24 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



garian, into which, moreover, words of Aryan origin 

 have been introduced. On the other hand, several modern 

 languages of India. Ceylon, and Java, are derived from 

 the Sanskrit of the Eastern Aryans, who left Central 

 Asia after the Western Aryans. It is supposed, with 

 sufficient probability, that the first Western Aryans 

 came into Europe 2500 B.C., and the Eastern Aryans 

 into India a thousand years later. 



Basque (or Iberian), the speech of the Guanchos of 

 the Canary Isles, of which a few plant names are known, 

 and Berber, are probably connected with the ancient 

 tongues of the north of Africa. 



Botanists are in many cases forced to doubt the 

 common names attributed to plants by travellers, his- 

 torians, and philologists. This is a consequence of their 

 own doubts respecting the distinction of species and of 

 the well-known difficulty of ascertaining the common 

 name of a plant. The uncertainty becomes yet greater 

 in the case of species which are more easily confounded 

 or less generally known, or in the case of the languages 

 of little-civilized nations. There are, so to speak, degrees 

 of languages in this respect, and the names should be 

 accepted more or less readily according to these degrees. 



In the first rank, for certainty, are placed those 

 languages which possess botanical works. For instance, 

 it is possible to recognize a species by means of a Greek 

 description by Dioscorides or Theophrastus, and by the 

 less complete Latin texts of Cato, Columella, or Pliny. 

 Chinese books also give descriptions. Dr. Bretschneider, 

 of the Russian legation at Pekin, has written some 

 excellent papers upon these books, from which I shall 

 often quote.-^ 



The second degree is that of languages possessing 

 a literature composed only of theological and poetical 

 works, or of chronicles of kings and battles. Such works 



* Bretschneider, On the Study amd Value of Chinese Botanical Works, 

 with Notes on the History of Pla/nts and Geographical Botany from Chinese 

 Sources, in 8vo, 51 pp., with illustrations, Foochoo, without date, but the 

 preface bears the date Dec. 1870. Notes on Some Botanical Questions^ 

 in 8vo, 14 pp., 1880. 



