrobolan, which 

 however cannot be the case, if the latter be, as is supposed, of 

 American origin ; and the damascena is the summer damson. 

 In Tuscany a considerable number are enumerated as very 

 common, by Matthioli, in the sixteenth century. At a later 

 period, Father Agostino del Riccio mentions several as new 

 since he was young, and amongst them the myrobolans, said to be 

 natives of North America. Canon Lorenzo Panciatichi gives the 

 names of eigliteen sorts, as common in the seventeenth century ; 

 and Micheli has fifty-two in the above-quoted manuscript list of 

 fruits for the Grand Ducal table, and seventy-three in another of 

 rare plants cultivated in Tuscany. 



The Almond (Amygdalus communis) is said to be really 

 indigenous in several of the floras of the Southern and Eastern 

 Mediterranean regions, including Southern Italy and Sicily, but 

 it is extensively cultivated and grows so readily over the whole of 

 South Europe that it may in many instances have spread from 

 cultivation. It is liowever probably a true native, at least of 

 Crete and Syria. It was well known to the ancients, and is 

 supposed to be the Sciakedln of Scripture, sent as a present to 

 Joseph in Egypt, from the land of Canaan. Dioscorides and 

 Galenus speak of its medicinal properties under the name of 



