t)4 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



being so. A plant so constantly cultivated and so easily 

 propagated may spread from gardens and persist for a 

 considerable time without being wild by nature. I do 

 not know on what authority Kunth 1 mentions that the 

 species is found in Egypt. According to authors who are 

 more accurate 2 in their accounts of the plants of that 

 country, it is only found there under cultivation. Boissier, 

 whose herbarium is so rich in Eastern plants, possesses 

 no wild specimens of it. The only country where garlic 

 has been found in a wild state, with the certainty of its 

 really being so, is the desert of the Kirghis of Sungari ; 

 bulbs were brought thence and cultivated at Dorpat, 3 

 and specimens were afterwards seen by Regel. 4 The 

 latter author also says that he saw a specimen which 

 Wallich had gathered as wild in British India ; but 

 Baker, 5 who had access to the rich herbarium at Kew, 

 does not speak of it in his review of the "Alliums of 

 India, China, and Japan." 



Let us see whether historical and philological records 

 confirm the fact of an origin in the south-west of Siberia 

 alone. 



Garlic has been long cultivated in China under the 

 name of suan. It is written in Chinese by a single sign, 

 which usually indicates a long known and even a wild 

 species. 6 The floras of Japan 7 do not mention it, whence 

 I gather that the species was not wild in Eastern Siberia 

 and Dahuria, but that the Mongols brought it into 

 China. 



According to Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians made 

 great use of it. Archaeologists have not found the proof 

 of this in the monuments, but this may be because the 

 plant was considered unclean by the priests. 8 



1 Kunth, Enum., iv. p. 381. 



2 Scbweinfurth and Ascherson, Aufzahlung, p. 294. 



3 Ledebour, Flora Altaica, ii. p. 4 ; Flora Rossica, iv. p. IGi 



4 Regel, Allior. Monogr., p. 44. 



5 Baker, in Journal of Bot., 1874, p. 295. 



6 Bretschneider, Study and Value, etc., pp. 15, 4, and 7. 



7 Thunberg, Fl. Jap. ; Franchet and Savatier, Enuweratio, 1876, 

 vol. ii. 



8 Unger, Pflanzen des Alien lgyptens, p. 42. 



