PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 151 



Tuscany.^ According to the same author, the introduction 

 of the white mulberry into Tuscany dates at the earliest 

 from the year 1340. In like manner the manufacture of 

 silk may have begun in China, because the silkworm is 

 natural to that country ; but it is very probable that the 

 tree grew also in the north of India, where so many 

 travellers have found it wild. In Persia, Armenia, and 

 Asia Minor, I am inclined to believe that it was natura- 

 lized at a veiy early epoch, rather than to share Grise- 

 bach's opinion that it is indigenous in the basin of the 

 Caspian Sea. Boissier does not give it as wild in that 

 region.^ Buhse^ found it in Persia, near Erivan and 

 Bashnaruschin, and he adds, " naturalized in abundance 

 in Ghilan and Masenderan." Ledebour,* in his Russian 

 flora, mentions numerous localities round the Caucasus, 

 but he does not specify whether the species is wild or 

 naturalized. In the Crimea, Greece, and Italy, it exists 

 only in a cultivated state.'^ A variety, tatarica, often 

 cultivated in the south of Russia, has become naturalized 

 near the Volga.^ 



If the white mulberry did not originally exist in 

 Persia and in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, it 

 must have penetrated there a long while ago. I may 

 quote in proof of this the name tut, tutti, tuta, which is 

 Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Tartar. There is a Sanskrit 

 name, tula,'^ which must be connected with the same root 

 as the Persian name; but no Hebrew name is known, 

 which is a confirmation of the theory of a successive 

 extension towards the west of Asia. 



I refer those of my readers who may desire more de- 

 tailed information about the introduction of the mulberry 

 and of silkworms to the able works of Targioni and 



* Ant. Targioni, Cermi Storici sulV Introduzione di Varie Piante nelV 

 Ajricoltura Toscana, p. 188. 



' Boissier, Fl. Orient., iv. p. 1153. 



' Buhse, Aufzaidung der Transcaucasien und Persien Pflanzen, p. 203. 



* Ledebour, Fl. Ross., iii. p. 643. 



' Steven, Verseichniss d. Taurisch. Halhins, p. 313 ; Heldreich, PflatU' 

 zen des Attischen Ebene, jp. 508; Bertoloni, Fl. Ital., x. p. 177; Camel, 

 Fl. Toscana, p. 171. 



* Bureau, de Cand., Prodr., xvii. p. 238. 



' Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. ; Piddington, Index. 



"/ 



