30 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



itself frequently round cultivated plots, it is difTicult to 

 fix upon its starting-point. 



Formerly Raphanus satlrus was confounded with 

 kindred species of the Mediterranean region, to whicli 

 certain Greek names were attributed ; but Gay, the 

 botanist, who has done a good deal towards eliminat- 

 ing these analogous forms,^ considered R. so.tivas as a 

 native of the East, perhaps of China. Linnunis also sup- 

 posed tliis plant to be of Chinese origin, or at least that 

 variety which is cultivated in China for the ^ake of ex- 

 tractincr oil from the seeds.^ Several floras of the south 

 of Europe mention the species as subspontaneous or 

 escaped from cultivation, never as spontaneous. Lede- 

 bour had seen a specimen found near Mount Ararat, had 

 sown the seeds of it and verified the species.^ However, 

 Boissier,^ in 18G7, in his Eastern Flora, says that it is 

 only subspontaneous in the cultivated parts of Anatolia, 

 near Mersivan (according to Wied), in Palestine (on his 

 own authority), in Armenia (according to Ledebour), and 

 probably elsewhere, which agrees with the assertions 

 found in European fioras.^ Buhse names a locality, the 

 Ssahend mountains, to the south of the Caucasus, which 

 appears to be far enough from cultivation. The recent 

 Flora of British India^ and the earlier Flora of Cochin- 

 Ghina by Loureiro, mention the radish only as a culti- 

 vated species. Maximowicz saw it in a garden in the 

 north-east of China.'^ Thunberg speaks of it as a plant 

 of general cultivation in Jaj)an, and growing also by 

 the side of the roads, but the latter fact is not repeated 

 by modern authors, who are probably better informed.^ 



Herodotus (Hist., 1. 2, c. 125) speaks of a radish which 

 he calls surmaia, used by the builders of the pyramid of 



* In A. de Candolle, Gdogr. li^'t. Baisonnce, p. 826. 



* Linnaeus, Sjicc. Plant, p. O'Mi. 



* liedobour, Fl. Ross., i. p. 225. 



* Biiissicr, Fl. Orient, i. p. 400. 



6 Biilise, Au''zahluvg TranscaiiraMen, p. 30. 

 6 HookiT, Flora of British India, i. p. I'SlJ. 

 ' Maximowicz, PriinitiiX} Florai A>nurensi-!, p. 47. 

 8 Tliniil.erfr, FL Jap., p. 2(\3. 



* Fraiichet aud Savatier, Enum. Phi)if. Jcp., i. p. 3D. 



