PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 229 



presented Knight with somewhat doubtful results ; (2) 

 intermediate forms, as to the fleshiness of the fruit and 

 the size of the nut or stone, obtained by sowing peach 

 stones, or by chance in plantations, forms of which the 

 almond-peach is an example which has long been known. 

 Decaisne ^ pointed out differences between the almond 

 and peach in the size and length of the leaves indepen- 

 dently of the fruit. He calls Knight's theory a " strange 

 hypothesis." 



Geographical botany opposes his hypothesis, for the 

 almond tree has its orio^in in Western Asia ; it was not 

 indio'enous in the centre of the Asiatic continent, and its 

 introduction into China as a cultivated species was not 

 anterior to the Christian era. The Chinese, however, ha.d 

 already possessed for thousands of years different varieties 

 of the common peach besides the two wild forms I have 

 just mentioned. The almond and the peach, starting 

 from two such widely separated regions, can hardly be 

 considered as the same species. The one was established 

 in China, the other in Syria and in Anatolia. The peach, 

 after being transported from China into Central Asia, 

 and a little before the Christian era into Western Asia, 

 cannot, therefore, have produced the almond, since the 

 latter existed already in Syria. And if the almond of 

 Western Asia had produced the peach, how could the 

 latter have existed in China at a very remote period 

 while it was not known to the Greeks and Latins ? 



Pear — Pyrus coinimmis, Linnseus. 



The pear grows wild over the whole of temperate 

 Europe and Western Asia, particularly in Anatolia, to the 

 south of the Caucasus and in the north of Persia,^ per- 

 haps even in Kashmir,^ but this is very doubtful. Some 

 authors hold that its area extends as far as China. This 

 opinion is due to the fact that they regard Pyrus 

 sinensis, Lindley, as belonging to the same species. An 

 examination of the leaves alone, of which the teeth are 



' Decaisne, uhi supra, p. 2. 



2 Lcdebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 94 ; B oissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 653. He 

 has verified several specimens. 



" Sir J. Hooker, FL Brit. Ind., ii. p. 374. 



