PLANTS CUXTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 91 



Dioscorides and Pliny speak of it under the names 

 of Petroselinon and Petroselinvmi^ but only as a vnld. 

 medicinal plant. Nothing proves that it was cultivated in 

 their time. In the Middle Ages Charlemagne counted it 

 among the plants which he ordered to be cultivated in 

 his gardens.^ Olivier de Serres in the sixteenth century 

 cultivated parsley. English gardeners received it in 

 1548.^ Although this cultivation is neither ancient nor 

 important, it has already developed two varieties, which 

 would be called species if they were found wild ; the 

 parsley with crinkled leaves, and that of which the fleshy 

 root is edible. 



Smyrnium, or Alexanders — Smyrnmm olus-atrum, 

 Linnfeus. 



Of all the Umbellifers used as vegetables, this was one 

 of the commonest in gardens for nearly fifteen centuries, 

 and it is now abandoned. We can trace its beoinnino; 

 and end. Theophrastus spoke of it as a medicinal jDlant 

 under the name of Iiyposelinon, but three centuries later 

 Dioscorides* says that either the root or the leaves 

 might be eaten, which implies cultivation. The Latins 

 called it olus-atrum, Charlemagne olisatuni, and com- 

 manded it to be sown in his farms.^ The Italians made 

 great use of it under the name onacerone.^ At the end 

 of the eighteenth century the tradition existed in Eng- 

 land that this plant had been formerly cultivated ; later 

 English and French horticulturists do not mention it.'' 



The Smyrnium olus-atrum is wild throughout 

 Southern Europe, in Algeria, Syria, and Asia Minor.^ 



Corn Salad, or Lamb's Lettuce — Valerianella olitoria„ 

 Linnaeus. 



> Dioscorides, Mat. Med., 1. 3, c. 70 ; Pliny, Bist., 1. 20, ch. 12. 

 - The list of these plants may be found in Meyer, Gesch. der Bof.,. 

 iii. p. 401. 



^ Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Garden, ii. p. 35. 



* Theophrastus, Hist., 1. 1, 9 ; 1. 2, 2 j 1. 7, 6 ; Dioscorides, Mat. Med., 

 1. 3, c. 71. 



^ E. Meyer, Gesch. der Bot., iii. p. 401. 

 ^ Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 58. 



^ English Botany, t. 230 ; Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Garden^ 

 Le Bon Jardinier. 



* Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 927. 



