76 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



the borders of the Caspian to those of the Bosphorus, 

 whence it became diffused over Europe, but not so widely 

 as the sylvestris, and more slowly, being of weaker con- 

 stitution. In Europe it always presents the aspect of a 

 foreign plant, settling, but not completely naturalized. 

 When Theophrastus, the old Greek writer on plants, 

 speaks of the cherry-tree he plainly refers to the sylvestris, 

 the height being one of the features he mentions. Virgil, 

 on the other hand, as plainly speaks of the vulgaris : 



" Pullulat ab radice aliis densissima silva 

 Ut cerasis ulmisque." 



The differences above indicated may still be no greater 

 than would be consistent with original singleness of 

 " species." Many botanists consider that they are essen- 

 tially the same thing. The question holds some practical 

 importance from the bearing it has upon the work 

 of cultivators, who have always to think of the inherited 

 constitution of plants as well as of their merits and 

 utility. Whatever the measure of relationship, they are 

 the parents of all the cultivated cherries, and these, it is 

 interesting to observe, foretell the variety of their fruit 

 in the beautiful and curious diversity of the flowers, as 

 regards both the petals and the form of the calyx. 



When the cherry was first made an object of culture 

 there is no evidence to show. Cherry-stones occur in the 

 Lake-dwellings of western Switzerland. The Romans, 

 Pliny tells us, had eight varieties. That it was first 

 brought to Italy by Lucullus, from Cerasus, a town of 

 Cappadocia, the story a thousand times recited, is not 



