PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 215 



the terra-mare of Italy, but Heer has described and 

 given illustrations of some which were found in the lake- 

 dwellings of Robenhausen.^ The species does not seem 

 to be now indigenous in this part of Switzerland, but we 

 must not forget that, as we saw in the history of flax, the 

 lake-dwellers of the canton of Zurich, in the age of stone, 

 had communications with Italy. These ancient Swiss 

 were not hard to please in the matter of food, for they 

 also gathered the berries of the blackthorn, which are, as 

 we think, uneatable. It is probable that they ate them 

 cooked. 



Apricot — Prunvs armeniaca, Linnaeus ; Armenica 

 vulgaris, Lamarck. 



The Greeks and Romans received the apricot about 

 the beginning of the Christian era. Unknown in the 

 time of Theophrastus, Dioscorides ^ mentions it under 

 the name of mailon armeniacon. He says that the 

 Latins called it praikokion. It is, in fact, one of the 

 fruits mentioned briefly by Pliny,^ under the name of 

 piwcocium, so called from the precocity of the species.* 

 Its Armenian origin is indicated by the Greek name, 

 but this name might mean only that the species was 

 cultivated in Armenia. Modern botanists have long had 

 good reason to believe that the species is wild in that 

 country. Pallas, Giildenstadt, and Hohenacker say they 

 found it in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus Mountains, 

 on the north, on the banks of the Terek, and to the south 

 between the Caspian and Black Seas.^ Boissier ^ admits 

 all these localities, but without saying anything about 

 the wild character of the species. He saw a specimen 

 gathered by Hohenacker, near ElisabethpoL On the 



* Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlhauten, p. 27, fig. 16, c. 



• Dioscorides, lib. 1, c. 165. ' Pliny, lib. 2, cap. 13. 



* The Latin name has passed into modern Greek (jprikoTckia) . The 

 Spanish and French names, etc. {alharicoque, abricot), seem to be derived 

 from arbor 'prcucox, or prcecocium, while the old French word armegne, 

 and the Italian armenilli, etc., come from mailon armeniacon. See further 

 details about the names of the species in my Geographie Botanic[TM 

 Uaisonnde, p. 880. 



' Ledebour, Fl. Ross,, ii. p. 3. 



• Boissier. Fl. Orient., ii. p. 652. 



15 



