164 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



and this agrees with the absence of the species in the region 

 of the Himalayas, and shows that the early Aryan peoples 

 had not noticed and employed it. I have quoted before ^ 

 some of the European names, showing their diversity, 

 although some few of them may be derived fi'om a com- 

 mon stock. Hehn, the philologist, has treated of their 

 etymology, and shown how obscure it is, but he has not 

 mentioned the names totally distinct from humle, hopf or 

 hop, and chmeli of the Scandinavian, Gothic, and Slav 

 races ; for example, Apini in Lette, Apwynis in Lithua- 

 nian, top in Esthonian, hlust in Illyrian,^ which have 

 evidently other roots. This variety tends to confirm the 

 theory that the species existed in Europe before the 

 arrival of the Aryan nations. Several different peoples 

 must have distinguished, known, and used this plant suc- 

 cessively, which confirms its extension in Europe and in 

 Asia before it was used in brewing. 



Carth amine — Carthavius tinctorius, Linnseus. 



The composite annual which produces the dye called 

 carth amine is one of the most ancient cultivated species. 

 Its flowers are used for dyeing in red or yellow, and the 

 seeds yield oil. 



The grave-cloths which wrap the ancient Egyptian 

 mummies are dyed with carthamine,^ and quite recently 

 fragments of the plant have been found in the tombs 

 discovered at Deir el Bahari.^ Its cultivation must also 

 be ancient in India, since there are two Sanskrit names 

 for it, cusumhha and kamalottara, of which the first has 

 several derivatives in the modern languages of the 

 peninsula.^ The Chinese only received carthamine in 

 the second century B.C., when Chang-kien brought it 

 back from Bactriana.^ The Greeks and Latins were 

 probably not acquainted with it, for it is very doubtful 

 whether this is the plant which they knew as cnikos or 

 cnicvbs? At a later period the Arabs contributed largely 



^ A. de Candolle, Geogr. Bot. Rais., p. 857. 

 ^ Diet. MS; compiled fi'om floras, Moritzi. 

 ' Uno-er, Die Pjianzen des Alien Mgypiens, p. 47. 



* Scbweinfurth, in a letter to M. Boissier, 1882. * Piddington, Index, 



• Bretschneider, Study and Value, etc., p. 15. 

 ' See Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 108. 



