152 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Ritter, to which I have already referred. Recent dis- 

 coveries made by various botanists have permitted me 

 to add more precise data than those of Hitter on the 

 question of origin, and if there are some apparent contra- 

 dictions in our opinions on other points, it is because the 

 famous geographer has considered a number of varieties 

 as so many different species, whereas botanists, after a 

 careful examination, have classed them together. 



Black Mulberry — Morus nigra, Linnreus, 



This tree is more valued for its fruit than for its 

 leaves, and on that account I should have included it 

 in the list of fruit trees ; but its history can hardly be 

 separated from that of the white mulberry. Moreover, 

 its leaves are employed in many countries lor the feeding 

 of silkworms, although the silk produced is of inferior 

 quality. 



The black mulberry is distinguished from the Avliite 

 by several characters independently of the black colour 

 of the fruit, which occurs also in a few varieties of the 

 M. alba} It has not a great number of varieties like 

 the latter, which argues a less ancient and a less general 

 cultivation and a narrower primitive area. 



Greek and Latin authors, even the poets, have men- 

 tioned Morns nigra, which they compare to Ficiis syco- 

 onorus, and which they even confounded originally with 

 this Egyptian tree. 



Commentators for the last two centuries have quoted 

 a number of passages which leave no doubt on this head, 

 but which are devoid of interest in themselves.^ They 

 furnish no proof touching the origin of the species, which 

 is presumably Persian, unless Ave are to take seriously 

 the fable of Pyramus and Thisbe, of which the scene was 

 in Babylonia, according to Ovid. 



Botanists have not yet furnished any certain proof 

 that this species is indigenous in Persia. Boissier, who 

 is the most learned in the floras of the East, contents 



* Eeichenbach gives good figures of both species in his Icones Fl, 

 Germ., G57, 658. 



' Fraas, Syn. Fl. Class., p. 230 ; Lenz, Bof. der Alien Gr. iind Foin., 

 ]). 419; Hitter, Erdkunde, xvii. p. 482 j Hebn, Culturpfianzen, edit. 3, 

 p- 336. 



