194 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



admits that both Semitic and Aryan nations knew the 

 use of wine, so that they may have introduced it into all 

 the countries into which they migrated, into India and 

 Egypt and Europe. This they were the better able to 

 do, since they found the vine wild in several of these 

 regions. 



The records of the cultivation of the grape and of the 

 making of wine in Egypt go back five or six thousand 

 years.-^ In the West the propagation of its culture by 

 the Phenicians, Greeks, and Romans is pretty well 

 known, but to the east of Asia it took place at a late 

 period. The Chinese who now cultivate the vine in 

 their northern provinces did not possess it earlier than 

 the year 122 B.c.^ 



It is known that several wild vines exist in the north 

 of China, but I cannot agree with M. Kegel in consider- 

 ing Vitis Araurensis, Ruprecht, the one most analogous 

 to our vine, as identical in species. The seeds drawn in 

 the Gartenflora, 1861, pi. 33, differ too widely. If the 

 fruit of these vines of Eastern Asia had any value, the 

 Chinese would certainly have turned them to account. 



Common Jujube — Zizyphus vulgaris, Lamarck. 



According to Pliny,^ the jujube tree was brought from 

 Syria to Rome by the consul Sextus Papinius, towards 

 the end of the reign of Augustus. Botanists, however, 

 have observed that the species is common in rocky 

 places in Italy ,^ and that, moreover, it has not yet been 

 found wild in Syria, although it is cultivated there, as 

 in the whole region extending from the Mediterranean 

 to China and Japan.^ 



The result of the search for the origin of the jujube 

 tree as a wild plant bears out Pliny's assertion, in spite 



^ M. Delchevalerie, in V Illustration Horticole, 1881, p. 28. He 

 mentions in particular the tomb of Phtah-Hotep, who lived at Memphis 

 4000 B.C. 



2 Bretschneider, Stvdy and Value, etc., p. 16. 



' Pliny, Hist., lib. 15, c. 14.- 



* Bertoloni, Fl. Ital, ii. p. 665; Gussone, Syn. Fl. SicuL, ii. p. 276. 



^ Wilikomm and Lange, Prod. FL Hisp., iii. p. 480; Desfontaines, Fl. 

 Atlant., i. p. 200 ; Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 12 ; J. Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., 

 i. p. 633 ; Buuge, Enum. PI. Chin., p. 14; Franchet and Savatier, Enum. 

 Pi, Jap.^ i. p. 81. 



