280 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



sylvestris or oleaster, is distinguished from the cultivated 

 olive tree by a smaller fruit, of which the flesh is not so 

 abundant. The best fruits are obtained by selecting the 

 seeds, buds, or grafts from good varieties. 



The oleaster now exists over a wide area east and 

 west of Syria, from the Punjab and Beluchistan ^ as far 

 as Portugal and even Madeira, the Canaries and even 

 Marocco,^ and from the Atlas northwards as far as the south 

 of France, the ancient Macedonia, the Crimea, and the 

 Caucasus.^ If we compare the accounts of travellers and 

 of the authors of floras, it will be seen that towards the 

 limits of this area there is often a doubt as to the wild 

 and indigenous (that is to say ancient in the country) 

 nature of the species. Sometimes it oflers itself as a 

 shrub which fruits little or not at all ; and sometimes, as 

 in the Crimea, the plants are rare as though they had 

 escaped, as an exception, the destructive effects of winters 

 too severe to allow of a definite establishment. As 

 regards Algeria and the south of France, these doubts 

 have been the subject of a discussion among competent 

 men in the Botanical Society.* They repose upon the 

 uncontestable fact that birds often transport the seed of 

 the olive into uncultivated and sterile places, where the 

 wild form, the oleaster, is produced and naturalized. 



The question is not clearly stated when we ask if 

 such and such olive trees of a given locality are really 

 wild. In a woody species which lives so long and shoots 

 again from the same stock when cut off" by accident, it is 

 impossible to know the origin of the individuals observed. 

 They ma}^ have been sown by man or birds at a very 

 early epoch, for olive trees of more than a thousand years 

 old are known. The effect of such sowing is a naturaliza- 

 tion, which is equivalent to an extension of area. The 

 point in question is, therefore, to discover what was the 



* Aitchison, Catalogue, p. 86. 



' Lowe, Man. Fl. of Madeira, ii. p. 20 ; Webb and Bert helot, Hist. 

 Nat. des Canaries^ Giog. Bat., p. 48 ; Ball, Spicil. Fl. Maroc.y p. 565. 



' Cosson, Bull. Sac. Bat. France, iv. p. 107, and vii. p. 31 ; Grisebach, 

 Spicil. Fl. Rumelicce, ii. p. 71 ; Steven, Verzeich. der Tawrisch. Halhii%s^ 

 p. 248 ; Ledebour, Fl. Ross., p. 38. 



* Bulletin, iv. p. 107. 



