350 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



and gwiniS'du. There is no original name in Keltic 

 languages, which seems natural now that we know the 

 origin of the species,^ 



When the plant was introduced into Belgium and 

 into France, and even when it became known in Italy, 

 that is to say in the sixteenth century, the name hU 

 sarrasin (Saracen wheat) or sarrasin was commonly 

 adopted. Common names are often so absurd, and so 

 unthinkingly besto Tf^ed, that we cannot tell in this par- 

 ticular case whether the name refers to the colour of the 

 grain which was that attributerl to the Saracens, or to 

 the supposed introduction from the country of the Arabs 

 or Moors. It was not then known that the species did 

 not exist in the countries south of the Mediterranean, 

 nor even in Syria and Persia. It is also possible that 

 the idea of a southern origin was taken from the name 

 sarrasin, which was given from the colour. This origin 

 was admitted until the end of the last and even in the 

 present century.^ Reynier was, fifty years ago, the first 

 to oppose it. 



Buckwheat sometimes escapes from cultivation and 

 becomes quasi- wild. The nearer we approach its original 

 country the more often this occurs, whence it results that 

 it is hard to define the limit of the wild plant on the 

 confines of Europe and Asia, in the Himalayas, and in 

 China. In Japan these semi-naturalizations are not 

 rare.^ 



Tartary Buckwheat — Polygonum tataricum, Linnaeus ; 

 Fagopyrum tataricum, Gsertner. 



Less sensitive to cold than the common buckwheat, 

 but yielding a poorer kind of seed, this species is some- 

 times cultivated in Europe and Asia — in the Himalayas,^ 

 for instance ; but its culture is recent. Authors of the six- 

 teenth and seventeenth centuries do not mention it, and 

 Linnaeus was one of the first to speak of it as of Tartar 



' I have given tlie vemactilar names at greater length in Geogr. Bot. 

 Uciis., p. 953. 



• Nemnich, Polyglott. Lexicon, p. 1030 ; Bosc, Diet. d'Agric, mi. p. 379 



• Franchet and Savatier, Enum. PI. Japon., i. p. 403 



• Royle, III. Himal, p. 317. 



