Oi ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



It is believed that the kactos, Jcinara, and scolimos of 

 the Greeks, and the cardials of Roman horticulturists, 

 were Cynara carduncidus,^ although the most detailed 

 description, that of Theophrastus, is sufficicmtly confused. 

 "The plant/' he said, "grows in Sicily" — as it does to this 

 day — "and," he added, "not in Greece." It is, therefore, 

 possible that the plants observed in our day in that 

 country may have been naturalized from cultivation. 

 According to Athenseus,^ the Egyptian king Ptolemy 

 Energetes, of the second century before Christ, had found 

 in Libya a great quantity of wild Jcinara, by which his 

 soldiers had profited. 



Although the indigenous species was to be found at 

 such a little distance, I am very doubtful whether the 

 ancient Egyptians cultivated the cardoon or the artichoke. 

 Pickering and linger ^ believed they recognized it in some 

 of the drawings on the monuments ; but the two figures 

 which linger considers the most admissible seem to me 

 extremely doubtful. Moreover, no Hebrew name is known, 

 and the Jews would probably have spoken of this vege- 

 table had they seen it in Egypt. The diffusion of the 

 species in Asia must have taken place somewhat late. 

 There is an Ai-ab name, hirschiiff or kerschouff, and a 

 Persian name, kunghir,'^ but no Sanskrit name, and the 

 Hindus have taken the Persian word kunjir,^ which 

 shows that it was introduced at a late epoch. Chinese 

 authors do not mention any Cynara.^ The cultivation 

 of the artichoke was only introduced into England in 

 1548."^ One of the most curious facts in the history of 

 Cynara cardunculus is its naturalization in the present 

 century over a vast extent of the Pampas of Buenos 

 Ayres, where its abundance is a hindrance to travellers.^ 



1 Theophrastus, Hist., 1. 6, c. 4 ; Pliny, Hist., I. 19, c. 8 ; Lenz, 

 J^ot. der Alten Griechen and Rijmer, p. 480. 



' Athensens, Deipn., ii. 84. 



' Pickering, Cliron. Arrangement, p. 71 ; Unger, Tflanzen der Alten 

 .Egyptens, p. 46, figs. 27 and 28. 



* Ainslie, Mat. Med. Ind., i. p. 22. ^ Piddington, Index. 

 ^ Bretschneider, Study, etc., and Letters of 1881. 



' Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Garden, p. 22. 



* Aug. de Saint Hilary, Plantes Remarkahles du Bresil, Introd., p. 58; 

 Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, ii. p. 34. 



