224 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



it a name which he calls Per>sian, scheptata} It fruit is 

 velvety, sour, not very fleshy, and hardly larger than 

 a walnut ; the tree small. Pallas suspects that this tree 

 has degenerated from cultivated peaches. He adds that 

 it is found in the Crimea, to the south of the Caucasus, 

 and in Persia; but Marshall, Bicberstein, Meyer, and 

 Hohenacker do not give the wild peach in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Caucasus. Early travellers, Gmelin, 

 Guldenstadt, and Georgi, quoted by Ledebour, mentioned 

 it. C. Koch ^ is the only modern botanist who said he 

 found the peach tree in abundance in the Caucasian 

 provinces. Ledebour, however, prudently adds, Is it wild ? 

 The stones which Brugniere and Olivier brought from 

 Ispahan, which were sown in Paris and yielded a good 

 velvety peach, were not, as Bosc ^ asserted, taken from 

 a peach tree wild in Persia, but from one growing in 

 a garden at Ispahan.* I do not know of any proof of a 

 peach tree found wild in Persia, and if travellers mention 

 any it is always to be feared that these are only sown 

 trees. Dr. E-oyle^ says that the peach grows wild in 

 several places south of the Himalayas, notably near 

 Mussouri, but we have seen that its culture is not ancient 

 in these regions, and neither Roxburgh nor Don's Flora 

 Nepalensis mention the peach. Bunge ^ only found cul- 

 tivated trees in the north of China. This country has 

 hardly been explored, and Chinese legends seem some- 

 times to indicate wild peaches. Thus the Chou-y-Jd, 

 according to the author previously quoted, says, ' Who- 

 soever eats of the peaches of Mount Kouoliou shall 

 obtain eternal life.' For Japan, Thunberg '^ says, Crescit 

 uhique vulgaris^ prcecipue juxta Nagasaki. In onini 

 horto colitiir oh elegantiam fiorum. It seems from this 

 passage tliat the species grows both in and out of gardens, 

 but perhaps in the first case he only alludes to peaches 

 growing in the open air and without shelter. 



• Shnft aloo is, according to Eoyle {HI. Him. p. 204), the Persian 

 aame for the nectarine. 



• Ledebour, Fl. Boss.,i. p. 3. See p. 228, the subsequent opinion of Koch, 



• Bosc, Diet. d'Agric.^ ix. p. 481. ' * Thouin, Ann. Mus., viii. p. 433. 



• Eoyle, III, Him., p. 204. • Buuge, Emm. Fl. Chin., p. 23. 

 » Thunberg, Fl. Jap. 199. 



