i^sculus 213 



in the Caucasus. All the evidence goes to show that it is confined to northern 

 Greece and Albania. 



Heldreich states that the horse-chestnut was first found wild in Greece by Dr. 

 Hawkins.^ In his own travels in Greece in 1897 he observed it in many stations, all 

 lying in the lower fir region, between 3000 and 4000 feet altitude, where it grows in 

 shaded moist gulleys, in company with alder, walnut, plane, ash, several oaks, Ostrya 

 carptnifolia and Abies Apollinis. These stations, situated in remote uninhabited 

 spots, establish the fact that the tree is really wild. Plants introduced into Greece 

 by the Turks are always found in the neighbourhood of towns. Whether the tree 

 was known to the ancient Greeks is doubtful. 



The horse-chestnut was first mentioned ^ by the Flemish doctor Quakleben, who 

 was attached to the embassy of Archduke Ferdinand I. at Constantinople, — in a 

 letter to Matthiolus in 1557. The latter received a fruit-bearing branch, and pub- 

 lished the first description ^ of the tree as Castanea equina, because the fruits were 

 known to the Turks as At-Kastane (horse-chestnut), being useful as a drug for horsea 

 suffering from broken wind or a cough. 



The tree was introduced into western Europe from Constantinople, the first tree 

 being raised by Clusius at Vienna from seeds sent by the Imperial Ambassador, 

 D. Von Ungnad, in 1576. This tree quickly grew, and was mentioned by Clusius* 

 in 1601. 



The horse-chestnut was introduced into France ° in 1615 by Bachelier, 

 who brought the seeds from Constantinople. Gerard mentions it in his Herbal 

 of 1579, p. 1254, as a tree growing "in Italy and sundry places of the eastern 

 countries"; and in Johnson's edition of this work, published in 1633, the tree was 

 stated to be growing in Tradescant's garden at South Lambeth. It was probably 

 introduced into England about the same time as into France. (A. H.) 



Cultivation 



No tree is easier to raise from seed than the horse-chestnut. Its large fleshy 

 fruit are so little hurt by frost and damp that they germinate freely where they fall, 

 and do not seem to be eaten by mice like acorns and beech-mast. 



Seeds which have been exposed all winter germinate more readily in spring 

 than those which have been kept dry, and should be sown early and covered 

 with about two inches of soil. 



Though it is advised by French writers that the extremity of the radicle should 

 be pinched off before sowing in order to prevent a strong tap-root from forming, as 

 is done in the case of walnuts and chestnuts, I have not observed that they suffer 

 from removal if this is not done ; and if transplanted at one or at latest two years 

 after sowing there are abundance of fibrous roots which make the tree an easy one 



1 Sibthorp et Smith, Fl. Gntca Prodromus, i. 252 (i8o5). Hawkins' observation has been disputed, as he records it 

 from Pelion, where the tree does not, so far as we know now, occur wild. Orphanides was the first to establish beyond 

 doubt that the tree is indigenous to the mountains of northern Greece. Cf Grisebach, Vegetation dcr Erde, French ed. i. 521. 



2 Matthiolus, Epistol. JSUdicin. Libri Quinque (Prague, 1 56 1). 



s Matthiolus, Comment, in Dioscorid. Mat. Med. 211 (Venice, 1565). 



* Clusius, Rar. Plant. Hist. 7 (1601). = Tournefort, Relation d'un ]'oyage an Levant, i. 530 (1717)- 



