316 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Miquel,^ but it is more probably a native of the Malay 

 Archipelago. 



In spite of the reputation of the nepheliums, of which 

 the fruit can be exported, it does not appear that these 

 trees have been introduced into the tropical colonies 

 of Africa and America except into a few gardens as 

 curiosities. 



Pistachio Nut — Pistacia vera, Linnaeus. 



The pistachio, a shrub belonging to the order Ana- 

 cardiacece, grows naturally in Syria. Boissier ^ found it 

 to the north of Damascus in Anti-Lebanon, and he saw 

 specimens of it brought from Mesopotamia, but he could 

 not be sure that they were found wild. There is the 

 same doubt about branches gathered in Arabia, which 

 have been mentioned by some writers. Pliny and Galen ^ 

 knew that the species was a Syrian one. The former 

 tells us that the plant was introduced into Italy by 

 Vitellius at the end of the reign of Tiberius, and thence 

 into Spain by Flavins Pompeius 



There is no reason to believe that the cultivation of 

 the pistachio was ancient even in its primitive country, 

 but it is practised in our own day in the East, as well 

 as in Sicily and Tunis. In the south of France and 

 Spain it is of little importance. 



Broad Bean — Faba vulgaris, Moench ; Vicia faha, 

 Linnaeus, 



Linnaeus, in his best descriptive work, Hortus cliffor- 

 tianus, admits that the origin of this species is obscure, 

 like that of most plants of ancient cultivation. Later, 

 in his Species, which is more often quoted, he says, with- 

 out giving any proof, that the bean "inhabits Egypt." 

 Lerche, a Russian traveller at the end of the last 

 century, found it wild in the Mungan desert of the 

 Mazanderan, to the south of the Caspian Sea.* Ti'avellers 



* Blurae, Ruviphia, iii. p. 103 ; Miquel, FL Indo-Batava, i. p. 554. 

 ' Bossier, FL Orient., ii. p. 5. 



3 Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xiii. cap. 15 ; lib. xv. cap. 22 ; Galen, De Ali- 

 irwntis, lib. ii. cap. 30. 



* Lerche, Nova Acta Acad. Cesareo-Leopold, vol. v., appendix, p. 203, 

 published in 1773. Maximowicz, in a letter of Feb. 24, 1882, tells me 

 that Lerche's specimen exists in the herbarium of the Imperial Garden 



