PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 103 



from ancient times. 1 It is rare in modern Greece. 2 

 French cultivators have often given to the lucern the 

 name of sainfoin, which belongs properly to Ono~ 

 brychis sativa; and this transposition still exists, for 

 instance in the neighbourhood of Geneva. The name 

 lucern has been supposed to come from the valley of 

 Luzerne, in Piedmont ; but there is another and more 

 probable origin. The Spaniards had an old name, eruye, 

 mentioned by J. Bauhin, 3 and the Catalans call it userdas^ 

 whence perhaps the patois name in the south of France, 

 laouzerdo, nearly akin to luzerne. It was so commonly 

 cultivated in Spain that the Italians have sometimea 

 called it herba spagna. 5 The Spaniards have, besides the 

 names already given, mielga, or melga, which appears to 

 come from Medica, but they principally used names 

 derived from the Arabic alfafa, alfasafat, alfalfa. In 

 the thirteenth century, the famous physician Ebn Baithar, 

 who wrote at Malaga, uses the Arab wordfisfisat, which 

 he derives from the Persian isftst. 6 It will be seen that, 

 if we are to trust to the common names, the origin of 

 the plant would be either in Spain, Piedmont, or Persia. 

 Fortunately botanists can furnish direct and possible 

 proofs of the original home of the species. 



It has been found wild, with every appearance of an 

 indigenous plant, in several provinces of Anatolia, to the 

 south of the Caucasus, in several parts of Persia, in 

 Afghanistan, in Beluchistan, 7 and in Kashmir. 8 In the 

 south of Russia, a locality mentioned by some authors, 

 it is perhaps the result of cultivation as well as in 

 the south of Europe. The Greeks may, therefore, have 

 introduced the plant from Asia Minor as well as from 

 India, which extended from the north of Persia. 



This origin of the lucern, which is well established, 



1 Targioni-Tozzetti, Cenni Storici, p. 34. 



2 Fraas, Synopsis Fl. Class., p. 63 j Heldreich, Die Nutzpflanzen 

 Griechenlands, p. 70. 



3 Banhin, Hist. Plant., ii. p. 381. 4 Colmeiro, Catal. 

 5 Tozzetti, Dizion. Bot. 



9 Ebn Baithar, Heil und Nahrungsmittel, translated from Arabic by 

 Sontheimer, vol. ii. p. 257. 



7 Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 94. 8 Koyle, HI. HimaL, p. 197. 



