PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 353 



zine, appears to be the same species. Hamilton found 

 it in Nepal.^ A variety or allied species, Amarantus 

 anardana, Wallich,^ is grown on the slopes of the Hima- 

 layas, but has been hitherto ill defined by botanists. 

 Other species are used as vegetables (see p. 100, J.ma- 

 rantus gangeticus). 



Chestnut — Castanea vulgaris, Lamarck. 



The chestnut, belonging to the order CujouUferce, 

 has an extended but disjunctive natural area. It 

 forms forests and woods in mountainous parts of the 

 temperate zone from the Caspian Sea to Portugal. It 

 has also been found in the mountains of Edough in 

 Algeria, and more recently towards the frontier of Tunis 

 (Letourneux). If we take into account the varieties 

 japonica and americana, it exists also in Japan and in 

 the temperate region of North America.^ It has been 

 sown or planted in several parts of the south and west of 

 Europe, and it is now difficult to know if it is wild or 

 cultivated. However, cultivation consists chiefly in the 

 operation of grafting good varieties on the trees which 

 yield indifferent fruit. For this purpose the variety 

 which produces but one large kernel is preferred to those 

 which bear two or three, separated by a membrane, which 

 is the natural state of the species. 



The Romans in Pliny's time * already distinguished 

 eiffht varieties, but we cannot discover from the text of 

 this author whether they possessed the variety with a 

 single kernel (Fr. marron). The best chestnuts came 

 from Sardis in Asia Minor, and from the neighbourhood 

 of Naples. Olivier de Serres,^ in the sixteenth century, 

 praises the chestnuts Sardonne and I'uscane, which pro- 

 duced the single-kernelled fruit called the Lyons marron.^ 



» Don, Prodr. Fl. Nepal, p. 76. 



^ Wallich, List, No. 6903 ; Moquin, in D. C, Prodr., xiii. sect. 2, 

 p. 256. 



* For further details, see my article in Prodromus, vol, xvi. part 2, 

 p. 114; and Boissier, Flora Orientalis, iv. p. 1175. 



* Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xix. c. 23. 



* Olivier de Serres, Theatre de I'Agric, p. 114. 



^ Lyons marrons now come chiefly from Dauphlne and Vivarais. 

 Some are also obtained from Luc in the department of Var (Gasparin, 

 Traite d'Agric, iv. p. 744). 



