108 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



■discovered in the excavations on the site of Troy.^ There 

 are a number of common names in Spain, some of them 

 Arabic,^ but the species has not been so widely cultivated 

 there for several centuries.^ In France it is so little 

 grown that many modern works on agriculture do not 

 mention it. It is unkno'v\Ti in British India.* 



General botanical works indicate Ervv/in Ervilia as 

 growing in Southern Europe, but if we take severally the 

 best floras, it will be seen that it is in such localities as 

 fields, vineyards, or cultivated ground. It is the same in 

 Western Asia, where Boissier ^ speaks of specimens from 

 Syria, Persia, and Afghanistan. Sometimes, in abridged 

 catalogues,^ the locality is not given, but nowhere do I 

 find it asserted that the plant has been seen wild in places 

 far from cultivation. The specimens in my own herbarium 

 furnish no further proof on this head. 



In all likelihood the sjiecies was formerly wild in 

 Greece, Italy, and perhaps Spain and Algeria, but the 

 frequency of its cultivation in the very regions Avhere it 

 existed prevent us from now finding the wild stocks. 



Tare, or Common Vetch — Vicia sativa, Linnseus. 



Vicia sativa is an annual leguminous plant wild 

 throughout Europe, except in Lapland. It is also common 

 in Algeria,"^ and to the south of the Caucasus as far as the 

 province of Talysch.^ Roxburgh pronounces it to be 

 wild in the north-west provinces and in Bengal, but Sir 

 Joseph Hooker admits this only as far as the variety called 

 angustifolia ^ is concerned. No Sanskrit name is known, 

 and in the modern languages of India only Hindu names.^^ 

 Targioni believes it to be the ketsach of the Hebrews.^^ 



^ Wittmack, Sitzungsher Bot. Vereins Brandenburg, Dec. 19, 1879. 

 Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 308. 



^ Baker, in Hooker's FZ. Brit. Ind. 



^ Herrera, AgricvXtura, edit. 1819, iv. p. 72. 



^ Baker, in Hooker's Fl. Brit. Ind. 



^' For instance, Munby, Catal. Plant Algerice, edit. 2, p. 12. 



" Munby, Catal., edit. 2. 



* Ledebour, Fl. Ross., i. p. 6G6 ; Holienacker, Enum. Plani. Talysch, 

 p. 113 ; C. A. Meyer, Verzeiclmiss, p. 147. 



^ Eoxburgh, Fl. Pud., edit. 1832, iii. p. 323; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., 

 li. p. 178. 



^'^ Piddington's Index gives four. " Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 30. 



