PLANTS CULTIVATED FOK THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 91 



Dioscorides and Plinj speak of it under the names 

 of Petroselinon and Petroselinum} but only as a wild 

 medicinal plant. Nothing proves that it was cultivated in 

 their time. In the Middle Ages Charlemagne counted it 

 fimong the plants which he ordered to be cultivated in 

 his gardens.^ Olivier de Serres in the sixteenth century- 

 cultivated parsley. English gardeners received it in 

 1 o48.^ Although this cultivation is neither ancient nor 

 important, it has already developed two varieties, which 

 would be called species if they were found wild; the 

 parsley with crinkled leaves, and that of which the fleshy 

 root is edible. 



Smyrnium, or Alexanders Smyrnimn olus-atrum, 

 Linnpeus. 



Of all the Umbellifers used as vegetables, this was one 

 of the commonest in gardens for nearly fifteen centuries, 

 and it is now abandoned. We can trace its besrinnino- 

 and end. Theophrastus spoke of it as a medicinal plant 

 under the name oi Lpposelinon, but three centuries later 

 Dioscorides*^ says that either the root or the leaves 

 might be eaten, which implies cultivation. The Latins 

 called it olus-atrum, Charlemagne olisahim, and com- 

 manded it to be sown in his farnis.^ The Italians made 

 fjreat use of it under the name onacerone.^ At the end 

 of the eighteenth century the tradition existed in Eng- 

 land that this plant had been formerly cultivated ; later 

 English and French horticulturists do not mention it.'' 



The Sniyrnium olus-atrum is wild throughout 

 Southern Europe, in Algeria, Syria, and Asia Minor.^ 



Corn Salad, or Lamb's Lettuce Valerianella olitoria, 

 Linnseus. 



Dioscorides, Mat. Med., 1. 3, c. 70 ; Pliny, Hixt., \. 20, ch. 12. 



" The list of these plants may be found iu ^leyer, Gesch. der Bot., 

 iii. p. 401. 



' Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Garden, ii. p. 35. 



'' Theophrastus, Hi^t., 1. 1, 9 ; 1. 2, 2 ; 1. 7, 6 ; Dioscorides, Mat. Med., 

 1. 3, c. 71. 



* E. Meyer, Gesch. der Bot., iii. p. 401. 

 ^ Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 58. 



' English Botany, t. 230 ; Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Garden; 

 Le Bon Jardinier. 



Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 927. 



