298 OKIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



words, arahormaze and achormaze, green figs , tnhare- 

 menen and tehiJiunemen, dried figs. Webb and Ber- 

 thelot,^ who quote these names, and who admit the 

 common origin of the Guanchos and Berbers, a^ou Id have 

 noted with pleasure the existence among the Touaregs, 

 a Berber people, of the word tahart, fig tree,^ and in the 

 French-Berber dictionary, published since their time, 

 the names taheksist, green tig, and tagrourt, fig tree. 

 These old names, of more ancient and local origin than 

 Arabic, bear witness to a very ancient habitation in the 

 north of Africa as far as the Canaries. 



The result of our inquiry shows, then, that the 

 prehistoric area of the fig tree covered the middle and 

 southern part of the Mediterranean ba^in from Syria to 

 the Canaries. 



We may doubt the antiquity of the fig in the south 

 of France, but a curious fact deserves mention. Plan- 

 chon found in the quaternary tufa of Montpellier, and 

 de Saporta^ in those of Aygalades near Marseilles, 

 and in the quaternary strata of La Celle near Paris, 

 leaves and even fruit of the wild Ficus cavica, with 

 teeth of Elephas primigenius, and leaves of plants of 

 which some no longer exist, and others, like Laurus 

 canarieiisis, have survived in the Canaries. So that 

 the fig tree perhaps existed in its modern form in this 

 remote epoch. It is possible that it perished in the 

 south of France, as it certainly did at Paris, and re- 

 appeared later in a wild state in the southern region. 

 Perhaps the fig trees which Webb and Berthelot had seen 

 as old plants in the wildest part of the Canaries were 

 descended from those which existed in tlie fourth epoch. 



Bread-Fruit J^rifocai'pxts incisa, Linniens. 



The bread-fruit tree was cultivated in all the islands 

 of the Asiatic Archipelago, and of the great oceans near 



' Webb and Berthelot, Hist. Nat. des Canaries Ethnogr., p. 186; 

 rhytogr., iii. p. 257. 



* Duveyrier, Les Touaregs du Nord., p. 193. 



' Planchon, Jitude sur les tttfs de MontpelHer, p. 63 ; de Saporta, 

 Laflore des tufs quaternairrs en Provence, in Co^'ipfes rendus de la 32e 

 Session du CoKqres Scientifque de France; Bull. Soc. Geolog., 1873-7-1, 

 p. 442. 



