CULTIVATED PLANTS. 165 



parent is no other than the common almond, a conjecture founded 

 perhaps on the similarity in the leaves and in the perforations of 

 the endocarp, but rejected as absurd by those who attach even 

 generic importance to the succulence of the indehiscent pericarp. 

 This point cannot be decided with any degree of plausibility until 

 we shall have a better knowledge of the different forms which the 

 fruits of wild Amygdali may assume under various circum- 

 stances ; but we may mention, as circumstances in some degree 

 favouring the supposition that some kind of almond is the parent 

 of the peach, the ancient tradition referred to by Targioni (with 

 the remark that it is contradicted by Pliny, and by common 

 sense) that the peach in Persia was poisonous, and became 

 innocuous when transported to Egypt, and the case quoted of a 

 supposed hybrid raised in 1831 in Sig. Giuseppe Bartolucci's 

 garden, at Colle di Val d' Else, from a peach-stone which 

 produced fruits at first exactly like almonds, but which, as they 

 ripened, assumed the appearance and succulence of peaches, 

 whilst the kernel remained sweet and oily, like those of almonds. 

 We might also refer to some bad varieties of peach with very 

 little juice to their pericarps, although we do not know of any 

 which assume the flattened form of our almond, a distinctive 

 character which appears to us to be of considerable importance. 

 The foliage and flowers of the two trees show little or no specific 

 difference. 



The Jujube (Zizyphus vulgaris), a common tree in the Levant, 

 is also now found wild in various parts of South Italy and Sicily, 

 but Italian botanists are much divided in opinion as to whether it 

 is really indigenous, or become naturalised only after cultivation. 

 Prof. Targioni, after Bertoloni, adopts the former opinion, and 

 considers that the erroneous belief in its exotic origin arises from 

 a mistaken assertion of Pliny's that jujubes did not exist in Italy 

 prior to their importation from Syria by the Consul Sextus 

 Papinius towards the end of the age of Augustus. Among the 

 ancients, Hippocrates considered the fruits as medicinal; Galen 

 depreciated them both as medicine and as food. Modern cultiva- 

 tion has produced a few varieties, and there is a considerable 

 consumption of them in some parts of the south of Europe either 

 as an inferior raw fruit, or for the manufacture of the pectoral 

 lozenges known as 2Jdte de jujube ; but they are little appreciated 

 in modern Italy, and were still less so in earlier times. 



We learn from Pliny and Galen that the Pistachio-nut 

 (Pistacia vera) is a native of Syria, and from the former writer 



