196 ORIGIX OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



recent introduction. The same arguments apply to 

 Italy. The species may have become naturalized there 

 after the introduction into gardens mentioned by 

 Pliny. 



In Algeria the jujube is only cultivated or half-wild.^ 

 So also in Spain. It is not mentioned in Marocco, nor in 

 the Canary Isles, which argues no very ancient existence 

 in the Mediterranean basin. 



It appears to me probable, therefore, that the species 

 is a native of the north of China ; that it was intro- 

 duced and became naturalized in the west of Asia after 

 the epoch of the Sanskrit language, perhaps two thousand 

 five hundred or three thousand years ago; that the 

 Greeks and Romans became acquainted with it at the 

 beginning of our era, and that the latter carried it into 

 Barbary and Spain, where it became partially naturalized 

 by the effect of cultivation. 



Lotus Jujube — Zizyjohus lotus, Desfontaines. 



The fruit of this jujube is not worthy of attention 

 except from an historical point of view. It is said to have 

 been the food of the lotus-eater, a people of the Lybian 

 coast, of whom Herod and Herodotos ^ have given a more 

 or less accurate account. The inhabitants of this country 

 must have been very poor or very temperate, for a berry 

 the size of a smaU cherry, tasteless, or slightly sweet, 

 would not satisfy ordinary men. There is no proof that 

 the lotus-eaters cultivated this little tree or shrub. They 

 doubtless gathered the fruit in the open country, for the 

 species is common in the north of Africa. One edition 

 of Theophrastus ^ asserts, however, that there were some 

 species of lotus without stones, which would imply culti- 

 vation. They were planted in gardens, as is still done 

 in modern Egypt,* but it does not seem to have been a 

 common custom even among the ancients. 



For the rest, widely different opinions have been held 



^ Munbv, Catal, edit. 2, p. 9. 



2 Odyssey, bk. 1, v. 84 ; Herodotos, 1. 4, p. 177, trans, in Lenz, Bot. 

 der Alt., p. 653. 



3 Theophrastus, Eist, 1. 4, c. 4, edit. 1644. The edition of 1613 does 

 not contain the words which refer to this detail. 



* Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Beitr. zur Fl. Mthiop., p. 263. 



