CULTIVATED PLANTS. 177 



by Benvenuto Cellini on a basin iu the Royal collection at 

 Florence, executed in the sixteenth century, but whence that 

 artist derived his models is unknown. 



The Pride of India (Melia azedarach), now common in 

 Southern Europe, is an East Indian tree, first brought into 

 Italy from the Levant in the sixteenth century, as it is supposed, 

 by the Franciscan friars. It was then chiefly planted about 

 convents, the perforated kernels being used for making paternoster 

 chaplets. It is first mentioned in Tuscan catalogues in 1(335. 



The JuUbrissiii (Albizzia julibrissin), a favourite ornamental 

 tree in Southern Europe, as well as in Northern Africa, the 

 Levant, and East India, is a native of the mountains of Central 

 Asia, from the Caucasus to China. It was first brought into 

 Italy from Constantinople in 1749, by the Cavaliere FiUppo 

 Albizzi, to whom Durazzini dedicated the genus he founded 

 upon it, which has been adopted by botanists since the last revision 

 of the Mimosas of Linnaeus. 



The Lilac (Syringa vulgaris) is supposed to be a Persian 

 shrub, introduced into Europe about the year 1597. It was, 

 however, certainly in the botanical garden at Padua before 1577, 

 for Matthioli, who died in that year, tells us he had received a 

 fresh specimen in flower from Cortusa, then director of the 

 Padua garden, during the time that he was finishing his com- 

 mentary on Dioscorides. The small-leaved Persian lilac 

 (Syringa persica) is of still more recent introduction, and said to 

 come from the same country. We are not aware of any really 

 wild specimens of either species having been deposited in our 

 herbaria, or having been actually met with by modern travellers, 

 but we should be inclined to believe that the common lilac is but 

 a luxuriant variety of the Persian produced by cultivation, and 

 the more so as some intermediate forms known by the names of 

 lilas varin, &c., have been raised from seeds of the latter. The 

 Transylvanian Syringa Josikaea, now occasionally to be met with 

 in gardens, is a perfectly distinct scentless species. 



Hibiscus syriacus, the Althaia frutex of om' gardens, of Syrian 

 origin, as its name implies, has become naturalised in the hedges 

 of some parts of Northern Italy. The precise date of its 

 introduction is unknown, but it certainly had already been for 

 some years in Florentine gardens previous to 1596, the period 

 assigned for its introduction into England. 



Amongst the North American trees, more or less generally 

 established in Italy, Professor Targioni enters into some details 



