3j0 origin of cultivated plants. 



and givinis-du. Tlicrc is no oii^'inal name in Keltic 

 lan<]^ua<xes, which seems natural now that we know the 

 origin of the species.^ 



When the plant was introduced into Belgium and 

 into France, and even when it became known in Italy, 

 that is to say in the sixteenth century, the name hie 

 sarrasin (Saracen wheat) or sarrasin was commonly 

 adopted. Common names are often so absurd, and so 

 unthinkingly besto.ved, that we cannot tell dn this par- 

 ticular case whether the name refers to the colour of the 

 grain which was that attributerl to the Saracens, or to 

 the supposed introduction from the country of the Arabs 

 or Moors. It was not then known that the species did 

 not exist in the countries south of the Mediterranean, 

 nor even in Syria and Persia. It is also possible that 

 the idea of a southern oric;in was taken from the name 

 sarrasin, which was given from the colour. This origin 

 was admitted until the end of the last and even in the 

 jjresent century.^ Reynier was, fifty years ago, the first 

 to oppose it. 



Buckwheat sometimes escapes from cvdtivation and 

 becomes quasi-wild. The nearer we approach its original 

 country the more often this occurs, whence it results that i 

 it is hard to define the limit of the wild plant on the 

 confines of Europe and Asia, in the Himalayas, and in , 

 China. In Japan these semi-naturalizations are not \ 

 rare.^ 



Tartary Buckwheat Polygonum to^aricum, Linnaeus; 

 Fagopyruni tatariciiin, GiTertner. 



Less sensitive to cold than the common buckwheat, 

 but yielding a poorer kind of seed, this species is some- 

 times cultivated in Europe and Asia in the Himalayas,^ 

 for instance ; but its culture is recent. Authors of the six- 

 teenth and seventeenth centuries do not mention it, and 

 LinniBUS was one of the first to speak of it as of Tartar 



* I have given the vernacular ii.ames at greater length in Gcogr. Bot. 

 Rais., p. 953. 



* Noiiniich, Pohjglott. Lexicon, p. 10.30; Bosc, Diet. (7'.l(7r!C., xi. p. 379 



* Franchet and Savatior, Enum. PL Japon., i. p. 403 



Royle, III. Himal., p. 317. j 



