PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 191 



distinctly described the gombo then cultivated by the 

 Egyptians. 



In spite of its undoubtedly African origin, it does not 

 appear that the species was cultivated in Lower Egypt 

 before the Arab rule. No proof has been found in ancient 

 monuments, although Rosellini thought he recognized 

 the plant in a drawing, which differs widely from it 

 according to Unger. 1 The existence of one name in 

 modern Indian languages, according to Piddington, con- 

 firms the idea of its propagation towards the East after 

 the beginning of the Christian era. 



Vine Vitis vinifera, Linnaeus. 



The vine grows wild in the temperate regions of 

 Western Asia, Southern Europe, Algeria, and Marocco. 2 It 

 is especially in the Pontus, in Armenia, to the south of 

 the Caucasus and of the Caspian Sea, that it grows with 

 the luxuriant wildness of a tropical creeper, clinging to 

 tall trees and producing abundant fruit without pruning 

 or cultivation. Its vigorous growth is mentioned in 

 ancient Bactriana, Cabul, Kashmir, and even in Badak- 

 khan to the north of the Hindu Koosh. 3 Of course, it is 

 a question whether the plants found there, as elsewhere, 

 are not sprung from seeds carried from vineyards by 

 birds. I notice, however, that the most trustworthy 

 botanists, those who have most thoroughly explored the 

 Transcaucasian provinces of Russia, do not hesitate to 

 say that the plant is wild and indigenous in this region. 

 It is as we advance towards India and Arabia, Europe 

 and the north of Africa, that we frequently find in floras 

 the expression that the vine is " subspontaneous," per- 

 haps wild, or become wild (verwildert is the expressive 

 German term). 



The dissemination by birds must have begun very 

 early, as soon as the fruit existed, before cultivation, 

 before the migration of the most ancient Asiatic peoples, 



1 Unger, Die Pflanzen des Alien JEgyptens, p. 50. 



8 Grisebach, Veg6t. du Globe, French trans, by Tchihatcheff, i. pp. 

 162, 163, 442; Munby, Catal. Alger ; Ball, Ft. Maroc. 8-picel, p. 392. 



3 Adolphe Pictet, Origines Indo-Europ. edit. 2, vol. 1, p. 295, quotes 

 several travellers for these regions, among others Wood's Journey to the 

 Sources of the Oxus. 



