212 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



with a fine down, or glabrous ; fruit pendulous, round or 

 slightly elliptical, of a sweet flavour. 



Prunus spinosa, Linnseus. A thorny shrub, with 

 branches spreading out at right angles; young shoots 

 downy ; flowers appearing before the leaves ; pedicles 

 glabrous ; fruit upright, round, and very sour. 



This third form, so common in our hedges (sloe or 

 blackthorn), is very different from the other two. There- 

 fore, unless we interpret by hypothesis what may have 

 happened before all observation, it seems to me im- 

 possible to consider the three forms as constituting one 

 and the same species, unless we can show transitions 

 from one to the other in those organs which have not 

 been modified by cultivation, and hitherto this has not 

 been done. At most the fusion of the two first categories 

 can be admitted. The two forms with naturally sweet 

 fruit occur in few countries. These must have tempted 

 cultivators more than Prunus spinosa, whose fruit 

 is so sour. It is, therefore, in these that we must seek 

 to find the originals of cultivated plums. For greater 

 clearness I shall speak of them as two species. 1 



Common Plum Prunus domestica, Linnaeus ; Zwet- 

 chen in German. 



Several botanists 2 have found this variety wild 

 throughout Anatolia, the region to the south of the 

 Caucasus and Northern Persia, in the neighbourhood of 

 Mount Elbruz, for example. 



I know of no proof for the localities of Kashmir, the 

 country of the Kirghis and of China, which are men- 

 tioned in some floras. The species is often doubtful, and 

 it is probably rather Prunus insititia; in other cases 

 it is its true and ancient wild character which is un- 

 certain, for the stones have evidently been dispersed from 

 cultivation. Its area does not appear to extend as far as 

 Lebanon, although the plums cultivated at Damascus 

 (damascenes, or damsons) have a reputation which dates 



1 Hudson, Fl. Anglic., 1778, p. 212, unites them under the name 

 Prunus communis. 



2 Ledebonr, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 5 ; Boissier, Fl. Orient, ii. p. 652 ; K. Koch, 

 Dendrologie, i. p. 94 ; Boissier and Biihse, Aufaahl Transcaucasien, p. 80. 



