218 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



that of the wild tree." ^ Decaisne adds, in the letter 

 he was good enough to write to me, " In shape and 

 surface the stones are exactly like those of our small 

 apricots ; they are smooth and not pitted." The leaves 

 he sent me are certainly those of the apricot. 



The apricot is not mentioned in Japan, or in the basin 

 of the river Amoor.^ Perhaps the cold of the winter is 

 too gTeat. If we recollect the absence of communication 

 in ancient times between China and India, and the 

 assertions that the plant is indigenous in both countries, 

 we are at first tempted to believe that the ancient area 

 extended from the north-west of India to China. How- 

 ever, if we wish to adopt this hypothesis, we must also 

 admit that the culture of the apricot spread very late 

 towards the West.^ For no Sanskrit or Hebrew name is 

 known, but only a Hindu name, zarcl alu, and a Persian 

 name, onischmisch, which has passed into Arabic.^ How 

 is it to be supposed that so excellent a fruit, and one 

 which grows in abundance in Western Asia, spread so 

 slowly from the north-west of India towards the Graeco- 

 Roman world ? The Chinese knew it two or three 

 thousand years before the Christian era. Changkien 

 went as far as Bactriana, a century before our era, and 

 he was the first to make the West known to his fellow- 

 countrymen.^ It was then, perhaps, that the apricot was 

 introduced in Western Asia, and that it was cultivated 

 and became naturalized here and there in the north-west 

 of India, and at the foot of the Caucasus, by the scatter- 

 ing of the stones beyond the limits of the plantations. 



Almond — Amygdalus communis, Linnaeus ; Pruni 

 species, Baillon ; Frunus Amygdalus, Hooker. 



' Dr. Bretschneider confirms tliis in a recent work. Notes on Botanical 

 Questions, p. 3. 



2 Prunus armeniaca of Thnnberg is P. mxime of Siebold and Zuccha- 

 rini. The apricot is not mentioned in the Enumeratio, etc., of Franchet 

 and Savatier. 



^ Captis {Ann. 8c. Nat., sixth series, voL xv. p. 206) found it wild in 

 Turkestan at the height of four thousand to seven thousand feet, which 

 weakens the hypothesis of a solely Chinese origin. 



* Piddington, Index ; Koxburgh, Fl. Lid. ; Forskal, Fl. Mgyjp. ; Delile, 

 III. Egypt. 



^ Bretschneider, On the Study and Value, etc. 



