PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 325 



considered common or unclean. Re3rQier^ thought that 

 the ketsech, mentioned by Isaiah in the Old Testament, 

 was perhaps the chick-pea; but this name is generally 

 attributed, though without certainty, to Nigella sativa 

 or Vida sativa!^ As the Arabs have a totally different 

 name for the chick-pea, oninos, homos, which recurs in 

 the Kabyl language as hammez^ it is not likejy that 

 the ketsech of the Jews was the same plant. These de- 

 tails lead me to suspect that the species was unknown 

 to the ancient Egyptians and to the Hebrews. It was 

 perhaps introduced among them from Greece or Italy 

 towards the beginning of our era. 



It is of more ancient introduction into India, for 

 there is a Sanskrit name, and several others, analogous or 

 different, in modern Indian languages.^ Bretschneider 

 does not mention the species in China. 



I do not know of any proof of antiquity of culture in 

 Spain, yet the Castilian name garhanzo, used also by 

 the Basques under the form garlantziia, and by the 

 French as garvance, being neither Latin nor Arabic, may 

 date from an epoch anterior to the Roman conquest. 



Botanical, historical, and philological data agree in 

 indicating a habitation anterior to cultivation in the 

 countries to the south of the Caucasus and to the north 

 of Persia. The western Aryans (Pelasgians, Hellenes) 

 perhaps introduced the plant into Southern Europe, 

 where, however, there is some probability that it was also 

 indigenous. The western Aryans carried it into India. 

 Its area perhaps extended from Persia to Greece, and the 

 species now exists only in cultivated ground, where we 

 do not know whether it springs from a stock originally 

 wild or from cultivated plants. 



Lupin — Lnpinns alhus, Linnaeus. 



The ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated this 

 leguminous plant to bury it as a green manure, and also 



' Reynier, Econ. des Arahes et Juifs, p. 430. 



^ Rosenmiiller, Bihl. Altcrth., i. p. 100; Hamilton, Bot. de la Bible, p. 

 180. 



' Ranwolf, Ft. Orient, No. 220; Forskal, i^. ^gypt., p. 81; Diet 

 Franf.-Berbere. 



* Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., iii. p. 324 ; Piddington, Index. 



