216 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



other hand, Tchihatcheff * who has crossed Anatolia and 

 Armenia several times, does not seem to have seen the 

 wild apricot; and what is still more significant, Karl 

 Koch, who travelled through the region to the south of 

 the Caucasus, in order to observe facts of this nature, 

 expresses himself as follows : ^ " Native country unknown. 

 At least, during my long sojourn in Armenia, I nowhere 

 found the apricot wild, and I have rarely seen it even 

 cultivated." 



A traveller, W. J. Hamilton,^ said he found it wild 

 near Orgou and Outch Hisar in Anatolia : but this asser- 

 tion has not been verified by a botanist. The supposed 

 wild apricot of the ruins of Baalbek, described by Eusebe 

 de Salle ^ is, from what he says of the leaf and fruit, 

 totally different to the common apricot. Boissier, and 

 the different collectors who sent him plants from Syria 

 and Lebanon, do not appear to have seen the species. 

 Spach ^ asserts that it is indigenous in Persia, but he gives 

 no proof. Boissier and Buhse ^ do not mention it in their 

 list of the plants of Transcaucasia and Persia. It is use- 

 less to seek its origin in Africa. The apricots which 

 Reynier '^ says he saw, " almost wild," in Upper Egypt 

 must have sprung from stones grown in cultivated 

 ground, as is seen in Algeria.^ Schweinfurth and 

 Ascherson,^ in their catalogue of the plants of Egypt and 

 Abyssinia, only mention the species as cultivated. Besides, 

 if it had existed formerly in the north of Africa it would 

 have been early known to the Hebrews and the Romans. 

 Now there is no Hebrew name, and Pliny says its intro- 

 duction at Rome took place thirty years before he wrote. 



Carrying our researches eastward, we find that Anglo- 



• TchihatclieS, Asie Mineure, Botanique, vol. i. 



• K. Koch, Dendrologie, i. p. 87. 



» Nouv. Ann. des Voyages, Feb., 1839, p. 17d. 



• E. de Salle, Voyage, i. p. 140. 



• Spach, Hist, des Veg4t. Fhandr., i. p. 389. 



• Boissier and Buhse, Aufzahlimg , etc., in 4to, I860* 



• Eeynier, Economie des jEgyptienSy p. 371. 



• Munby, Catal. Fl. d'Alg^r., edit. 2, p. 49. 



• Schweinfiarth and Ascherson, Beitrage z. Fl. M^Mop^ in 4to., 1867, 

 p. 259. 



