PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 12[) 



A very early introduction of the plant into Egypt 

 from Asia does not prevent us from admitting that it was 

 at different times taken from the East to the West at 

 a later epoch than that of the first Egyptian dynasties. 

 Thus the western Aryans and the Phoenicians may have 

 introduced into Europe a flax more advantageous than 

 L. angustifolium during the period from 2500 to 1200 

 years before our era. 



The cultivation of the plant by the Arj^ans must have 

 extended furth^er north than that by the Phoenicians. In 

 Greece, at the time of the Trojan war, fine linen stuffs 

 were still imported from Colchis; that is to say, from 

 that region at the foot of the Caucasus where the com- 

 mon annual flax has been found wild in modern times. 

 It does not appear that the Greeks cultivated the plant 

 at that epoch.^ The Aryans had perhaps already intro- 

 duced its cultivation into the valley of the Danube. How- 

 ever, I noticed just now that the lacustrine remains of 

 Mondsee and Laybach show no trace of any flax. In the 

 last centuries before the Christian era the Romans pro- 

 cured very fine linen from Spain, although the names 

 of the plant in that country do not tend to show that the 

 Phoenicians introduced it. There is not any Oriental 

 name existing in Europe belonging either to antiquity 

 or to the Middle Ages. The Arabic name kattan, kettaney 

 or kittane, of Persian origin,^ has spread westward only 

 among the Kabyles of Algeria.* 



The sum of facts and probabilities appear to me to 

 lead to the following statements, which may be accepted 

 until they are modified by further discoveries. 



1. Linum angustifoliu'tn, usually perennial, rarely 

 biennial or annual, which is found wild from the Canary 

 Isles to Palestine and the Caucasus, was cultivated in 

 Switzerland and the north of Italy by peoples more 

 ancient than the conquerors of Aryan race. Its cultiva- 

 tion was replaced by that of the annual flax. 



• The Greek texts are quoted in Lenz, Bot der Alt. Gr. tmd fiom., 

 p. 672 ; and in Hehn, Gulturpfl. und Hauathiere, edit. S, p. 144. 



• Ad. Pictet, Origines Tndo-Europ. 



• Dictionnaire Franf.-Berbere, 1 voL in 8vo, 1844. 



