PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 128 



as far as England, 1 the Alps, and the Balkan Mountains ; 

 and lastly, in Asia from the south of the Caucasus 2 to 

 Lebanon and Palestine. 3 I do not find it mentioned in 

 the Crimea, nor beyond the Caspian Sea. 



Let us now turn to the cultivation of flax, destined in 

 most instances to furnish a textile substance, often also 

 to yield oil, and cultivated among certain peoples for the 

 nutritious properties of the seed. I first studied the 

 question of its origin in 1855, 4 and with the following 

 result : 



It was abundantly shown that the ancient Egyptians 

 and the Hebrews made use of linen stuffs. Herodotus 

 affirms this. Moreover, the plant may be seen figured in 

 the ancient Egyptian drawings, and the microscope 

 indubitably shows that the bandages which bind the 

 mummies are of linen. 5 The culture of flax is of ancient 

 date in Europe ; it was known to the Kelts, and in India 

 according to history. Lastly, the widely different com- 

 mon names indicate likewise an ancient cultivation or 

 long use in different countries. The Keltic name lin, 

 and Greco-Latin linon or li/num, has no analogy with the 

 Hebrew pischta, 6 nor with the Sanskrit names ooma, 

 atasi, utasi. 7 A few botanists mention the flax as 

 " nearly wild " in the south-east of Russia, to the south 

 of the Caucasus and to the east of Siberia, but it was 

 not known to be truly wild. I then summed up the 

 probabilities, saying, " The varying etymology of the 

 names, the antiquity of cultivation in Egypt, in Europe, 

 and in the north of India, the circumstance that in the 

 latter district flax is cultivated for the yield of oil alone, 



1 Planchon, in Hooker's Journal of Botany, vol. 7; Bentham, Handbk. 

 of Brit. Flora, edit. 4, p. 89. 



2 Planchon, ibid. * Boissier, Fl. Or., i. p. 861. 

 4 A. de Candolle, Gdogr. Bot. Rais., p. 833. 



8 Thomson, Annals of Philosophy, June, 1834 ; Dutrochet, Larrey, 

 and Costaz, Comptes rendus de I'Acad. des. Sc., Paris, 1837, sem. i. p. 739 ; 

 Unger, Bot. Streifzuge, iv. p. 62. 



6 Other Hebrew words are interpreted " flax," but this is the most 

 certain. See Hamilton, La Botanique de la Bible, Nice, 1871, p. 58. 



7 Piddington, Index Ind. Plants; Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., edit. 1832, ii. 

 p. 110. The name matusi indicated by Piddington belongs to other 

 plants, according to Ad. Pictet, Origineslndo-Euro., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 396. 



