110 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Schweinfurth and Ascherson ; ^ but there is no trace of 

 ancient cultivation in this country or among the Hebrews. 

 Towards the East its wild character becomes less certain. 

 Boissier indicates the plant "in cultivated gi-ound from 

 Turkey in Europe, and Egypt as far as the south of the 

 Caucasus and Babylon."^ It is not mentioned in India 

 either as wild or cultivated, and has no Sanskrit name.'^ 



The species is probably a native of the region com- 

 prised between Spain and Greece, perhaps also of Algeria,'* 

 and diffused by a cultivation, not of very ancient date, 

 over Western Asia. 



Chickling Vetch Laihyrus sativus, Linnreus. 



An annual leguminous plant, cultivated in the South 

 of Europe, from a very early age, as fodder, and also for 

 the seeds. The Greeks called it lathyros ^ and the Latins 

 cicercula.^ It is also cultivated in the temperate regions 

 of Western Asia, and even in the north of India ;' but it 

 has no Hebrew^ nor Sanskrit name,^ which argues a 

 not very ancient cultivation in these regions. 



Nearly all the floras of the south of Europe and of 

 Algeria give the plant as cultivated and half- wild, rarely 

 and only in a few localities as truly wild. It is easy to 

 understand the difficulty of recognizing the wild character 

 of a species often mixed with cereals, and which persists 

 and spreads itself after cultivation. Heldreich does not 

 allow that it is indigenous in Greece.^" This is a strong 

 presumption that in the rest of Europe and in Algeria the 

 plant has escaped from cultivation. 



It is probable that this was not the case in Western 

 Asia ; for authors cite sufficiently wild localities, where 

 agriculture plays a less considerable part than in Europe. 



' Schweinfurth .ind A=^cherson, Anfzdhluivj, etc., p. 2j7. 



* Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 605. 



J. Baker, in Hooker's Fl. of Brit. Ind. 



* Munby, Catal. 



Theophrastus, Hi<t. Plant., viii., c. 2, 10. 



* Columella, De rei ru.'ifi<-a, ii. c. 10; Pliny, xviii. c. 13, 32. 

 Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. ; Hooker, Fl. Bri'. Ind., ii. p. 178. 



Rosenmiiller, Handb. Bibl. Alterth., vol. i. 



Piddington, Index. 



' Heldreich, Pjlanz. d. Attisch. Ebene, p. 476 ; Nutzpf. Or., p. 72. 



