SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



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Caspian ; but it is likely that, though the hardy 

 form with the round fruit may possibly have been 

 native to Europe, the improved form has travelled 

 like the plum from its original home in Asia. 

 That the buUace and wild plum may haxe had a 

 common origin is more conceivable than that the 

 sloe should have shared their ancestry. This 

 matter, which brings us to the difficult subject of 

 origins of cultivated plants, is, like all origins, wrap- 

 ped in mystery. These plants are far too new in the 

 world's history to be found in the geological record ; 

 we can go no further back in their story than to 

 the remains of the lake dwellers of Italy, Switzer- 

 land, and Savoy, and the record there is not very 

 easily read. In those remains are found many 

 stones of the blackthorn, few, and from one place 

 only, stones of Ptuiius insititia, and no stones at all 

 of P. domestica. The ancient people who lived 

 above piles driven iato shallow lakes must have 

 fared hardly, since they fed upon sour berries that 

 we deem uneatable, though they may have been in 

 a cooked state. From. this it may be inferred that 

 the wild plum in its half-naturalised state has 

 not been in Europe more than some two thousand 

 years. 



From the fact that Cato only once mentions 

 Prunus, it is supposed that there could be no cultiva- 

 tion of the plum tree in orchards in his time. 

 Virgil speaks of waxen plums, and 0%ad talks of 

 "not only the black, but the nobler kind that 

 borrow the hue of fresh wax." Plums were grafted 

 on to sloes, .according- to A^'irgil ; in the garden of 

 Horace plums grew on thorn trees. Columella 

 knew three kinds of plums, and Pliny a number of 

 varieties. The Roman name prunus came from 

 the Greek 2}Toumnon. With the tree and its fruit 

 the name prunus spread from Italy to Central and 

 Western Europe. Our English word "bullace"is 

 Celtic in origin, and sloe is the old Slavic sliva, 

 a plum. In early times the two, Prunus insititia 

 and P. domestica, were not clearly distinguished 

 from each other. It is the first of these, I 

 think, which, cultivated, produces the greengage. 

 In the Mediterranean region plums have not the 

 fine flavour of more northern districts. In Bosnia 

 and Servia plums are cultivated most extensively. 

 There whole forests of plum trees provide the 

 chief food of the people for four or six weeks of 

 the year. The fruit is dried and exported as far 

 as America, pigs and plums being the coin in which 

 these people pay for their importations. Great 

 quantities of this abundant fruit are made into plum 

 brandy, mostly drunk on the spot, but also exported 

 in considerable quantities. How long plum culture 

 has been going on in the borderland of Austria 

 and Turkey is unknown, but Herodotus alludes to 

 the making of a drink fiom the berries in which 

 North-east Europe is rich as an old Slavonian 

 national trait. 



Prunus domestica is found wild in Anatolia, in 

 the country south of the Caspian, and in Northern 



Persia ; P. insititia grows in a wild state in Cilicia, 

 Armenia, south of the Caucasus, and in the province 

 Talysch, near the Caspian. It seems j)robable, 

 therefore, that these regions were the starting- 

 places whence plum trees have spread themselves 

 more or less throughout Eui-ope. 



From the time of Pliny old writers all relate 

 how, after the destruction of the city of Cerasus, 

 lying between Sinope and Trapazunt on the Pontic 

 coast, the Roman general, the rich Lucullus, ti-ans- 

 planted cherry trees from that region into Italy. 

 Coming from a land of hard winters Prunus cerastis 

 was able to spread itself through a country where 

 P. avium seems to have been indigenous, so that 

 120 years after the transplanting by Lucullus the 

 cherry tree was growing on the Rhine, in Belgium, 

 and in Britain. In the Alps and northwards the 

 cherry is better flavoured than near the Mediter- 

 ranean. To-day the Tyrol, Switzerland, and Upper 

 Rhine are regions where the fruit thrives, and from 

 the surplus harvest thereof in Switzerland is made 

 the well-known cherry brandy, or " Kirschwasser." 



The original home of P. oerasus seems undeter- 

 mined. All cultivated cherries come from two 

 species, P. cerasus and P. avium, the gean. The 

 latter is wild in many places — Asia, north of 

 Persia, Armenia, south of the Caspian, south of 

 Russia, and in Europe generally from the south 

 of Sweden to Greece, Italy, and Spain ; also in 

 Algeria. This gean, P. avium, was spread through 

 Europe in prehistoric times, and must have been 

 in Italy before Lucullus transplanted P. cerasvs 

 from Pontus. 



As cherry gets its name from a place, Cerasus, 

 whence a good variety at least was brought, so the 

 peach and apricot, in their names Prunus persica 

 and P. arnieniaca, show clearly whence they came. 

 Coming- from farther east than the cherry, their 

 fruits later reached Italy. It was only in the 

 middle of the first century of our era, when the 

 Roman Empire came in touch with Armenia and 

 the south shore of the Caspian, that the trees 

 bearing them were brought to Italy, and gardeners 

 asked high prices for the so-called Persian apples 

 and Armenian plums. 



The almond, Prunus amygdalus, was brought 

 from Pontus, in Asia Minor, first to Athens, where 

 it went by the name amygdale ; later to Italy, 

 where about 150 B.C. Cato called it nux Graeca. 

 A medical book of the early first century a.d. 

 mentions sweet and bitter almonds ; and from that 

 time the trees seem to have become almost as 

 common in Italy as they are to-day, when in 

 January, Februarj', or March, as the season is 

 mild or otherwise, gardens are white with the 

 blossoms that come before the leaves. 



The cherry laurel, Prunus lauro-cerasus, the 

 evergreen of our gardens, from the Levant, pro- 

 duces, when it ripens here, most delicious fruit, as 

 I know, having eaten it cooked during one of the 

 hot summers when it abounded. 



M 2 



