PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 35 



desert of Cuman. 1 Grisebach mentions also several 

 localities in Turkey in Europe, near Enos, for instance, 

 where it abounds on the sea-shore. 2 



The further we advance towards the west of Europe, 

 the less the authors of floras appear sure that the plant 

 is indigenous, and the localities assigned to it are more 

 scattered and doubtful. The species is rarer in Norway 

 than in Sweden, 8 in the British Isles than in Holland, 

 where a foreign origin is not attributed to it. 4 



The specific names confirm the impression of its origin 

 in the east rather than in the west of Europe ; thus the 

 name chren 5 in Russia recurs in all the Sclavonic 

 languages, krenai in Lithuanian, chren in Illyrian, 6 etc. 

 It has introduced itself into a few German dialects, round 

 Vienna, 7 for instance, where it persists, in spite of the 

 spread of the German tongue. We owe to it also the 

 French names cran or cranson. The word used in 

 Germany, Meerretig, and in Holland, meer-radys, whence 

 the Italian Swiss dialect has taken the name meridi, or 

 meredi, means sea-radish, and is not primitive like the 

 word chren. It comes probably from the fact that the 

 plant grows well near the sea, a circumstance common to 

 many of the Cruciferce, and which should be the case 

 with this species, for it is wild in the east of Russia 

 where there is a good deal of salt soil. The Swedish 

 name peppar-rot 8 suggests the idea that the species came 

 into Sweden later than the introduction of pepper by 

 commerce into the north of Europe. However, the name 

 may have taken the place of an older one, which has 

 remained unknown to us. The English name of horse- 

 radish is not of such an original nature as to lead to 

 a belief in the existence of the species in the country 

 before the Saxon conquest. It means a very strong 



Ledebonr, Fl. Ross., i. p. 159. 



Grisebach, Spicilegium Fl. Riimel., i. p. 2G5. 



Fries, Summa, p. 30. 



Miquel, Disquisitio pi. regn. Batav. 



Moritzi, Diet. Indd. des Noms Vulgaires. 



Moritzi, ibid. ; Viviani, Fl. Dalmat., iii. p. 32* 

 r Neilreich, Fl. Wien, p. 502. 

 e Linnaeus, Fl. Suecica, No. 540. 



