110 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Scliweinfurth and Ascherson ; ^ but there is no trace of 

 ancient cultivation in this covintry or among the Hebrews. 

 Towards the East its wild character becomes less certain. 

 Boissier indicates the plant " in cultivated ground 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 — Lathy r us sativiis, Linn?eus. 



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 latkyros ^ 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 si:)ecies often mixed with cereals, and which persists 

 and spreads itself after cultivation. Heldreich does not 

 allow tliat it is indis^enous in Greece.^^ This is a stronjx 

 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. 



* Schweinfnrth and Ascherson, Aitfzdhlung, etc., p. 257. 

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



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



* Mnnbv, Catal. 



5 Theophrastus, Hist. Plant., viii., c. 2, 10. 



® Columella, De rei rustica, ii. c. 10; Pliny, xviii. c. 13, 32. 



^ Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. ; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 178. 



* Eosenmiiller, Haiidb. Bibl. Alterth., vol. i. 

 ® Piddington, Index. 



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



