PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLOWERS, ETC. 165 



to diffuse the cultivation of carthamine, which they 

 named qorton, kicrtum, whence carthaviine, or usfur, 

 or ihrid\ or onorahii,^ a diversity indicating an ancient 

 existence in several countries of Western Asia or of 

 Africa. The progress of chemistry threatens to do away 

 with the cultivation of this plant as of many others, but 

 it still subsists in the south of Europe, in the East, and 

 throughout the valley of the Nile.^ 



No botanist has found the carthamine in a really 

 wild state. Authors doubtfully assign to it an origin in 

 India or Africa, in Abyssinia in particular, but they have 

 never seen it except in a cultivated state, or with every 

 appearance of having escaped from cultivation.^ 



Mr. Clarke,^ formerly director of the Botanical Gardens 

 in Calcutta, who has lately studied the CompositcE of 

 India, includes the species only as a cultivated one. 

 The summary of our modern knowledge of the plants 

 of the Nile region, including Abyssinia, by Schweinfurth 

 and Ascherson,^ only indicates it as a cultivated species, 

 nor does the list of the plants observed by Rohlfs on his 

 recent journey mention a wild carthamine.^ 



As the species has not been found wild either in 

 India or in Africa, and as it has been cultivated for 

 thousands of years in both countries, the idea occurred 

 to me of seeking its origin in the intermediate region ; a 

 method which had been successful in other cases. 



Unfortunately, the interior of Arabia is almost un- 

 known. Forskal, who has visited the coasts of Yemen, 

 has learnt nothing about the carthamine ; nor is it 

 mentioned among the plants of Botta and of Bove. But 

 an Arab, Abu Anifa, quoted by Ebn Baithar, a thirteenth- 

 century writer, expressed himself as follows : "^ — " Usfur, 

 this plant furnishes a substance used as a dye ; there are 

 two kinds, one cultivated and one w^ild, which both grow 



^ Forskal, Fl. 2Egypt., p. 73 ; Ebn Baithar, Germ, trans., ii. pp. 196, 

 293 ; i. p. 18. 



^ See Gasparin, Cours d'Agric, iv. p. 217. 



^ Boissier, Fl. Orient., iii. p. 710 ; Oliver, Flora of Trap. Afr., iii. p. 439. 



* Clarke, Conipositce Indicce, 1876, p. 244. 



* Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Aufz'dhlung, p. 283. 



* Rohlfs, Kufra, in 8vo, 1881. ^ Ebn Baithar, ii. p. 196. 



