372 ORIGIX OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Thus historical and philological data show that the 

 species probably had its origin in the countries north of 

 the Danube, and that its cultivation is hardly earlier 

 than the Christian era in the Roman empire, but perhaps 

 more ancient in Russia and Tartary. 



The indication of wild rye given by several authors 

 should scarcely ever be accepted, for it has often hap- 

 pened that Secale cereale has been confounded with 

 perennial species, or with others of which the ear is easily 

 broken, which modern botanists have rightly dis- 

 tinguished.^ Many mistakes which thus arose have been 

 cleared up by an examination of original specimens. 

 Others may be suspected. Thus I do not know what 

 to think of the assertions of L. Ross, who said he had 

 found rye growing wild in several parts of Anatolia,^ 

 and of the Russian traveller Ssaewerzoff, who said he 

 saw it in Turkestan.^ The latter fact is probable enough, 

 but it is not said that any botanist verified the species. 

 Kunth^ had pre%dously mentioned it in "the desert 

 between the Black Sea and the Caspian," but he does 

 not say on what authority of traveller or of specimens. 

 Boissier's herbarium has sho^\Ti me no wild Secale cereale, 

 but it has persuaded me that another species of rye 

 might easily be mistaken for this one, and that asser- 

 tions require to be carefully verified. 



Failing satisfactory proofs of wild plants, I formerly 

 urged, in my Geograiohie Botanique Raisonnee, an argu- 

 ment of some value. Secale cereale sows itself from 

 cultivation, and becomes almost wild in parts of the 

 Austrian empire,^ which is seldom seen elsewhere.^ Thus 



^ Secale fragile, Bieberstein; B. anatolicum, Boissier; S. montanum, 

 Gnssone ; S. villosum, Linnaeus. I explained in my Geogr. Botanique, 

 p. 936, the errors which, result from this confusion, when rye was said to 

 be wild in Sicily, Crete, and sometimes in Russia. 



2 Flora, Bot. Zeitung, 1856, p. 520. 



3 Flora, Bot. Zeitung, 1869, p. 93. * Kunth, Enum., i. p. 449. 



5 Sadler, Fl. Pesth., i. p. 80 ; Host, Fl. Austr., i. p. 177 ; Baumgarten, 

 Ft. Transylv., p. 225; Neilreich, Fl. Wien., p. 58; Viviani, J'L Dalmat., i. 

 p. 97 ; Farkas, Fl. Croat., p. 1288. 



^ Strobl saw it, however, in the woods on the slopes of Etna, a result 

 of its introduction into cultivation in the eighteenth century ((Ester. Bot. 

 Zeit., 1881, p. 159). 



