228 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



and to the south of the Caucasus, but he says nothing as 

 to their wild nature ; and Karl Koch/ after tiavelling 

 through this district, saj^s, speaking of the peach, 

 " Country unknown, perhaps Persia. Boissier saw trees 

 growing in the gorges on Mount H^miettiis, near Athens." 



The peach spreads easily in the conntries in which it 

 is cultivated, so that it is hard to say whether a given 

 tree is of natural origin and anterior to cultivation, or 

 whether it is naturalized. But it certainly was first culti- 

 vated in China ; it was spoken of there two thousand 

 years before its introduction into the Greco-Roman world, 

 a thousand years perhaps before its introduction into the 

 lands of the Sanskrit-speaking race. 



The group of peaches (genus or subgenus) is composed 

 of five forms, which Decaisne^ regards as species, but 

 which other botanists are inclined to call varieties. The 

 one is the common peach ; the second the nectarine, which 

 we know to be derived ; the third is the flattened peach 

 (P. platycarpa, Decaisne) cultivated in China ; and the 

 two last are indigenous in China (P. simonii, Decaisne, 

 and P. Davidii, Carriere). It is, therefore, essentially a 

 Chinese group. 



It is diflicult, from all these facts, not to admit the 

 Chinese origin of the common peach, as I had formerl}^ 

 inferred from more scanty data. Its arrival in Italy at 

 the beginning of the Christian era is now confirmed by 

 the absence of peach stones in the terra-miare or lake- 

 dwellings of Parma and Lorn bard y, and by the represen- 

 tations of the peach tree in the yjaintings on the walls of 

 the richer houses in Pompeii.^ 



I have yet to deal with an opinion formerly expressed 

 by Knight, and supported by several horticulturists, that 

 the peach is a modification of the almond. Darwin * 

 collected facts in support of this idea, not omitting to 

 mention one which seems opposed to it. They may be 

 concisely put as follows : — (1) Crossed fertilization, which 



^ K. Koch, Bendrologie, i. p. 83. 



* Decaisne, Jard. Fr. du Mni^., Peckers, p. 42. 



^ Comes, Illns. Piante nei Dipinti Pompeinni, p. ]4. 



* Darwin, Variation of Plants and Animals, etc., i. p. 338. 



