32 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



which we must also examine. Several botanists* suspect 

 tliat RcvphaniJbs sativus is simply a particular condition, 

 with enlarged root and non-articulated fruit, of RajJti- 

 nus raphanistriiTn, a very common plant in the tem- 

 perate cultivated disti-icts of Europe and Asia, and 

 which is also found in a wild state in sand and light 

 soil near the sea for instance, at St. Sebastian, in Dal- 

 matia, and at Trebizond.^ Its usual haunts are in deserted 

 fields; and many common names which signify wild 

 radish, show the affiaity of the two plaits. I should not 

 m.^i-st upon this point if their supposed identity wtre a 

 mere presum})tion, but it rests upon experiments and 

 observations which it is important to know. 



In a. raphanistrum the siliqua is articulated, that 

 is to say, contracted at intervals, and the seeds placed 

 each in a division. In B. sativus the siliqua is con- 

 tinuous, and forms a single cavity. Some botanists had 

 made this difference the basis of two distinct genera, 

 Raphanistrum and Raphanus. But thi'ee accurate ob- 

 servers, Webb, Gay, and Spach, have noticed among 

 plants of Raphanus sativus, raised from the same seed, 

 both unilocular and articulated pods, some of them 

 bilocular, others plurilocular, Webb^ arrived at the 

 same results when he afterwards repeated these ex2:)eri- 

 ments, and he observed yet another fact of some import- 

 ance : the radish which sows itself by chance, and is 

 not cultivated, produced the siliqujB of Raphanistrum^ 

 Another ditference between the two plants is in the 

 root, fleshy in R. sativus, slender in R. raphanis- 

 tiniTn ; but this changes with cultivation, as appears 

 from the experiments of Carriere, the head gardener of 

 the nurseries of the Natural History Museum in Paris.^ 

 It occurred to him to sow the seeds of the slender- 



' Webb, Phytngr. Canar., p. 83 ; Iter. Hisp., p. 71 ; Bontham, Fl. 

 Hnvg Kong, p. 17 ; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 1(3(5. 



* Willkomrn and Lange, Prod. Fl. Hiip., iii. p. 71S; Viviaui, Flor. 

 Dalinaf.. iii. p. 104 ; Boissier, Fl. Orient., i. p. -iUl. 



^ AVebb, Phytographia Canarieyisis, i. p. 83. 



* Wi'bb, Iter. ni-<panien!=e, 1838. p. 72. 



* Carrlfere, Orijine des Plantes Bomeiliiues d^imm.\\\: par la Ca'.lw" 

 du Itcdis Saurage, iu 8vo, -i pp., 18(59. 



