150 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



vinces of Northern India.^ The Abb^ David found a 

 perfectly wild variety in Mongolia, described under the 

 name of onongolica by Bureau; and Dr. Bretschneider ^ 

 quotes a name yen, from ancient Chinese authors, for the 

 wild mulberry. 



It is true he does not say whether this name applies 

 to the white mulberry, pe-sa'iig, of the Chinese planta- 

 tions.^ The antiquity of its culture in China,^ and in 

 Japan, and the number of different varieties grown there, 

 lead us to believe that its original area extended east- 

 Avard as far as Japan; but the indigenous flora of Southern 

 China is little known, and the most trustworthy authors 

 do not affirm that the plant is indigenous in Japan. 

 Franchet and Savatier ^ say that it is " cultivated from 

 time immemorial, and become wild here and there." It 

 is worthy of note also that the white mulberry appears 

 to thrive especially in mountainous and temperate coun- 

 tries, whence it may be argued that it was formerly 

 introduced from the north of China into the plains of 

 the south. It is known that birds are fond of the fruit, 

 and bear the seeds to great distances and into unculti- 

 vated ground, and this makes it difficult to discover its 

 really original habitat. 



This facility of naturalization doubtless explains the 

 presence in successive epochs of the white mulberry in 

 Western Asia and the south of Europe. This must have 

 occurred especially after the monks brought the silk- 

 worm to Constantinople under Justinian in the sixth 

 century, and as the culture of silkworms was gradually 

 propagated westwards. However, Targioni has proved 

 that only the black mulberry, M. nigra, was known in 

 Sicily and Italy when the manufacture of silk was intro- 

 duced into Sicily in 1148, and two centuries later into 



^ Bureau, ihid., from the specimens of several travellers. 

 ' Bretsebneider, Study and Value, etc., p. 12. 



' This name occurs in the Fent-sao, according to Eitter, Erdhiinde, 

 xvii. p. 489. 



* Piatt says (ZeitschH/t d. Ge.'^eUsch. Erdlwnde, 1871, p. 162) that 

 its cultivation dates from 4000 years n.c. 



* Franchet and Savatier, Enum. Plant. Jap., i. p. 433. 



